I've been working with a few friends from college on a web startup and we actually have a few things almost ready for launch, but we've put off incorporating and registering ourselves as a real company. Should we get that done now or can we afford to wait?
We're a bit low on money and we might not be able to afford all of the fees and any potential legal services we might have to get to get it all right.
What are the implications of not incorporating immediately?
a.) Need to take money from someone else.
b.) Have done something you might get sued for.
The "might get sued for" doesn't mean when you've done something wrong (at which point it's undoubtedly too late - don't be evil ;-). It means when you're performing a service for money, or when you've got a fairly well-trafficked site that's attracted a lot of attention, or when you're doing something where there may be disputes involved.
We met with a lawyer for incorporation when we first launched, but he kinda dragged his feet and we're still not officially incorporated. In retrospect, he's doing us a favor, because we really don't need to be incorporated at this stage and the additional overhead of a corporation would just slow us down. (In particular, corporations need to file taxes as a corporation.) If we were successful enough that people were actually submitting much user-generated content or (gasp) had a revenue stream other than Google AdSense, we'd want to move the incorporation along, but while we're still developing/finding traction, it's not that important.