LLC or sole proprietorship for a one-person business?

Here's the part nobody tells you: the day you take money for mowing, you're already a sole proprietorship. It's the default. So the choice isn't "start one" — it's whether to upgrade to a structure with a wall around it.

The LLC's case, plainly: it can keep business trouble aimed at business assets instead of your house; it gives the business its own name on state record; and it's what banks and bigger customers expect to see. The cost is a hundred-dollar filing and a small recurring report. The sole proprietorship's case: it's free, and for a while, it's fine. Most folks around here run the default until the work gets real — then wish they'd filed sooner, usually the week a commercial customer asks for their paperwork.

In a barn raising the LLC lands at the halfway gate — filed, fee paid to the state, your name signed. Builders, not lawyers; for edge cases, buy an hour of a real one.