Business setup playbook

Worked example for Know Everything, Do Anything. Prepared 30 September 2026.

Current status: AmChex is a fully worked example, not an operating business or a live service offer. No partner is approved, no quote is accepted, no visa pathway is validated for a cohort, and no customer placement is committed. The website demonstration accepts fictional enquiries only. The address nathan@amchex.com is illustrative and unmonitored. Do not use it for enquiries or send documents to it. The former AmChex domain is not assumed to be controlled by the project.

This playbook shows the work required to turn the example into a business. Recommendations are planning defaults, not claims that suppliers or advisers have agreed to deliver. Legal, tax, immigration and insurance decisions require qualified advice for the actual facts.

1. Business proposition to validate

Potential customer: a UK recruitment agency with a real US construction client, identifiable worksite and specific staffing requirement. Proposed offer: a UK-facing team that qualifies the deployment, coordinates specialist US delivery partners, tracks readiness and gives the agency a clear account of responsibilities, costs and remaining decisions.

The agency retains recruitment and its client relationship. A verified US employment partner may employ workers and administer payroll. Immigration counsel assesses the lawful route and identifies the actual petitioner. The US host directs site work and has site-safety duties. AmChex coordinates the process within a signed scope. The final responsibility allocation must reflect law and contract, not marketing language.

Start with one agency, one host client, one state, one defined trade group and one project. A short assignment does not itself establish a valid immigration route. Do not promise that a UK agency can move any worker to any US job. A payroll account, employer-of-record agreement or business-visitor admission is not a substitute for work authorization.

Validation before building an operating company

1. Interview 10-15 agency owners or US desk leaders who have attempted this exact type of placement. Ask for actual lost deals, barriers, dates, role types and current alternatives. Do not count generic enthusiasm as demand.
2. Obtain three anonymised project briefs detailed enough for advisers and suppliers to assess. Record state, duties, hazards, worker nationality/authorization categories, dates, headcount, client identity and budget.
3. Test whether agencies will pay for feasibility/mobilisation work and ongoing coordination in addition to supplier costs. Seek a conditional pilot commitment with no promise of worker eligibility or start dates.
4. Compare buying a supplier directly with using AmChex. The service must save enough agency effort or reduce enough coordination uncertainty to justify its fee.
5. Select the narrowest feasible pilot supported by written legal, employment, insurance and funding evidence. If there is no workable cohort or margin, stop or change the proposition before spending on automation.

Proposed pilot success measures: all workers start only after required approvals, payroll runs on time, each exception has an owner, actual contribution is positive after delivery effort, and the agency is willing to purchase a second project. These are targets to test, not achieved outcomes.

2. Delivery model and named responsibilities

An EOR is a contractual service model, not a universal transfer of all legal responsibility. A payroll processor generally administers an existing employer's payroll; IRS guidance explains that different third-party arrangements carry different tax responsibilities. OSHA describes shared staffing-agency and host responsibilities for temporary workers. IRS, OSHA.

3. Partner market and research

The following companies are research candidates and competitors. Public marketing establishes a reason to investigate, not approval for this business model. No outreach, diligence call, account opening or commercial negotiation is implied.

Sources reviewed 30 September 2026:

• Wide Effect EOR and payroll funding.
• Deel construction/field EOR, US field coverage and published general pricing.
• Ascen EOR, coverage, UK agency case and quote inputs.
• FoxHire agency service and FAQ including pricing model.
• People2.0 staffing, EOR and migration-service context.

Do not publish a categorical claim that generic EORs exclude construction: no named blanket prohibition was verified in this research, and Deel now explicitly markets Field EOR. Distinguish confirmed field coverage from unknown coverage and quote for the correct product.

