The first thing you want to do, is start building a prototype, start development, start with research, or anything else that starts building the product you envisioned.
True, it gives immediate value and brings you ahead, but what most start-ups don't realise is that you need to start with quality, to build quality into your company and product.

A quality system is often overlooked in the first instance, because there is little money and time, and a quality system seems abundant in a time where speed is imperative. I am not recommending you start with a quality manual for the whole company, as if you are running a multinational. Start with implementing a view things, that will cost you an immense amount of time or money, if you will leave it for later. If you are building a product that will need a FDA certification, or CE Mark, it is imperative to start with setting up at least one system in your company and it is document control.

Document control

Within one year a (technical) start-up will produce 300-1000 documents, of course dependent on how many employees you have and how fast the company is going and growing. Document control needs to cover at least these 4 main topics

1. Standardisation of documents
2. Document naming
3. Version control and sign off
4. Document filing and back up

Standardisation
Standardisation of documents will give the company a professional look. You could implement your logo and name in every document, decide on the colours you are using, but usually start-ups take ages to decide on a name, logo and look. This is therefore not the most important part of the standardisation. Standardisation has to do with Traceability and IP control. All documents need to state who the Author is, need to have a date and an archive about what was the reason for changes to the document, when a version update took place. This tiny rule in the company about documents, will ensure that if your company grows, you can trace back why changes were made, and who made the change, and when the change was made.

Your IP protection is paramount in a start -up. Documents need to be confidential, this is part of your standardisation to add a confidentiality disclaimer in every document that needs it. Any new employee coming into the company, can't make the mistake to send something outside the company that wasn't supposed to leave the company without a NDA (non disclosure agreement). It's part of your IP control, the most precious to a start-up, so implement it immediately.

Document naming
You might think document naming standardization is overrated, if you have a good filing system. It is not! making sure that all documents have the same naming system makes everything easy to trace. People mess up names, they mess it up with capitals or misspell it, therefore always give the documents a unique number. In this way, even if names changes, the number stays the same, and you are sure that it is in fact the same document but a different version. All documents should be unique and I will share one of my document naming standardisation. In fact it really doesn't matter how you do it, as long as the files and changes are traceable.

For example:
FRM_RD_001_design traceability matrix_V1.0

In this case the document is a form from Research and Development, the number is 001 and the name, even if it is mispelt, makes no difference to the traceability. Choosing your version number last is easy with naming, but worse for searching. Putting the version number before the name, ensures that your documents are filed in the correct order. You are of course free to chose your preference.

Version Control
Version Control seems easy. Every document that is updated gets a new version number. Small changes change after the point: V1.0, V1.1, V1.2. And large changes change the first digital: V1.0, V2.0. What are big or small changes? thats for you to decide. Small changes in my opinion are spalling mistakes, rewriting text, but not changing anything essential. Big changes are for instance additions or omitions of specs.
I am not a fan of using dates as a version control, even if you number it in a way that versions get stacked properly. Version (V3.2) is visually much easier than a date number (20180120), but you are free to use dates as version control if you prefer it.

Do you need to get a sign off on all documents? preferably yes. But if you are alone or only with two people it seems useless. I do advice to sign of records (filled in forms) from the start, as they are the output of whatever you are doing, and are part of your IP building. ( more on forms and records later)

Filing
I will write more about filing documents, as I will go into SOP's, work instructions, forms and records, because a good filing system not only builds up your quality system it also ensures that the IP value of your company is contained. Again it is all about traceability, but also avoiding fraud and it is the system that ISO for instance really likes, therefore getting you on the right track from the start of your company. I will also cover the most important documents you need to have in product development, to design quality into the product.

I hope you enjoyed my advice. I am giving free advice about starting a start -up and running it succesfully. If you have any questions or request to cover, I am happy to answer.

Background: I have 10+ years in different start-ups. My background is a PhD in Chemistry and have studied project management. I launched many products with international teams enjoyed working as a program manager under the CEO in a start-up company that was sold for $250M.
Currently I'm building a start-up company myself, that won many (subsidy) grants, and pitch awards. It launched its first product to market in December 2017 within two years