Best practices in many cases are to incorporate with as little expenditure as possible, then clean up the mess ASAP when you get on stable financial footing (e.g. funded). Most top firms will strike a deal with promising companies: all payments are waived until <milestone> in exchange for <percent> of equity. A typical milestone is a financing of $1mm or more, and the percent is usually <1%, varying by the firm and the optimisim about the startup.
Another reasonable approach would be to start with documents like this. However, if you do this, you would be much better off to use Orrick. That's because each firm's standard documents are significantly different. If you use someone else's, they will have to come up to speed - on your dime. They will also likely want you to make amendments and changes to bring the documents in to line with what they consider best practices.
Then, years down the line, when it comes time to litigate something (hopefully not), you'll have lawyers who know your company's paperwork intimately, vs. dealing with unexpected details (e.g. your company is a WA corp instead of a DE corp so you have to send papers by courier instead of faxes, delaying your closing by 3 days, costing the company a few thousand dollars lost interest payments on a $10mm round).
Take it from someone who's spent many tens of thousands of dollars cleaning up after extremely smart lawyers who did things that were just a little bit wrong. The sooner you get represented by top-tier legal counsel, the better.
Another reasonable approach would be to start with documents like this. However, if you do this, you would be much better off to use Orrick. That's because each firm's standard documents are significantly different. If you use someone else's, they will have to come up to speed - on your dime. They will also likely want you to make amendments and changes to bring the documents in to line with what they consider best practices.
Then, years down the line, when it comes time to litigate something (hopefully not), you'll have lawyers who know your company's paperwork intimately, vs. dealing with unexpected details (e.g. your company is a WA corp instead of a DE corp so you have to send papers by courier instead of faxes, delaying your closing by 3 days, costing the company a few thousand dollars lost interest payments on a $10mm round).
Take it from someone who's spent many tens of thousands of dollars cleaning up after extremely smart lawyers who did things that were just a little bit wrong. The sooner you get represented by top-tier legal counsel, the better.