So You Want to Be a Hero? The Startup Side Quest I Didn’t Expect

I borrowed the phrase “So you want to be a hero?” from an old Sierra game — half as a joke, half as a nod to the unexpected depth of this journey. What started as a simple goal — to build and publish a few small, high-impact apps — quickly turned into a deep dive through the lesser-known side quests of business formation, tax infrastructure, and platform compliance.

All I knew at the start was that I wanted to legally separate this new venture from my personal and family finances. A two-person LLC made sense. In Florida, that process is surprisingly straightforward thanks to Sunbiz.org, which walks you through the registration steps clearly and efficiently.

But waiting weeks for my official documents felt painfully out of sync with the fast, AI-accelerated pace I’m used to in development. That’s when things began to feel a lot more like Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey: I had crossed the threshold, and there was no going back.

The Bureaucratic Gauntlet

To publish apps through the Google Play Store’s beta program (which I needed, since most of my family are Android users), I had to register a business entity with Google. Apple, by contrast, let me release builds via TestFlight, but those were still tied to my personal Apple ID — not the LLC.

And here's where it gets complex:

To register a business on App Store Connect or Google Play Console, you need a DUNS number (Dun & Bradstreet’s identifier for business entities).

To apply for a DUNS number, you need an EIN (Employer Identification Number) from the IRS.

And to get an EIN? That should be simple — except I couldn’t use the IRS’s online tool for my case.

I ended up mailing in the required forms, only to hear nothing for four weeks. Eventually, I got on the phone with an IRS agent (shoutout to the calm professionals still answering those calls), and within days, my paperwork arrived. With EIN in hand, I submitted my DUNS application — and now I wait again, since I opted not to pay the expedited fee.

What's Next

Truthfully, none of my apps are ready for prime time — but I am eager to get them in the hands of real users for feedback. The friction of this early administrative work has only deepened my respect for founders navigating the dual front of product development and legal setup.

This phase isn’t glamorous, but it’s foundational. If you're building with the intention of scaling or monetizing — even modestly — get your infrastructure in place early.

I’ll share more soon as I navigate the next leg of this journey: onboarding beta testers, integrating vendors, and publishing to the Play and App Stores as a fully recognized company.