Standard supplier enquiry and evaluation

Prepare one project brief for each supplier: agency domicile, contracting chain, host/end-client identity, worksite state, trade/duties, hazards, worker categories and authorization assumptions, dates, headcount, wage/overtime, travel and accommodation, payroll frequency and client payment terms. Use anonymous cohort facts initially. Ask each supplier for the same evidence:

• Named legal entity, employer status, local registrations and permitted service model.
• Exact role/class-code/state acceptance, exclusions for heights/hot work/machinery, public works or union requirements, and subcontracting-chain restrictions.
• Immigration support versus actual petitioning responsibility, counsel, fees, obligations on changes/termination and examples of the supported category without requesting private worker files.
• Insurance policy scope, exclusions, claims/incident procedure, host obligations and contractual indemnities.
• Itemised quote, minimums, deposits, onboarding/exit fees, benefits, payroll funding limits, guarantees, recourse and overdue/disputed-invoice rules.
• Payroll cut-offs, time approval, correction process, service hours, worker support, system exports and data handling.
• Contract termination, continuity and transfer rights if the partner withdraws or the project changes.

Score accepted coverage, legal clarity, insurance, funding, service capability and total cost. A failure on actual scope, immigration or insurance is a stop condition, irrespective of price. Owner records the decision and review date. Keep an alternate assessed supplier where feasible, but never switch employers without reviewing legal and worker consequences.

4. Company setup and professional work

Before representing AmChex as a real business

Owner confirms founders, ownership, available capital, intended jurisdiction and trading model. Instruct a UK accountant and solicitor to recommend the legal entity and tax treatment. Check the AmChex name, relevant trademarks and a domain that the business can actually acquire. The lost domain and illustrative email must not become contact details without verified control. Set up a monitored business mailbox on the controlled domain and replace the example notices only after launch approval.

If a UK company is selected, complete incorporation, identity/beneficial-owner requirements, registered office, bookkeeping and bank onboarding. Agree VAT and cross-border tax treatment with the accountant. Consider US entity, foreign qualification, business tax/nexus and agency licensing only after the actual role, contractual chain and pilot state are known. An EOR may reduce employment setup work without eliminating AmChex's own business obligations.

Engage US immigration counsel first for the worker-route feasibility decision. Engage counsel for employment/staffing contracts and the selected state's requirements, an insurance broker for AmChex's retained risks, and an accountant familiar with UK-US transactions. Record adviser scope, rates and named deliverables. Do not assume a provider's marketing claim is legal advice.

Documents to commission and approve

• Founder/company governance, trading terms and signing authority.
• Agency services agreement defining AmChex's coordination scope, deliverables, fee, dependencies, liability, cancellation and complaint procedure.
• Partner agreements and project schedules naming employer, petitioner, payroll operator, site host and debtor, with consistent responsibilities across the contract chain.
• Worker-facing terms provided by the actual employer, required disclosures, support contacts and travel/return arrangements.
• Data protection roles, processor agreements, international-transfer arrangements, security requirements, privacy notice, retention schedule and incident response.
• Insurance schedules, safety responsibilities, credit/funding agreement and approval limits.

No template in this pack replaces these commissioned documents. Relevant starting points: Companies House company setup, UK employment agency rules, USCIS working in the US, DOL H-2B programme, USCIS I-9, ICO business guidance. The project's state directory is a research index, not permission to operate in a state.

5. Pricing, costs and cash

The chapter's £500 per worker per month is a historical hypothesis. It is not a current AmChex price, supplier quote or demonstrated margin. Decide whether a tested fee represents AmChex coordination only or includes partner services. Do not subtract only wages from client revenue and call the remainder profit.

Deel's general public pricing page lists $599 per EOR employee per month at the research date. This is a market reference, not a validated all-in US construction quote. FoxHire describes a wage-percentage model dependent on role/risk without publishing the percentage. Other reviewed candidates require project-specific quotations. The plan assigns no invented rates to them.

Build a project model with four views:

Maintain a 13-week rolling cash forecast and a monthly 12-month operating budget. Input payer/payment dates, currency, quote validity and responsible approver. Funding availability is constrained by customer credit approval, facility limits and terms. Test late client payment, disputed hours, a cancelled project, worker replacement, FX movement, insurance change and loss of funding. Set a stop-work/escalation rule contractually and with counsel; do not allow a finance assumption to override wage or worker-protection duties.

