A while back, I founded a startup. I’ve since closed it and moved on to first one company, and then to another. However, I learned a lot in the process I thought would be worth sharing.
One of the first things I had to learn when starting my company was how to actually start a company. There are a lot of choices which all have to be made before you can incorporate, and there’s a definite order in which you need to get things done. Here’s the sequence I followed:
- Find a lawyer who knows startups
- Choose a name for the company (but not the product)
- Purchase the company’s domain name
- File incorporation papers
- Open a business checking account
- Sign up for email / calendar services
- Sign up for other technical services (e.g., source control, hosting)
- Print business cards
- Get to work!
All in all, there was more waiting for things to happen than actual work, and a lot more reading about legal entity types, researching banks, and that sort of thing than I’d expected. I’ll write more about each step in separate posts.
Bits & Bytes 