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The Ultimate Back-Office Guide to How to Launch a Startup

SignalFire's tools and tips for getting your startup set up as you scale from 0 to 50 employees.

Elaine Zelby

Spencer Ackermann

Congratulations! You've made the leap and are starting a company! Have you thought about different types of incorporation (like C corp vs S corp)? Do you know anything about accounting for startups?

Before you know it you'll have accounts payable, payroll, and benefits to deal with, government authorities to appease with reports and tracking, and shares to issue. As you scale rapidly, you'll need to think about hiring a bookkeeper, resource management, and HR functions.

Building the back-office stack is hardly the most invigorating part of building a company, but honestly, you're not going to survive without a solid foundation.

In each section of the sections below, we offer tips and best practices from experts to help save you time and help you get back to building a lasting company. Tap on each for a walkthrough of how to get set up.

After you've completed each category, mark it off at the top of each section to keep track of your stack:

14 Steps To Launch A Business

14 Steps To Launch A Business

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Incorporation⁠

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Banking⁠

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Credit Card⁠

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Equity Management⁠

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Bookkeeping⁠

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Accounting⁠

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Accounts Payable⁠

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Accounts Receivable⁠

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Expense Managment⁠

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Payroll/HRIS⁠

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HR Compliance⁠

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Benefits⁠

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Insurance Broker/Provider⁠

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The Stack⁠

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There are no rows in this table

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Our Picks For Zero to One

SignalFire⁠

, we've worked with 100s of startups and keep our finger on the pulse of best in breed tools (plus what works best together) for getting your startup off the ground. This guide is meant to help you quickly and painlessly get your back-office set up and get you back to building your company.

If you're just getting started, here is a quick-start guide that we'd recommend as the initial back-office stack for ~90% of startups:

Stripe Atlas

Incorporation

Incorporate with Stripe Atlas for ~$500 and in about a week

Visit Site

First Republic Bank

Banking

Use FRB as your business banking partner

Visit Site

Carta

Equity Management

Set up a cap table with Carta

Visit Site

Brex

Credit Card

Leverage Brex for corporate credit cards

Visit Site

QuickBooks

Accounting

Use Quickbooks for all of your accounting needs

Visit Site

Pilot

Bookkeeping

Use Pilot as your outsourced bookkeeper

Visit Site

Gusto

Benefits

HR Compliance

Payroll/HRIS

Get Gusto to manage payroll, benefits, and HR

Visit Site

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You can also check out the

Full Resource List⁠

for all our suggested vendors.

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on desktop to create your own version. Then, build and optimize your back-office stack with our comprehensive toolkit.

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👉 Begin with the

Incorporation⁠

section!

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14 Steps To Launch A Business

Our Picks For Zero to One

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