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:

1. Find a lawyer who knows startups
2. Choose a name for the company (but not the product)
3. Purchase the company’s domain name
4. File incorporation papers
5. Open a business checking account
6. Sign up for email / calendar services
7. Sign up for other technical services (e.g., source control, hosting)
8. Print business cards
9. 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.