If you've spent years building relationships with clients and candidates, you already have the hardest part of an HR consulting business figured out. What usually stops people from going independent isn't the work itself — it's everything around it. Forming a legal entity. Getting insured. Setting up payroll. Staying on top of tax obligations that change from state to state.

None of that has much to do with placing great people. But all of it has to be right before you can legally operate.

What "Forming a Business" Actually Involves

Before you can bill a client or pay a consultant, a business typically needs:

  • A registered legal entity — usually an LLC or S-Corp, filed with the state you're operating in
  • An EIN from the IRS for tax purposes
  • Business insurance — general liability at minimum, often professional liability and workers' compensation
  • A payroll system that's compliant with federal and state wage laws
  • Ongoing tax compliance — federal filings, state filings, and potentially filings in every state where you have clients or consultants

Each of these is manageable on its own. Together, they add up to weeks of setup time, ongoing administrative work, and real financial risk if something is filed incorrectly.

A Different Way In: Partnering Instead of Starting From Scratch

This is the gap HR2HR is built for. Instead of forming your own entity, applying for insurance, and building payroll infrastructure before you can take on a single client, you plug into infrastructure that already exists.

You bring the business — your clients, your consultants, your relationships. HR2HR handles the infrastructure. You place consultants and get paid through profit sharing, without carrying the administrative burden of running the entity yourself.

Is This the Right Path for You?

This approach tends to make the most sense if you have an existing network but haven't formalized a business around it, you're placing consultants across multiple states and don't want to manage compliance in each one, or you'd rather spend your time on relationships and placements than on administrative overhead.