If you have a hard time coming up with ideas, you probably shouldn't start a company.

This is harsh, but true. I've never heard a successful founder say "I don't know, I just wanted to start a company with my friends and get rich." Every dang middle-schooler in the US wants that. Companies are a means, not an end. Successful ones always start with someone who's passionate about a very specific problem.

This really comes out in corporate mission statements. Even if you're Xerox, your mission statement is something like "Improve the rate of business communications by creating the world's most excellent copy machines."

If you don't have an idea for a startup, you're missing the key ingredient. The team literally cannot exist without that visionary person who knows exactly what they're after.

> I've never heard a successful founder say "I don't know, I just wanted to start a company with my friends and get rich."

I could not disagree more. Companies are started by all sorts of people: some founders have a definite idea that is a perfect fit for the market(Stripe,Heroku), some go over many iterations of their original idea and may even end up abandoning it for something entirely unrelated(Reddit), the last type of founder simply wants to be in business and does not even know what his product is yet(Steve Jobs before he joined Pixar). The only trait all founders share is drive and ambition.

Doubtful it would be theft of service since I'd assume you are entitled to use the power available from your car for accessories. This leaves us with maybe a terms of service violation?

It would fall under the ever implicit "this is not the intended use case and you know it" clause.

It would succeed no better than showing up with a barrel at a burger shop and start filling it from the free ketchup dispenser.

>It would succeed no better than showing up with a barrel at a burger shop and start filling it from the free ketchup dispenser.

Not to mention the mechanics of converting the ketchup in the barrel to usable energy would be inefficient and convoluted at best. Better to find some other way to power one's Bitcoin mining rig. :)

Though, you could likely dodge any criminal charges by way of insanity in that scenario!

Use your 'company' to pay for your expenses and draw less than $50,000 as salary. Problem solved.

If I use my company credit card, how does that help? Both scenarios would be tax write offs correct?

You said that you need to be making < $50,000 to be considered for a discount from coveredCa. If you're using your company to pay for your expenses, and you draw less than 50G in personal income. You should be eligible for a discount.

I have a 100% ownership LLC, so my personal income is combined with business income.

I think what the previous poster is getting at is that in the US it may benefit you to have a more byzantine vehicle for your work. Such as an SCorp.

It'll take a bit more research and possibly some extra filing but you may benefit from it. In exchange for moving your income to a more employee like arrangement you'll be able to move things like this directly above the fold in some cases.

Or LLC filing as SCorp for federal tax purposes. Although that's the sort of thing you'll want to look at the 1040 rules for.

Also known as tax fraud.