Frenday.com

By eternal student on Dec 24, 2009 | Reply

First you and your business partners need to write a business plan (this should address questions like who is your customer, what is your product or service, what unique need you are fulfilling, how will your business make money, etc.).
If you are in school, you can try to participate in a business plan competition. Many major universities allow students from other schools in the region to participate in business plan competition and conduct classes on how to write a business plan, how to make the pitch, and the pitches are evaluated by VCs who serve as judges for the competition. This would be a great way to learn about entrepreneurship and develop contacts.
Secondly, you need to figure out an appropriate structure for your business. Perhaps you might consider a limited liability partnership structure. You can refer to the website references given below. The next step is getting a business license.
The next step is funding. You also need to think about protecting your ideas – intellectual property. Most technology entrepreneurs put in their own effort (sweat equity) without any external funding until they get to the proof of concept stage. At this stage, they get seed funding from certain individuals – called angel investors. They use the funding to hire some staff if needed and reach a stage where they are testing the product or service with some customers. They approach VCs for the next stage. Venture Capitalists (VCs) come in to the picture only if things have reached this stage and there is scope for the business to scale to be able to address a large market. VCs do not fund small businesses.
The main thing you need to understand is this: As long as you don’t seek external funding, the company is 100% yours. The moment you seek external funding, you give up part ownership in exchange for the funding. Thus, your ownership stake will get diluted with each round of funding. Good Luck!

By Sleven on Dec 24, 2009 | Reply

whoa. this is a pretty big question to answer. I run a telecommunicaitons company in Tucson, AZ. Im not to familiar with software businesses and what entails with them. I dont know if you will be selling out of your state. How many employees you have and how much money you will have on hand at startup.
I dont know the structure of what you want to start: c-corp, s-corp, LLC, Sole prop.
There are so many different factors that you need to know in order to start a business and which way is the best route to take. What you need to do is contact a business lawyer. Take $100 and sit down with a lawyer for an hour and pick his/her brain.
Its good your starting a business. You wont get rich working for somebody else. But dont botch it up. make sure you do everything right. IRS are not the type of people you want to piss off. good luck.