REMEMBER THE LAWYER AND GET A LAWYER TO WATCH THE LAWYER

When starting out as a business woman you realize the challenges of really keeping tabs on everything around you. As we were progressing with the website there was the need of legal documentation for our new born company Beau Exchange Inc. Here are a few things we learned as we were becoming Beau Exchange Inc.

1. Decide where you want to be in five years. This will help shape the next steps of your company's journey.
2. After the five year plan in place decide if its best suited to be a LLC, Incorporated C or S (free legal advice is available in Brooklyn at the Business Solutions Center on Bond Street)
3. You should by this point decide if you are a start-up that plan to have investors ASAP or sustain itself privately. If you are looking into getting angel investors many start-up get incorporated in Delaware due to the flexible bylaws there benefiting investors more than you, but it still looks attractive. NY really is a great place to incorporate when you are looking for government support. 
4. Once you educated yourself on what you wanted, interview lawyers. At this point lawyers shouldn't be able to feed you hopes and dreams because you are prepared with your A game. 
5. Find a lawyer that will be there through think and thin. That person is there to legally guide you through the growing pains of being a start-up.
6. If you end up with bad legal support at least make sure you cover yourself to prevent much damage and make it clear to them that you are not the one to mess with. 
7. Another thing that is creative is getting a law student that could grow with you as you all grow-up in the company as have them eventually be your permanent legal internal counsel 

A really cool blog that may be helpful is Tech Startup Lawyer.

BONUS: Once you get your tax ID you could get things wholesale, which is a great opportunity in NYC.