HELP! Startup Chicken/Egg: 🐔🥚 No Money For Legal - What Should I Do?
This is a real "boots on the ground" question. I'm asking you to be honest, share how you have "hustled" to pull this off, and not just theoretically.
How do you sequence events when bootstrapping? Do you sell your product first in order to raise the money needed to pay for an attorney? Or do you always take care of legal necessities before taking money from customers?
I am an honest person and integrity is very important to me. But if my company never gets off the ground, well...
I've heard it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission in some cases.
I've seen some pretty clever founders pull off some pretty amazing things in order get started on the road to success. Being scrappy, how do you navigate this dilemma?
I need money to pay for legal services in order to sell my product. But selling my product could provide the money I need to pay for legal services!
Thank you in advance for your honesty, insight, and support!
You need to be more specific here as to what legal services you need. There are a ton of online legal resources that are cheap - privacy policies, contracts, TOS, LLC agreements, etc. You may be overestimating your needs and the cost but I would need to know more. I have spent $300 on legal for a startup and I have spent $10,000 before going out the door so them my boots on the ground. Let me know more and I may be able to be more specific. Also know that sometimes you can do minimal Swiss-cheese legal to start and back-fill later with really industrial grade legal.