My 2 cents. Depends on the potential liability of your service. If your service is in a high risk market or has high potential to cause damage then most all t

My 2 cents. Depends on the potential liability of your service. If your service is in a high risk market or has high potential to cause damage then most all those things are really necessary. If it is a small side project where you are sending some emails or doing things that are not mission critical to a businesses revenue then you are generally pretty safe (IMO) to launch prior to all these. Reasons on both sides: Taxes get more complex when you have a company, but at the same time, if you do things outside a company and then need to transfer revenue and assets into a newly formed company it can be interesting to do it right. Not setting up a company correctly can leave you vulnerable to liability, almost as badly as just running the business in your personal name so doing it right is important. Get an accountant after you have enough revenue to worry about, sorry but adding an extra 10-50k of income isn't worth worrying about getting an accountant immediately over, your normal tax accounting can take care of that. I would however, always at least have a basic TOS & PP. You can use one of the free online generators as they will at least get you all the basic clauses and then if/when things grow you can have it reviewed by an attorney and revised. But this will help insulate and protect you quite a bit. Generally, I have launched marketing, signups, limited trials etc all without having anything other then the TOS&PP. Then if I see it actually has legs I get the corporation and banking setup and grow some more, then get an accountant, legal etc involved a little more down the road. Basically don't needlessly spend money just to say you are a business.