One person. Real customers. Real exposure.
You don't need a law firm on retainer. You need three things done right, plus an honest list of what can wait.
Own what you've built.
If anyone else has touched the code, whether a contractor, a collaborator, or a friend from before this was a company, the company owns their work only if a signed assignment says so. Incorporating doesn't transfer it on its own. A signature does.
Understand the agreement your customers sign.
Using a template is fine, and templates are sometimes enough. But you should know what your own terms promise about uptime, data, and liability, because your first enterprise customer will read all three before signing.
Get the stock right on day one.
Founder shares, vesting, and the 83(b) election. That last one is thirty days from issuance, it's statutory, and there are no extensions and no exceptions. It's a small filing, and missing it attaches a tax bill nobody can undo later.
Trademark portfolios. Privacy programs beyond an accurate policy. SOC 2. Entity structures with more boxes than people. Anyone selling you these before you have the revenue to be worth suing is optimizing for their own invoice rather than your company.
When a template is fine, and when it stops being
A template customer agreement works for as long as your customers sign it without reading it. The day someone sends back a redline, you've left template territory, because now it's a negotiation and the other side does this for a living. That's a good day, incidentally. It means the deal is real enough that somebody's lawyer looked.
What a small engagement looks like
For solo developers we offer a bounded first engagement, which is a fixed-scope review of your entity, your IP chain, your customer terms, and your contractor paper. You get back a written list of what's solid, what's urgent, and what's noise. No retainer required, and most of what's on that list you can fix yourself.
Related
Fifteen minutes. No pitch.
You talk, we diagnose. You leave with the two or three exposures worth addressing first, along with a straight answer on whether you need counsel now, including "not yet."