Startup Lean

I've never done this before and if you've never started a company you'll be surprised at just how easy it is.

Back in the dark ages (i.e., before the internet!) if you wanted to start a company you had to schlep downtown to find a solicitor and an accountant, who hopefully were on speaking terms (not always the case!) and arrange a your affairs - basically a set of boiler plate forms the solicitor had prepared in his filing cabinet.  You filled it all out and...waited.  Then you went to the accountant with your details and he scribbled up a ledger for you (or if you were really lucky, he fired up Lotus 1-2-3!).

Now?  Here's what we did:

ECompanies, companyonline or companies123 or dozens of other websites

We chose ecompanies because I've toyed with the idea for years and these guys are still in business, so they are doing something right.  The web forms couldn't be easier to fill out and you can save your progress as you go.  You'll need a bunch of standard ID things like tax file numbers, dates of birth of your founders and home addresses.  Then, basically, just pick a business name that isn't taken and pay under $600 (including your ABN registration) and you can be up and going in 15 minutes if you do it during business hours and pick a generic name that doesn't need reviewing.  We chose to start extremely lean by using partially paid shares, using the cash we put in to pay for the company registration as a payment on our initial share deposit.  It's very easy, but if you find it daunting then you're better off just asking a few questions from a solicitor.  Obviously they will charge more, but in your situation it might be worth it.

Open a bank account

Of course we went with @Westpac after the Westpac @Blue Chilli agribusiness challenge!  Opened the account online, they promptly sent us the forms we needed to sign and a quick visit to a branch was all that was required.  Ready for business!  Here I deposited the initial downpayment on our partially paid shares because I needed that for the next step.

XERO, MyOB, SAASU

Accounting software.  I ended up going with @XERO for no reason other than it's a pure software-as-a-service thing and was blindingly easy to use, guiding you through the ledger creation process.  In about 20 minutes I had the company assets and liabilities registered and reconciled and in a few days the bank will start automatically feeding our account transactions straight into the system (how cool is that!).

Xero, like a lot of online software, also allows your proper accountant to log in and fix all your mistakes, which is fantastic.

Really, that was about all we needed to do (well, we still need to sign our shareholders agreement and a few other bits of administrative stuff) but if you don't actually start and register a company, your investors have exactly nothing to invest in.  It's a protection for them as well as you, so go and do it!