What are the benefits of incorporating a business prior to the launching operations? Should you launch the business before making it legal?

Under no circumstances should any business woman or man run   a business in their own name. If you do so, you jeopardize all of your personal assets in the event of someone suing. One of the primary purposes of creating a corporation and/or an LLC is for creditor protection. With these entities do a separate your personal life from your business life and with either entity, it is critical that you have a separate checking account, letterhead, etc. and keep all of your business activities totally independent of your personal life. With an S corporation or LLC, you would either draw salary from a corporation or make draws from an LLC and then move these funds into your personal account. If you do this correctly and consistently deal as a business rather than as an individual, if in fact a lawsuit were to develop and they were to sue the business and you personally, it's very likely that your losses will be limited to the assets of the LLC or the S corporation and your personal assets would be protected. As with anything else in life, there is exceptions to every rule but you need to treat the business completely independent of your personal life and you should start by setting up S corporation and or the LLC before you do a stick of business. I hope this helps and good luck