diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 3d52003..190a5aa 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -15,22 +15,25 @@ As of 2014-03-12, we're live at https://fbopen.gsa.gov .
 
 This gets you a minimum viable setup:
 
-```sh
-$ cd fbopen
-$ FBOPEN_ROOT=~/your/root/to/fbopen ./inital-dev-setup.sh
-```
+    cd fbopen
+    export FBOPEN_ROOT=~/your/root/to/fbopen 
+    chmod 755 inital-dev-setup.sh
+    ./inital-dev-setup.sh
 
 To clean out any new files created from that script, as well as uninstall Elasticsearch, you can run:
 
-```sh
-$ ./initial-dev-uninstall.sh
-```
+    ./initial-dev-uninstall.sh
+
 
 ### How to get started (manually)
 * Clone this repo.
 * This repo has an external dependency on another git repo, which needs to be populated at first, so `cd` to the repo and run: `git submodule update --init --recursive`.
-* Then install Elasticsearch. FBOpen requires at least version 1.2.
-* Get the API server up and running. See the README.md in `/api`.
+* Then install and start Elasticsearch. FBOpen requires at least version 1.2.
+* Start Elasticsearch:
+
+        elasticsearch
+
+* Get the API server up and running. See the [README.md](https://github.com/18F/fbopen/blob/cloud_foundry/api/README.md) in `/api`.
 * Load data into the search index using the import tools in `/loaders` -- or roll your own, ~~or use the API's POST `/v0/opp` to post opportunities one at a time~~ (POST functionality is temporarily disabled).
 * To run a simple query web page, try the sample app in `/sample-www`.
   * A quick and easy way to access this page at localhost, provided you have Python installed, is to `cd` to the `/sample-www` directory and run: `python -m SimpleHTTPServer`. By default, you'll then be able to access the client at http://localhost:8000
diff --git a/api/README.md b/api/README.md
index 6003390..eae9293 100644
--- a/api/README.md
+++ b/api/README.md
@@ -1,17 +1,34 @@
 # FBOpen API Server
 
 ### Install and Run
-To install:
-* First [install Elasticsearch](https://github.com/18f/fbopen/tree/master/elasticsearch) if you haven't already.
-* For local usage:
-    * `$ cp config-sample_dev.js config.js`
-* For production usage:
-    * `$ cp config-sample.js config.js`
-* Install dependencies: `$ npm install`
-    * If your default version of Python is > 2, you will need to specify your path to Python 2.7 for npm to successfully install one of the Node packages.
-        * `$ npm install --python=/usr/local/bin/python2.7`
-
-To run: `node app.js` (or, say, [`nodemon app.js`](https://github.com/remy/nodemon))
+1. To install, first [install Elasticsearch](https://github.com/18f/fbopen/tree/master/elasticsearch) if you haven't already.
+2. Run elasticsearch:
+
+        elasticsearch
+
+3. For local usage, re-name the sample JS file:
+
+        cp api/config-sample_dev.js api/config.js
+
+4. Go into the `api` directory:
+
+        cd api/
+
+5. For production usage:
+
+        cp api/config-sample.js api/config.js
+
+6. Install dependencies:
+
+        npm install
+
+    Note: If your default version of Python is > 2, you will need to specify your path to Python 2.7 for npm to successfully install one of the Node packages:
+
+            npm install --python=/usr/local/bin/python2.7
+
+7. To run the app:
+
+        node app.js (or, say, [`nodemon app.js`](https://github.com/remy/nodemon))
 
 ### API Documentation and Examples
 Documentation for this API is at [https://pages.18f.gov/fbopen/](https://pages.18f.gov/fbopen/), but here are a couple quick sample queries to get you started: