Hi @laceyg,
If the company is on your radar as a lead (without a specific contact yet), I would say there is no harm in creating the company record and beginning to store updates and information around the company on the record.
Once you have a contact, you can begin to nurture the specific contact with all of the information you already have from the company.
And finally once you’ve nurtured the contact, you can create a deal as well!
Hope that helps! 