Incorporate, align, and ship in one afternoon.

Yes. Only a few states (California, Delaware, Maine, Missouri, New York) require LLC operating agreements by statute, but every solo founder should have one regardless. It establishes your LLC as a separate legal entity, which is what protects personal assets from business liabilities under the corporate-veil doctrine. Most banks require it to open a business account. Stripe, Mercury, and Brex ask for it during onboarding. Future investors will ask for it in due diligence. Drafting one at formation takes 20 minutes; reconstructing one in diligence under deal pressure takes 2 weeks.

Articles of incorporation (for C-Corps and S-Corps) or articles of organization (for LLCs) are what you file with your state's Secretary of State to officially create the entity. They list the entity name, registered agent, authorized shares, par value, and incorporator. The operating agreement (LLC) or bylaws (C-Corp) are internal governing documents that define how the company is managed, profits and losses allocated, members or directors voted in and out, and what happens at dissolution or buy-out. The articles are public filings; the operating agreement or bylaws are private.

Yes. Build it from the template, set equity split (sweat-equity decisions early are the hardest; the 4-way Slicing Pie model and the Y Combinator equal-split philosophy both have advocates), vesting schedule (4 years with 1-year cliff is standard; some founders take 5 years on a 6-month cliff), IP assignment from each founder to the company, decision rights and tie-breakers, accelerated vesting on change of control, and what happens to a founder's equity on termination. Send to all co-founders at once for electronic signature. Most founding teams finish in one sitting.

Yes. Templates are drafted by business attorneys and cover what seed investors, accelerators, and Series A leads look for in diligence. SAFE notes follow the current Y Combinator post-money template. Convertible notes use Cooley GO patterns. Equity incentive plans match standard 10-20% pool sizing. That said, when you raise priced rounds (Series Seed Preferred or Series A), the lead investor will bring their own term sheet and stock purchase agreement. These templates get your house in order so the diligence call is short and the cap-table cleanup line item on the closing budget is small.

SAFE notes (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) are pre-priced investment instruments that convert to preferred stock at the next priced round, typically with a valuation cap and/or discount. The post-money SAFE is the current Y Combinator standard. Generate the SAFE, set cap and discount, send to the investor for countersignature, and the platform tracks conversion math against your pro-forma cap table. 83(b) elections must be filed with the IRS within 30 days of restricted stock grant; the platform generates the form, walks the certified-mail filing process, and reminds you of the deadline that has ended more founders' tax positions than any other early-stage mistake.

Create from the template, fill in shareholder name, number of shares, share class (Common, Series Seed Preferred, Series A Preferred), certificate number, issue date, and any restrictive legends required by Rule 144 or your shareholder agreement. Sign and send to the holder. Generate certificates for each founder, early employee with restricted stock or option exercise, and investor. The certificate stack lives alongside the shareholder agreement and the cap table for diligence pulls. Many startups now go all-electronic with no physical certificates; the platform supports both.

Yes. State-specific versions of LLC operating agreements, articles of incorporation, articles of organization, NDAs, non-compete agreements (with FTC final-rule awareness; non-competes are unenforceable in California, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Minnesota with various restrictions in others), employment contracts, and contractor agreements for every U.S. state. Each reflects the state's filing requirements, fees, and statutory language. Delaware C-Corp formation is the venture-track default; Wyoming and Nevada are popular for asset-protection LLCs; your home state is usually fine for bootstrapped service businesses.

For formation and standard early-stage agreements, mostly yes. Most founders do not need a $500/hr attorney to file an LLC, draft a founders agreement, or send a contractor an IP assignment. The templates handle the routine work. Save your legal budget for the moments that actually require custom counsel: priced-round term sheets, IP disputes, M&A diligence, complex international structures, employment terminations with severance negotiations, and anything that touches securities law beyond Reg D Rule 506(b) accredited-investor friends-and-family rounds.