

Starting - sahillavingia
http://sahillavingia.com/blog/2010/12/03/starting/

======
coffee
Someone else also mentioned these Standford courses in a previous HN thread:

[http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/developing-apps-for-
ios-...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/developing-apps-for-ios-
hd/id395605774)

[http://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/iphone-application-
developm...](http://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/iphone-application-
development/id384233225)

To help get started with iPhone programming. I havent run through them yet,
but they look interesting enough to check out...

UPDATE: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1924578>

UPDATE 2: I didn't see a link to Evan Doll's video's in Sahils post, I think
this may be them: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/iphone-application-
progr...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/iphone-application-
programming/id384233222)

~~~
chime
I'm on lecture 11 of the Standard CS193P (Fall 2010) series and loving it. I
watched lectures 1-8 in a row over a few days while testing out the examples
and changing a few small things to get the hang of Objective-C. Then I took a
week off to play around with the UI viewcontrollers and built a skeleton of my
app: <http://www.chir.ag/ktype/research:articles:progress_20101116>

Now I'm back to watching the video lectures and learning how to use Core Data,
Persistence etc. so I can actually make my app functional. In my particular
case, I will end up using almost everything (OpenGL ES2, CoreAudio, Core Data,
Gestures, GameKit) so I'm really glad this course exists. I tried learning
Core Data on my own through online tutorials and it made no sense. I'm barely
into the lecture but it already makes so much sense. The lecturer is very
straight-forward, barely makes any mistakes (I love spotting those), and does
not bore me. He also goes over many small gotchas, minor differences (nil vs.
null), and best-practices.

I plan on catching up to the latest lectures over the next few days and then
jumping right into coding up my app.

------
alex1
_How do I get a company registered? How much does it cost? I have used
Legalzoom once and Harvard Business Review once, to start two companies.
They’re both in Delaware (it’s the new hotness or something). It cost me <$400
each time._

Don't do this. I don't see a reason in having a corporate entity for making
apps, let alone more than one. Get a DBA (sometimes called Fictitious Business
Name or FBN; in California, this would be ~$80 one time vs $800/year if you
incorporated and had to pay the franchise tax, which is owed regardless of
state of incorporation or net income). If circumstances require you to
establish a corporation (like a very rapidly growing service), establish a
C-Corp and not an LLC. And go through a lawyer, not LegalZoom.

Never _ever_ establish it through a service like LegalZoom. Pay an attorney
$2k-$3k and do it the proper way. Any Silicon Valley lawyer (and investor)
will tell you the same thing. Before any investor invests in whatever it is
you're doing, they will require you to restructure the entity and issue shares
all over again. Intellectual property belonging to the corporation may become
another issue (I've heard some horror stories about this; make sure you
transfer all IP to the corporation). This will end up costing more than if you
had done it the right way in the beginning. I've even heard stories about
people incorporating through LegalZoom and never actually issuing stock to
anyone.

Also, there _is_ a reason for incorporating in Delaware. Delaware's General
Corporation Law is very flexible and is the most favored by businesses. The
court also works better for businesses since your fate is decided by a judge
rather than a jury. Other advantages include some tax advantages, a cheap
filing fee, and privacy laws for executives and directors.

~~~
il
Do you have any concrete evidence why using a service like LegalZoom is so
bad? It seem like all they do is fill out some standard forms for you and
issue boilerplate paperwork.

What value would an attorney offer beyond this?

I've started a profitable business like this and never had any trouble.

~~~
alex1
If you ever want to take VC/angel money, you will most probably need to spend
more to restructure and re-incorporate. The boilerplate that services like
LegalZoom are not made for startups. They may be fine for other types of
businesses, but not for startups. If you're one or two people running a small
business, you should be fine.

Even YC advises against incorporating using generic paperwork (I would imagine
the YC paperwork is pretty similar to what other Silicon Valley startup
attorneys would use):

"Don't incorporate, though, if you can avoid it. It's easier to start with our
paperwork than to transfer an existing LLC or S-Corp to a C-Corp."[1]

[1] <http://ycombinator.com/faq.html>

~~~
_pius
_"Don't incorporate, though, if you can avoid it. It's easier to start with
[YC's] paperwork than to transfer an existing LLC or S-Corp to a C-Corp."_

YC uses Goodwin Procter for their startup formations [1]. Goodwin Procter not
only makes their startup formation documents freely available, they give you
an automated service for customizing their boilerplate:
<http://www.goodwinfoundersworkbench.com/document-driver/>

It generates:

* Certificate of Incorporation

* Consent of Sole Incorporator

* Subscription Letters

* Founder Stock Restriction Agreement

* Contribution and Assignment Agreement

* Bylaws

* Consent of Board of Directors

* Common Stock Certificates

* 83(b) Election Form

[1] <http://hackerne.ws/item?id=16470>

