Making a startup successful will require a lot of hard work. As the professionals at ONE400 – Lawyer Marketing will tell you, getting the word out about the services and products your company offers is easy with the right internet marketing strategy.
Once you have honed in on the right way to reach consumers, you need to make sure the legal aspects of your business are taken care of. Working with a reputable business lawyer is a great way to find out about some of the legal issues you may face in the future and how to properly prepare for them. Read below to find out about some of the ways you can avoid startup legal battles.
Selecting the Right Entity is Important
When first starting a business, you will need to think about what entity to use. Choosing whether to identify your business as a partnership, LLC, S-Corp or B-Corp is not easy. If you are trying to raise money for your startup via venture capital firms, you will probably have to file as a Delaware C-Corporation.
Filing as an LLC or an S-Corporation will allow you to take advantage of numerous tax breaks. If you are confused about what you need to identify your business as, consulting with a tax attorney is a great idea. They will consider things like what your long-term business goals are before making a suggestion regarding what your business entity should be.
You Have to Discuss Money With Your Co-Founders
While discussing money with friends is never a comfortable situation, as a startup business owner you have to break through this barrier. Failing to iron out the details of how much stake in the company co-founders have is a recipe for disaster.
The last thing you want is to have the joy of running a successful business be undercut by the stress of drawn out legal battles with co-founders. Before you get the ball rolling on your startup venture, you need to get documents drawn up detailing how profits need to be split up. Doing this can save you a lot of headaches in the future.
Failing to Protect Your Intellectual Property
Is your startup based on a unique idea? Properly protecting this intellectual property is something you need to view as a priority. The last thing you want is to have your ideas stolen due to your failure to get them trademarked or copyrighted.
The only way to figure out how to properly protect your ideas is by working with a lawyer familiar with the patent process. With their guidance, you will be able to file for patents easily. Often times, taking these complicated matters into your own hands will lead to crucial mistakes being made.
Before working with a business lawyer, you need to go in for a few different consultations. During the consultation with various business lawyers in your area, you need to ask questions to find out more about the experience they have. Ideally, you will want to hire a lawyer who has a track record of successfully helping other startups.
