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Link: Bad advice?

• office supplies. When a firm I still work for opened a bureau office in 1999 they supplied it with a box of 500 pens all prominently decorated with company logo and name. Today, two bureau chiefs and nearly eight years later, I've barely used half the box. I hope they didn't spend too much on the pens.

• Attorneys. If you're starting small and haven't even sold to a customer yet, your chances of getting sued are about as great as if you sit at your desk at your day job, I guess. So hire an attorney if you must.

If that's your decision, I do think it would be better to try to locate the kind of firm JTreiber mentions in his comment on this post. But remember, you're bootstrapping not looking for Venture Capital, so the attorney who defers his fees until you "raise money" may be in for a long wait!

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