Entity Selections¶
Entity Name Confirmation¶
Name: Research Relay LLC
Verification completed: - CA SOS search: 2026-02-04 - Clear - USPTO search: 2026-02-04 - Clear - Domain: research-relay.com - Owned - Google search: 2026-02-04 - No conflicts in target industry
Decision: Proceed with this name
Confirmed: 2026-02-04
Registered Agent Selection¶
Provider: Northwest Registered Agent Annual cost: $125/year (free first year with formation) Formation bundled: Yes - $39 + $70 state fee = $109 total Formation filed: February 27, 2026. Approved by CA SOS: February 27, 2026. Entity No. B20260101990. Statement of Information filed March 4, 2026. Organizer signing: Yes - Northwest signs as organizer, name stays off Articles
What's included: - Registered agent service - Organizer signing (privacy) - Their address on all filings - Same-day document scanning - Free business address service - Mail scanning (5 docs/year) - Compliance reminders
Rationale: Privacy priority - keeps name off Articles of Organization entirely. Only required disclosure is Statement of Information (unavoidable in CA).
Selected: 2026-02-04
Virtual Address Selection¶
Decision: Not needed - using Northwest's included business address
Setup: - LLC legal address: Northwest Registered Agent address (on formation docs, public) - Operational address: Home address (private, bank KYC only) - Personal address: Home address (private, bank KYC only)
Banking approach: Online bank (Mercury primary, Bluevine backup) - Both accept registered agent address as company legal address - Both require physical operational address (home is fine) - Home address stays private (not on public records, only in bank's KYC files)
Cost: $0 additional (included with Northwest)
Selected: 2026-02-04
Banking Selection¶
Primary bank: Mercury Backup bank: Bluevine (to set up after primary is stable) Signup: 100% online Address on application: Home address as legal/operational, Northwest address on LLC filings only Crypto policy: Tolerant (research chemicals not on restricted list) Accounting integration: No native Zoho/Medusa integration — use CSV export or Plaid feeds Note: Do NOT use VoIP number for bank 2FA — use personal carrier number
Selected: 2026-02-26
Architecture Decision¶
Approach: Medusa-centric Platform: MedusaJS v2 as operational backbone Handles: Products, orders, inventory, customers, fulfillment, payments, tax calc External tools (minimal): - Mercury (banking) - BTCPay Server (BTC/Lightning payments) - Avalara (tax calculation integration) - SendGrid (transactional email) - ShipStation (shipping label generation)
Rationale: Developer-owner, minimize SaaS admin overhead, single source of truth, maximum customizability for RUO-specific features (lot tracking, COA management, purity records).
Selected: 2026-02-26
All Selections Summary¶
| Selection | Choice | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Entity name | Research Relay LLC | - |
| Domain | research-relay.com | Owned |
| Registered agent | Northwest Registered Agent | $125/yr (free Y1) |
| Formation | Via Northwest | $39 + $70 state |
| Virtual address | Not needed | $0 |
| Primary bank | Mercury | $0 |
| Backup bank | Bluevine | $0 |
| Accounting | Zoho Books (start Free, upgrade to Standard) | $0–$15/mo |
| Crypto accounting | Koinly | $49/yr |
| BTC payments | BTCPay Server on nix-bitcoin | Self-hosted |
| ACH payments | Paycron (after 3mo banking history) | Per-txn fees |
| Card payments | Easy Pay Direct + Durango (after ACH live) | Per-txn + reserves |
| Architecture | MedusaJS-centric | Self-hosted |
| Docs site | MkDocs Material | $0 |
| Comms stack | Zoho Mail + OpenPhone + 1Password | ~$192/yr |
| Domain infra | Cloudflare | ~$10/yr |
Total Year 1: $109 (formation) + $192 (comms) + $49 (Koinly) + ~$10 (domain) = ~$360 Ongoing: $125/yr (RA) + $800/yr (franchise tax) + $192/yr (comms) + $49/yr (Koinly) + hosting = ~$1,166+/yr