1) Do NOT use the thinking "I want to start a team..I think I will go find someone to start a team with." Go out and race a lot. Get to know a couple of independent drivers. Find one you enjoy racing and talking with. Teams that start with friends who are focused on a common goal last a lot longer.
2) A team look (website, skins, logo, etc.) are not that important at the beginning. The personal interests and interaction between team members defines the team while those graphical type things only reflect and project the team idea. As my father told me in kart racing, "You have to get the go before you get the show." Figure out what your team is about and go from there. First thing to get is a free forum to chat in private somewhere rather then leaving it up to the cynical yahoos on this forum. The team name isn't important in terms of the forum you setup...you can change it later. Figure out what you want the team to do....race, drag, drift, cruise, all. Whatever it is, stick to it and stick up for your interests.
3) When you have two people that are vested in the interest of the team, go figure out how you want to operate (i.e. league or pickup racing? recruiting, etc.). You can draft a set of team rules if you want, but those tend to make people feel controlled. Just have a loose set of guidelines, backed by some strict conduct policies and you'll be fine. One thing I really hate is when teams kick drivers because they are inactive. There are reasons for inactivity sometimes, so ask those inactive drivers why they aren't active, and then if you still feel the need to remove them, remove them. CoRe just yesterday welcomed back to active status a driver from the old days that hadn't been active for almost a year. He was a CoRe driver in good standing when he went active and he had a good reason, so when he decided he wanted to come back, we had no problem with that. We've chosen people that fit in well so it isn't a problem when this happens.
4) When it comes to recruiting, figure out what you want out of new recruits. Just looking for numbers and you feel like posting a "ABC Team is recruiting!" thread on LFS Forums? Epic fail. You'll end up seeing people posting that they want to join, you'll say yes, they get in the team, you'll do skins and whatnot, they go out an wreck someone and give themselves and your team a bad name and then it's team over. It's your team...pick your teammates carefully. Have some tryout sessions setup either on a server you run or some pre-determined server. Race with them. Talk with them. Watch how they handle certain situations like rough drivers. Come to think of it, CTRA is the perfect place to see how they do against rough drivers.
Don't decide in one night. Talk about the new recruit on your forum or over IRC or MSN or AOL...etc etc. Make sure everyone on the team is OK with this new person. Oh, and never ever never post that you are recruiting someone that can skin or setup cars or has a server. If new members have those things or skills, then great. If not, then figure out as a team how to get those things.
There are so many things that go into making a good team and keeping it running. It's not a self-sustaining thing, so you'll have a LOT of work ahead of you. But when you get the right group of people together that want the team to thrive and succeed, it gets a bit easier.
EDIT: Oh, and by the way....the way you write things IS important. You want to be taken seriously? Then write as if you are serious about your team. Cut out the stupid chat acronyms and smilies and crap. It only makes you look childish and ignorant.
EDIT2: When you want to type the word "you", use the "y" and the "o" in front of the "u". You is spelled Y-O-U.....not "u".
EDIT3: The word "some" is spelled S-O-M-E, not "sum". I just wanted to make sure YOU knew that.
EDIT4: Props to blackbird04217. That man speaks the truth.