Here are the highlights:

* Use Quickbooks.

* Make it a Delaware C-Corporation.

* Put 100% of expenditures on a single credit card.

* Practice interviewing.

* Let the law firm handle your cap table

* Print long emails. You'll actually read them.

* Get Errors & Omissions (E&O) insurance early.

* Buy a computer and chair you like.

* Pay yourself something.

* Always get Proprietary Inventions Agreements from every employee and contractor.

* Never ask for an NDA from third parties, (with three exceptions)

* ... decide when your company's "day" starts

* Rent month to month.

* Get good t-shirts.

* Pick a company name based on URL availability.

Now if you care, go read the article.

We need more posts like this. The nuts and bolts of bootstrapping. Too many articles talking about what to do at step 43, need more about steps 2-5.

Speaking of, has anybody had success with rather than dumping the 9-5 and jumping straight into your startup, tried going contractor for a while and use the down time to work on the start-up?

If Quickbooks really is the best thing going then somebody should invent a better Quickbooks. It really is a terrible piece of software with terrible support.

This link already submitted. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1612299

Quite insightful compared to your run-of-the-mill checklists. I guess it wouldn't have come up on hbr.org otherwise. Its nice it covers some really diverse aspects of a business.

I am glad I have followed some of them which I was already aware of and gotta agree, definitely got some new things to think about from this list.

what do you need to make it a delaware C-Corporation? any source or url?