We needed one special agreement for the company lately. There were two ways to get this work done. There was an option to download the general template from the web. Most likely it would need some improvements and minor changes. Alternatively, the agreement could have been ordered from the lawyer company. The difference in price would be some $10-15k.
Here is the deal. As a founder of the company, I would very much want to download the template document and then tweak it a bit. This way I would save the business some cash. Some cash here some cash there. It makes the difference at the end of the day. However should anything go wrong the responsibility for the outcome would be all mine. As a hired CEO, I would just hire a lawyer.
This dilemma is always there. Would you save some money for your startup or rather pay the full price and sleep well afterwards. Sometimes saving costs you too much later on but not saving will run your cash dry real fast. It is an especially tough choice when you are bootstrapping.
