41–50 of 115 posts
This is great. Just what I need. My non technical co founder and I are starting a company and I want to make it a real company before we start meeting 3 days a week.
You're probably better off having those meetings first, and waiting to incorporate until you're sure you have a business.
It's worth mentioning that incorporation by itself doesn't get you very far in terms of protecting against personal liability. It's really just the first step in company formation. You'll want to appoint directors and officers as well. And to protect against departures, IP issues, etc., you'll also want to issue stock with vesting to founders, and have everyone enter into IP agreements. We've automated all of this at…
This is great. Just what I need. My non technical co founder and I are starting a company and I want to make it a real company before we start meeting 3 days a week.
Why should making it "a real company" be necessary before meeting any number of times per week? You're probably better off having those meetings first, and waiting to incorporate until you're sure you have a business.
I've seen and heard multiple co-founder friendships fall apart once things started to get "real". Good luck!
Cool checklist. Would you mind if we input this checklist into our tool? - https://www.processd.com/ We have a way to publish checklists like this so users can actually check things off. See our Show HN post for more details! :-)
Thanks! Glad you liked it. This checklist is what I've been going through for the past many months with my startup. Creating the list was a cathartic process and my original audience was meant to be friends who are building their own businesses. Glad to see it's getting more attention now.
I'd be fine with it getting added elsewhere as a more usable checklist as long as there's a link back to the github repo. I plan to update the checklist as I learn about new requirements and/or get pull requests.
How about shutting down a company? Anyone have any tips on that?
I've heard that for pre-funded DE corporations you can basically ask your registered agent to formally "resign" as your agent and then the corporation is orphaned. The proper way involves filing paperwork to dissolve the entity along with paying some filing fees.
(Co-founder of HelloSign and HelloFax)
I've heard that for small businesses in California, incorporating in Delaware for tax reasons doesn't legally make a whole lot of sense because California will want to tax you anyway. Is that the case? If so, why are so many people still set on incorporating in Delaware?
A lot of what Delaware buys you is a transparent, functioning, and predictable state legal framework and court system.
California does add an extra layer of burden and compliance that I did not expect, but if you plan to have employees in California you must incorporate there as a foreign entity (also my case).
I've also heard from a fellow entrepreneur who has a distributed workforce that you need to incorporate in every state with an employee. This is certainly outside the scope of my checklist.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should making it "a real company" be necessary before meeting any number of times per week? You're probably better off having those meetings first, and waiting to incorporate until you're sure you have a business.
Yes, agreed. No need to incorporate just to get together and hack on a project. That said, I would certainly consider (at the very least) signing an agreement with your hacking buddy before launching anything that might generate revenue. I've seen and heard multiple co-founder friendships fall apart once things started to get "real". Good luck!
As a quick plug, you can sign your incorporation docs with HelloSign ( http://www.hellosign.com ) and fax Delaware with HelloFax ( http://www.hellofax.com ). (Co-founder of HelloSign and HelloFax)
In my case, I used the InCorp service to file my DE docs since I needed an expedited service and they could walk the documents over on my behalf. In the past, I did that portion myself.
Thanks for building a great service and down with the fax machines!