Start a Company Guide

# Start a Company — Complete Guide

Create a comprehensive step-by-step guide for starting [COMPANY_NAME], a [COMPANY_TYPE] in [INDUSTRY] founded by [FOUNDER_PROFILE].

## Startup Context
- **Stage:** [STAGE] (idea, validated concept, pre-revenue)
- **Business model:** [BUSINESS_MODEL] (SaaS, service, product, marketplace)
- **Target customer:** [CUSTOMER]
- **Funding approach:** [FUNDING] (bootstrapped, friends & family, angel, VC)
- **Timeline to launch:** [TIMELINE]

## Company Launch Guide

### Phase 1: Validation (Before Spending Money)
1. Problem validation: how to confirm the problem is real and painful
2. Solution validation: the fastest way to test your solution (landing page, prototype, concierge MVP)
3. Customer discovery: 5 questions to ask in every discovery call
4. Validation metrics: what data confirms you've found product-market fit signal

### Phase 2: Legal & Administrative Setup
- Entity formation (best entity type for this business)
- EIN, bank account, bookkeeping setup
- Founder agreements (equity splits, vesting, IP assignment)
- Essential early contracts (NDA, MSA, service agreement templates)

### Phase 3: Build Your MVP
- Define the minimum feature set for first paying customers
- Build vs. buy vs. no-code decision framework
- Quality threshold: good enough to sell, not perfect

### Phase 4: Get Your First 10 Customers
- Identify where your first 10 customers are
- The outreach script that actually gets responses
- Pricing your offer for early adopters

### Phase 5: Systems for Scale
- When to hire the first employee vs. contractor
- The 3 systems to build before scaling: sales, delivery, finance

### 12-Month Milestone Map
Define key milestones at months 1, 3, 6, and 12.