However, whenever I build up the initiative to create a repo and start building away, I get frozen by one of the following questions and would love the HN community's help in answer any of them. If these have already been covered to death elsewhere, I'd love some help knowing where to look -- links to old HN threads, relevant bloggers or books, etc.
* There's a lot to learn from the failures of previous companies, but companies that fail quickly don't leave much trace behind. So... how do I find out if a similar company/product has been tried before and failed? I've searched through HN threads, Crunchbase, various tech news sites, but what are some other good places to go to do your due diligence?
* How do you protect the IP in your new project from your current company? I know not to do my work on company hardware, but with flexible hours and WFH become the new-normal, it's hard to know if you're "doing work on company time" that could come back to cause problems.
* At what point do you start the legal paperwork to become "a real business"? Should you do that before you commit the first line of code for your MVP to make sure you have all the protections of being an LLC in place, or can that wait until you actually get customers?
You should have a list of customers before the first line of code. Figure out your core marketing channel. If you plan on using FB, you want something easily shared. If you're using salespeople, you'll want something easy to demo, and features that may go well in a free trial. When people say sales is hard, it's more that they never had a market in the first place.
IP: I hired a lawyer to look at my work contract and spot holes. We highlighted a few, cleared it up with my boss/HR, who didn't want to deal with it and signed off the proposed changes to wording. Rewriting a contract might be a pain, but a lawyer will at least help you identify possible problems. Every situation is a little different, and lawyers aren't that expensive for the peace of mind you get, and it's a good trial run for more serious IP things when your business is up and running.
I'm not sure about the laws there, but I register two businesses.
The first is a bare bones legal entity, with a bank account, which I normally use for consulting. This cost me about $9 registration fees and $250 deposit which I can transfer back to my personal account to pay bills.
The definition of a startup is an organization trying to find a scalable and repeatable business model. Until you find that model you probably don't need a proper company. The nice thing about software is you probably don't need the LLC protection - you're not leasing a $1000 tractor or buying (or even holding) $30k of stock.
I think the main reason to have one is vesting shares and taking investor money, both of which can be delayed until you have money to worry about.
Don't work on your company laptop, don't work on your project during your paid work hours, don't worry about people stealing your IP, what they really want (or don't) is your customers. Customers in business are gold, IP is simply a device used for mining that gold.
You only need paperwork for the business when you have a customer. Do you have a customer? If not, no risk. Customers are the only thing worth protecting.