About Mizu We've invested in startups, run hackathons, and shipped our own go-global projects. Across all of it, the same thing kept showing up. Product up in three days. Then the company, the bank account, and getting paid drag on for weeks. Register the entity, get the EIN, open a bank account, and every step is wait-and-guess. Did I fill this out right? No idea. See you in ten business days. It's a stupid way to lose momentum. That time should go to finding users, not filling out forms. So we built Mizu. It's for teams going global. Solopreneurs, builders, one-person companies, anyone trying to actually go global without losing a month to paperwork. What we handle: - Wyoming LLC formation - EIN - A US banking path - Stripe set up properly - Ongoing compliance, year over year You track the whole thing in one dashboard, our team stays with you the whole way, and everything gets delivered in one place. $499 flat, no hidden fees, usually live in about two weeks. From year two, compliance covering Form 5472, your federal filing, and the Wyoming annual report. 100+ founders in so far. Questions in the DMs, or hit the link in bio. mizufinancial.com/

Building in public feels different in the AI era. It is easier than ever to ship a demo, write a landing page, post updates, and test ideas with a small audience. But the more I talk to non-US founders, the more I realize the hard part is not always building. It is turning the project into something that can actually operate globally. AI can help one person write content, summarize user feedback, draft outreach, and move like a small team. Then the less glamorous questions show up: Can you accept payments? Can you pass Stripe verification? Do you have an EIN? Is your company information consistent across tools? Can you pay for AI, cloud, and SaaS subscriptions without things breaking? Can global customers trust that this is a real business? This part does not make for the flashiest build-in-public update, but it matters a lot. AI makes the frontend of building lighter. Business infrastructure is what makes the business real. Shipping is step one. The longer game is making sure what you ship can collect revenue, stay compliant, and keep running.

Most founders do not need another AI tool list. They need to look at the work that keeps repeating inside their business and turn it into a workflow. For non-US founders building global products, this goes beyond content, user feedback, or growth experiments. It also includes the less exciting but critical parts: company setup, EIN, banking, Stripe, software subscriptions, business verification, and compliance documents. AI can help a small team move much faster. But if the business foundation is unstable, the whole thing still gets stuck. That is the layer we are building for at Mizu Financial: helping non-US founders set up a clear, compliant, and reliable business foundation so they can actually plug into global markets. Wrote more thoughts here for founders building SaaS, AI products, dev tools, or digital businesses globally.

I’ve been thinking a lot about AI agents in the context of building in public. Right now, most AI tools still feel like temporary help. You open a chat, explain the project, ask for help, close the tab, then repeat the same context next time. But building a product is not a one-off conversation. There’s code, docs, user feedback, positioning, payments, onboarding, support, growth experiments, and a bunch of half-finished decisions that live in your head. The next step for agents feels less like “better answers” and more like “better continuity.” Can it remember the project? Can it understand why a decision was made? Can it help move work forward without making more noise? I wrote a blog on this, especially for indie builders and global founders using AI tools, Stripe, cloud platforms, and global SaaS to build from anywhere. Curious what others think: what part of your workflow do you most want an AI agent to actually take off your plate?

AI agents are starting to move beyond chat windows. The interesting question is no longer just “which tool gives the best answer?” It is whether these tools can actually sit inside real startup workflows: reading context, understanding projects, helping with messy handoffs, and picking up where the team left off. For global founders, this raises a less flashy but important point. As more of your work runs through AI tools, cloud services, payment platforms, and SaaS accounts, your business setup starts to matter a lot more. Company identity, EIN, banking path, billing details, payment setup, and basic compliance all become part of the operating layer. We wrote about why AI agents are becoming long-term collaborators, and why global founders need infrastructure that can keep up. Would love to hear how other founders are thinking about this. Where do you see agents fitting into your startup workflow first?

Building in public usually shows the visible parts: shipping features, getting users, improving landing pages, testing pricing, sharing revenue screenshots. The less visible part is the operating layer behind the product. If you are building with Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT, Vercel, Stripe, AWS, Notion, Slack, and other global tools, your accounts, payments, company setup, and compliance records quietly become part of the product’s foundation. At first, it is easy to just make things work. Use whatever payment method works. Set up whatever account gets approved. Fix the rest later. That can help you start. It may not help you keep going. For non-US indie builders, stable access to global tools often depends on having a cleaner business setup behind the scenes. We wrote a blog on why AI tools are becoming part of the startup stack, and why business infrastructure matters for builders going global. Read it here:

For global founders, AI tools are quickly becoming part of the startup stack. Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT, Vercel, Stripe, AWS, Notion, Slack — these are no longer just “nice-to-have” tools. They are where teams write code, run operations, manage knowledge, process payments, and build for customers around the world. But there is a gap that many non-US founders run into early: The product can be global from day one, but the business infrastructure behind it is often still fragile. A mismatched billing setup, unstable payment method, unclear company structure, or missing compliance step may not matter much when you are experimenting. It matters a lot once you have real users, real revenue, and real operating history. We wrote about why reliable business infrastructure matters more than ever for non-US founders building with AI and global SaaS tools. Read the full blog here:

