Being your own boss is fun. This is because you don’t have to share profits you make in your business with anyone. Most people focus so much on securing seed capital and forget about the laws that can help in safeguarding their efforts. In case you didn’t know, there are some legal issues that can literally kill your business.
In fact, most entrepreneurs don’t seem to care about these legal concerns until when an expected legal battle comes calling. Besides that, failing to address such legal issues puts your startup enterprise in jeopardy.
Majority of businesses that get entangled in legal issues land into trouble because they don’t seek the advice of a lawyer. This is there are other businesses that can exploit your venture in way that will push you into closing shop. Below is a list of common legal issues that affect most startups that are worth noting.
1.Business Name
The worst mistake that you can make while starting a new business is to use a name of an existing enterprise. But most entrepreneurs find themselves sharing a name with another business without knowing, simply because they don’t take time to find out if there is another entity that is currently using the name they want to give their business.
Before you register your business, it’s advisable you do a name search to ensure that you don’t infringe on the rights of another enterprise. Remember, you can be charged by a court of law for adopting a name of another business. The logic here is that you will be taking advantage of the efforts that such a business has made in building its brand. The good thing is that you can do a name search at the click of a button on the internet.
2.Non-Disclosure Agreement
If your business requires you to work with vendors, it’s obvious that you will have to share the details of your customers with them. Sharing such crucial details with vendors is dangerous. This is because the vendors can decide to bypass you and get in touch with your customers so that they can make a much bigger profit margin. For instance, if you sell computers to financial institutions but you source them from the vendors, the vendors can communicate with the said institutions and offer to sell them the same products at a much lower cost.
Such a deal would kick you out of business. The only way of protecting your interests against such wicked schemes would be to make the vendors sign a non- disclosure agreement that has been by a reputable law firm such asLegalZoom.
3.Compliance Documents
All businesses are required to obtain documents that show that they have complied with the law. The documents vary depending on the kind of business that you intend to be operating.
For instance, if you will be running a restaurant, you are supposed to have a medical certificate for every member of staff that will be handling food. Regardless of the industry that you are interested in, it’s important you obtain a certificate of registration. In addition to that, there are some laws that apply to businesses that are owned by foreigners.
For instance, foreign investors in US are required to employ native Americans on full time basis and must also work in their own enterprises. A lawyer can help you in ensuring that your business has not left any legal loopholes that can be used against you in a court of law