There are two things you have to accomplish in order to establish a company, no less, or it ain’t gonna happen.

One:
You must become a company. All the co-founders have to be aware that the company exists now, even if it takes no physical form. What I mean is, you have to come to an agreement, a real understanding, with the other co-founders that we’re now employees of a company, we have jobs that come with responsibilities. We have to treat this new invisible entity as we’d treat an office job at some established corporation. If you do not have a defining moment when this shift occurs, from “having an idea” to “running a startup”, I don’t think you can really say a company was established.

Two:
You have to go to the government office and legally register the company. In Hong Kong, as the best city in the world for business, registering a company is pretty simple. I’ve done it once before, for the trading company. This registration step is #2 because it should be done second, only after you’ve mentally establish that you and your co-founders are in a business. Only after both have been completed, only then do you “have a company”.

In seven days, by next Sunday, my co-founders and myself should be able to say this, that we “have a company”. In order to accomplish this our schedule for the coming week is as follows:

• Monday: Meet Denis 10am to prepare paperwork for company registration. We’ll actually register the company online later in the week, but you’ve got to submit some ID documents in Wan Chai before this can be done.
• Have a talk with Denis, go over the technology, his ideas and opinions, what his expectations are for the company and his role in it, try to get on the same page and make sure there aren’t any misunderstandings. The most dangerous thing about communication is the assumption it occurred. I think Shaw or Churchill said that.
• Discuss the same thing with Raymond, preferable Tuesday.
• Thursday: Denis and Raymond will submit to me their sections of the business plan they have been working on. These sections are specific to their roles in the company and their talent.
• Friday: I will incorporate their sections into the draft of the business plan.
• Sunday: The three of us will meet 12noon at our temporary office to finalize the business plan, discuss anything left to discuss and register the company. If the server is shut down on Sunday, we’ll have to wait until Monday to claim we have a company.

This is a schedule with clearly defined goals and deadlines which have been clearly communicated to everyone. I think this is something that should be done, and I think I need to work harder to create a more defined and structured environment. Let’s see how successful we are at accomplishing our goals and how successful I am at improving myself.