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what happens after an indie product “works.” Shipping is one thing. Getting a demo live, launching on X, Reddit, or Product Hunt, seeing people sign up, getting a few early users. That part feels exciting because the product is still light. It still feels like a project. The harder part starts when someone actually wants to pay. Can they pay you easily? Do you look like a business they can trust? What entity is behind the product? Can you issue invoices? Can you activate Stripe? Where does the money go? What happens with taxes and ongoing compliance? None of this feels as fun as building. It rarely shows up in a launch post. But if you are selling globally, these details eventually become part of the product experience. That’s the part many indie hackers and non-U.S. founders underestimate. A product can be built from anywhere now. A solo founder in China, Southeast Asia, Europe, or Latin America can ship something for users around the world. That is the beautiful part of this era. But selling globally still requires structure. You need a way to be paid, recognized, trusted, and operated as a real business. Company entity, EIN, banking, Stripe, tax filings, compliance. These are boring words until they are the reason revenue gets stuck. Getting users to like your product is one stage. Getting customers to pay you is another. At some point, an indie project has to become a business.

One thing we keep noticing with AI products: The demo is often the easy part now. The hard part is getting the product into a real workflow, making someone use it again, and turning that usage into revenue. We wrote a blog on this shift: AI startups are moving from hype to business reality. For indie hackers and global builders, the boring parts show up fast once someone wants to pay: company entity, EIN, banking, Stripe, invoices, compliance. That is the layer Mizu works on. We help non-U.S. founders and independent developers build the business infrastructure to sell globally. If you are building in public and trying to turn a project into a real business, this may be useful.

AI startups are moving into a more serious phase. The question is no longer just “Can this be built?” It is: Can customers use it repeatedly? Can it enter a real workflow? Can it create a business outcome people are willing to pay for? We wrote a longer piece on why the next wave of AI companies may come from less glamorous workflows: sales quoting, finance review, insurance paperwork, customer support, back-office operations. And for global founders, there is another layer: once customers are ready to pay, you need the business infrastructure to actually receive that payment and be trusted. At Mizu, we help non-U.S. founders set up U.S. companies, EINs, banking paths, Stripe activation, and ongoing compliance. Worth a read if you are building an AI product and thinking about turning it into a real global business.

We kept answering the same founder questions in Reddit threads, so we put the answers together and are sharing them here. One that catches almost everyone: if you own a US LLC as a non-US founder, there's a $25,000 IRS penalty most formation services never mention. It's Form 5472. An information return you file every year, even if you owe zero US tax. Miss it and the penalty starts at $25,000. That one plus five more non-US founders keep hitting

We answer the same questions over and over in Reddit founder threads (esp for the ones coming from non-US founders going global), so we pulled the recurring ones together in one place. Sharing here too. The most common one: "Stripe rejected me, is it because of where I'm from?" Almost never. It rejects nearly everyone missing one of four things: a US entity, an EIN, a US business bank account, and a real product page. So you don't appeal it, you build the missing layer. LLC, then EIN, then bank, then Stripe. Each one unlocks the next. Full write-up, six questions in total- Which step are you stuck on?

Something I keep seeing with non-US founders going global: The hard part is not always getting attention. Sometimes it is what happens after someone is ready to pay. You can build the product, launch on X, get users from different countries, and even have customers asking for a checkout link. Then the boring questions show up: Can I use Stripe? Do I need a US company? LLC or C-Corp? How do I get an EIN without an SSN? What happens with taxes and compliance later? None of this sounds exciting, but it is often where global products get stuck. AI has made it much easier for one person to build, market, and support a product across borders. But going global is not just a growth problem. At some point, you need the business layer to work too. Payments, entity setup, tax, banking, compliance — all the unsexy things that make a product actually operable. For non-US founders, that layer is still way harder than it should be. The next unlock for global builders may not be another growth hack. It may be making the business setup as easy as the product setup.

The more capable AI gets, the more payment infrastructure matters. AI keeps dropping the cost of building. What used to take a team months now takes one person a few weeks. Getting paid is the part AI can't touch. You still register the company, open the account, clear every compliance step in order. So the build side keeps getting faster while the payment side moves at the speed it always did. The gap between them keeps widening. And a faster product doesn't help if the money can't reach you. You can be on version three before the first dollar ever lands. The founders getting the most out of AI are the ones who should set up the payment rails early, before the product gets ahead of the infrastructure. That's the side we work on at Mizu. US LLC, bank account opening path, Stripe setup, handled end to end.

someone asked me why i chose Wyoming for Mizu. honest answer: it's the most founder-friendly state in the US for non-residents. no state income tax. no annual meeting requirements. strong liability protection. and the annual report fee is genuinely cheap. most people default to Delaware without thinking. Delaware makes sense if you're raising VC. if you're a solo founder or indie hacker just trying to get paid by US clients, Wyoming is a better fit. i've set up enough of these to feel confident saying that. when you're not living in the US, every dollar and every complication matters. Wyoming removes a lot of both.

Marc Lou's 32 product principles are doing the rounds again, and one judgment sits under all the pricing ones: A product is validated when someone pays. Signups and likes settle nothing. Sounds obvious, until you count how many landing pages show a price that literally can't take a payment yet. Wrote about why pricing can't just be a placeholder, and why payment belongs early in the build 👇 Founders, honest question: did your real validation come from a signup count, or from the first actual payment?