Prepare Before You Scale SOP: Prove It, Get One Real Consultation, Then Paper It
This is a Small Business SOP: a free, do-this-today standard operating procedure pulled from a real operator on the Unscripted Small Business podcast. This one comes from Delina Yasmeh, Esq., of DELINA.ESQ, a business and tax attorney in Los Angeles who has done over a thousand consultations with business owners.
Her read on the biggest pitfall is blunt: “most small business owners are simply not doing enough to prepare when they are starting or scaling a business.” This SOP turns her general approach into a checklist: know where you are going, prove the idea, do your homework, then take your questions to one qualified professional and rank the answers by budget and risk.
This SOP is for general education only. It is not specific legal or business advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client or advisory relationship. Any genuine legal question should be handled through a retained professional.
The Play: One Line
Prove the concept, research until you have real questions, take them to one business attorney who works with startups, and do the work in order of budget and risk.
Most small businesses start without enough preparation
I asked Delina how a small business owner sorts good advice from bad when LinkedIn, Google and everyone they meet has an opinion. She said that question is “the core of my business model.” Her view is that the most qualified attorneys mostly aren’t posting online, so owners are left with advice that is often selling something. “There is a lot of bad advice going around online.”
Her answer is a sequence, not a shortcut. Do your own research, but only far enough to ask good questions. Get one consultation with someone qualified. Then expect a candid priority list, because almost nobody starting out can do everything on day one. The steps below follow that order. Each one ends with a question to take to your own attorney or advisor, because only they can answer it for your business.
The numbers behind the play
All four come from Delina Yasmeh on the episode.
1,000+
consultations with business owners
3
degrees: accounting, law and a master’s in taxation
1
consultation with a specialist, at minimum
2-3 yrs
the direction she plans toward with clients
The 8-step prepare before you scale checklist
Each step is Delina’s general practice as she described it on the episode, followed by a question to bring to a qualified professional.
1
Direction
Decide where the business is going
Delina starts with the end game: “You need to understand where you’re going so you can get to where you want to be.” In her words, “building a business to scale and sell is very different than building a business that you will pass on versus something that you’re going to hold on to and keep.” Write down which one you are building before anything else. Brandon Moon makes the same case from the exit side in why most business owners fail to plan their exit.
Question to bring to a professional: Given whether I plan to sell, pass on or keep this business, what should be set up differently from the start?
2
Proof first
Prove the concept before the paperwork
For a consulting firm or a single product, her general advice is “give me proof of concept first.” Her example is someone who sews beautiful scarves: “Let’s make sure that you can bring in some income.” For some clients, she says, “it might even be don’t start an LLC quite yet.” The exception she names is a restaurant, where “that capital has to be there beforehand,” so the structuring and research come first.
Question to bring to a professional: Is my kind of business one where I can test the idea before forming an entity, or one where the structure has to come first?
3
Homework
Research until you have thoughtful questions
Delina calls today’s online advice “the wild, wild west of information online,” and says a lot of it is “geared towards marketing and trying to sell you something that you may or may not need.” Her suggestion is to read first, but with a goal: “I would first do as much research as you can and try to get yourself to at least a point where you have some thoughtful questions.” Her own business law library answers recurring questions in general terms and is a good place to start.
Question to bring to a professional: These are the questions my research left me with. Which of them actually apply to my business?
4
One real conversation
Book one consultation with a business attorney
Her baseline: “you do want to at least one time have a consultation with a proper specialist.” She suggests you “try to find a good business attorney who you can speak to that works with startups and small businesses and ask them those pointed questions.” The goal of that first meeting is a priority list, so you leave knowing “what are the things on my list of to-dos first.” She wrote more on the decision itself in should I hire an attorney to start a business.
Question to bring to a professional: Delina’s own elevator question, in her words: “What is it that we need to get done right now so that in three years from now we don’t have issues with the business?”
5
Prioritise
Rank the to-do list by budget and by risk
Delina says she lays every plan out “in terms of budget and in terms of also risk.” If a client cannot do everything, she trims to what brings money in: “if you can’t afford 10 contracts right now, then let’s start with this one thing.” One of her examples: “I don’t need you doing a tax strategy until you actually have money coming in the door.” Deferring an item is a choice, not a free pass: “It just means that you are aware that you are taking a risk until you get to that point.”
Question to bring to a professional: If I can only afford a few things now, which ones carry the most risk if I wait, and which can safely come later?
6
Website
Hold the website until the legal pages are ready
This is the pitfall Delina sees most. If a website goes up without “the proper terms of service, the proper privacy policy, the proper ADA terms,” she says “that can lead to a lot of trouble. And one lawsuit on your hands can make the business go down the drain.” Her stopgap for clients who are not ready: “don’t have a website yet. Put yourself on Instagram, put yourself on platforms that don’t require that level of setup until you get there.”
Question to bring to a professional: What does my website need in place before it launches, given what my business collects and sells?
7
Paper it
Structure the entity and write the operating agreement
Once the concept is proven, Delina says that is the time to “sit down, speak with a business attorney” about entity structuring. With a partner, she wants the operating agreement to “clearly delineate” what happens in the hard cases: “what happens if there’s a dispute, what happens if someone passes away, what happens if someone wants to get married and move to a different country.” To get ready for that conversation with a co-founder, run the Founder’s Prenup SOP first.
Question to bring to a professional: Which entity fits what I am building, and what should our operating agreement say about disputes, death and a partner moving away?
8
AI
If AI is in the workflow, know the work and disclose it
Delina’s first AI concern is “data and privacy,” so check what you paste with the AI Paste Audit SOP. Her second is expertise: “you know it in and out yourself,” with “checks and balances in place.” Her firm uses AI daily and she is still “constantly checking and rechecking.” For client work, her view is that “it needs to be built into your contracts that you are using AI and to have the transparency.” And on AI-drafted contracts: “I would rather you have a handshake and nothing on paper than what this is saying.” The AI Guardrails SOP covers writing down what your tools may never do.
Question to bring to a professional: How should my client contracts disclose the AI I use, and can you review anything I drafted with AI before I sign or send it?
A consultation prep sheet you can fill in today
Bring this to your first meeting. List each item, mark what it would cost and what could go wrong if it waits, and let the professional help you rank it. Delina also suggests keeping a two-to-three-year direction in view while “bookending the weeks, the months, and the quarters,” so revisit the sheet each quarter.
Item
My question
Budget
Risk if it waits
Now or later
Website legal pages
What does my site need before launch?
Entity and operating agreement
Which entity, and what if we disagree?
Tax planning
When does this start to matter for me?
Your item
Take the whole SOP with you
Two printable pages: the play, the 8 steps, the questions to bring, a fill-in prep sheet and a checklist. No email required.
🌐 Delina Yasmeh, Esq., founder and principal attorney of DELINA.ESQ, a business and tax law firm in Los Angeles
The episode also covers why Delina says AI has made good lawyers more necessary, the tax planning she would talk to a tax strategist about ahead of 2027, and what a decades-old family business has to put on paper before a sale. That part is in the recap.
Prepare before you scale: one question at a time
You don’t need every document on day one. Delina’s point is that you should know which ones you are skipping, why, and when you will come back for them. Bring the questions above to someone qualified, and let the answers set the order.
This SOP is for general education only. It is not specific legal or business advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client or advisory relationship. Any genuine legal question should be handled through a retained professional.
