Ask HN: Founders, how to write Terms of service and Privacy policy?

For the ToS, I think JamesVI has the right idea for an early stage company. At some point, it will be worth investing in a really customized ToS. But a cost-efficient way to go initially is to find a comparable company with a comparable business model and have an attorney mark that up.

Privacy Policy you need to be careful. Large, established companies might have privacy policies you could not comply with. You don't want to undertake obligations that are beyond what you are legally obligated to do, unless it makes business sense for you to do so. Otherwise, yes, the same plan works, as with the ToS.

Look at ToS and privacy policy from existing, respectable companies in your market (or just use Google, Facebook, LinkedIn etc). Pick one that you agree with/works for your business, mark up with modifications you think you need (but honestly, you probably don't) then give it to your attorney to review.

Don't have an attorney draft it from scratch (they will just copy from Google/LinkedIn/Facebook and charge you an hourly rate for cutting and pasting).

This was the advice we got from our attorney when it came time to put this stuff together.