Startup budget headings: incorporation/accountancy, legal scoping and agreements, insurance, brand/domain/mailbox, website/security, CRM, supplier diligence, sales discovery and contingency. Obtain quotes before committing. Define who can approve each spend, record the commitment date and distinguish one-time setup from recurring costs. Do not make a launch date depend on unfunded payroll.

6. Operating workflow

1. Triage. Record agency/contact and project outline, assign an owner and next action. In the showcase use fictional details only. In a real business collect the minimum business information under the approved privacy notice.
2. Qualify. Establish actual client need, worksite, duties, dates, budget and decision maker. Decline or pause cases without a credible project or lawful route to assess.
3. Assess. Counsel assesses immigration; partner confirms employment/class-code/state coverage; broker/counsel review insurance and safety allocation. Open a task for every unanswered point.
4. Cost and contract. Receive itemised quotes, agree payment/funding terms, model cash and margin, approve scope and contracts. Inform the agency of assumptions and remaining conditions.
5. Prepare. Employer/counsel handle worker eligibility and employment onboarding in their secure systems. Confirm site induction, travel, emergency support, payroll calendar, time approval and bank/payment arrangements through the responsible provider.
6. Release. Owner checks specialist acceptances and signs internal mobilisation approval. Do not start work until the employer/petitioner and other responsible parties confirm their requirements are satisfied.
7. Run. Weekly time approval and payroll confirmation, invoice reconciliation, worker/agency check-in, exceptions log, cash forecast and evidence-expiry review. Escalate incidents immediately through the agreed site/employer process.
8. Change. Any altered duties, site, employer, dates or cohort triggers legal/partner reassessment before implementation. Preserve the old decision and new evidence.
9. Close. Confirm final pay and expenses, offboarding/immigration obligations, invoices and claims. Record the agency's feedback, actual unit economics and improvements before accepting another project.

Daily owner queue: new enquiries, overdue next actions, blocked readiness items, incidents and expiring evidence. Weekly: pipeline, cash, payroll/invoice exceptions and supplier service. Monthly: contribution by project, claims/complaints, source review, access permissions and supplier dependence.

7. Before-live gate

The example becomes a real service only after an explicit owner decision and all items below have evidence and named owners:

• Controlled company identity, domain and monitored contacts; example-only notices replaced accurately.
• Written feasible route for the pilot's actual worker and project facts, with named petitioner/counsel and required approvals.
• Accepted employment partner, actual role/state/hazard coverage and contract chain.
• Applicable registrations/licensing, tax responsibilities, employment terms and insurance acceptance.
• Site safety, training, welfare, incident and emergency arrangements.
• Signed agency/partner/project contracts, itemised economics, approved credit and sufficient funding.
• Secure records, privacy/retention arrangements, restricted admin accounts and tested recovery.
• Tested enquiry-to-close process, payroll/time approval rehearsal and exception ownership.
• Approved public claims and marketing materials showing what is genuinely available.

Unresolved immigration, insurance, funding or contractual ownership blocks mobilisation. A website launch is not the business launch. No automatic approval, reminder or dashboard status replaces the specialist decisions.

8. Suggested sequence and evidence of completion

Weeks 1-2: commercial discovery and initial feasibility. Owner conducts interviews, collects project briefs and engages immigration counsel. Exit: a specific assessable pilot and evidence that the agency may pay for coordination.

Weeks 3-4: supplier and commercial design. Operations compares written supplier responses; advisers define entities, responsibilities and terms; finance builds the quote-based model. Exit: viable scope, candidate partner acceptance and sustainable cash/margin assumptions.

Weeks 5-8: setup and rehearsal. Complete agreed company/admin work, contracts, insurance, secure records, operating procedures and simulated payroll/incident/change scenarios. Exit: before-live gate complete except worker/project approvals still in process.

Pilot timing: determined by actual approvals. Immigration processing, recruitment obligations and supplier acceptance may exceed this sequence. Do not promise a worker start within eight weeks. The first pilot starts only after required evidence is complete. Review it before scaling or building a larger administration system.

Research maintenance: record owner, reviewed date and next review for each source. Review at least every 90 days and before relying on time-sensitive material for a placement. Vendor pages are evidence of advertised services only. Fees and legal rules may change; obtain current advice and written quotes for each commitment.