startup
Business Planning

5 Essential Tips for Starting Your Own Business

These days, you’ll find all sorts of advice about how best to launch a business. But with so much information out there, it’s hard to know what you should heed and what you can ignore. To make things simple, we’ve compiled a list of five fundamental tips for starting a business that you can’t afford to miss.

Solve a problem

One of the best ways to come up with a winning business idea is to design your product or service to solve a specific problem. By fixing a problem, you’ll have a solid customer base right out of the gate, who won’t need much selling provided your solution works.

If possible, create your business around a problem you’ve faced yourself, so you thoroughly understand and trust the value your company offers. If your business truly helps improve people’s lives, you’ll succeed.

Stop waiting and start doing

While it may seem counterintuitive, it’s often better to launch your business before you feel like your product is 100% perfect. Delaying your start is often an unconscious way of procrastinating—and besides, you’ll probably never feel like your business is totally perfect.

Best to launch fast before anyone else beats you to the market—or before you second-guess yourself out of launching at all. From there, you can adapt and perfect your solution with a small group of paying customers, whom you should give special attention in order to guarantee their happiness and loyalty. The most effective way to learn is to get your product into people’s hands or your service into people’s lives and see how they like it.

Remember, you should be prepared to fail, learn from your mistakes, and keep iterating!

Keep it simple

When you come up with a great business idea, it’s tempting to imagine all of the possibilities of where it might go, and try to add all of those things into your launch. But you should narrow your focus and costs by making your solution as effective as possible, without getting too elaborate or complicated.

Consider the minimum viable product, or MVP, often talked about in the tech sector. What’s the minimum you can offer and get the results you envision for the people you serve? Offer that first, and build upon it from there.

Once your company is up and running and you’ve got some income and customers, it will be much easier and affordable to add additional features.

Be passionate but self-aware

The most successful business ideas are ones that are near and dear to your heart. Focusing on something you’re passionate about will help keep you motivated to do whatever it takes to succeed.

However, just being passionate won’t guarantee success. It takes a certain mindset to endure the rigors of entrepreneurship, so unless you’re comfortable taking risks, learning from failure, and working harder than you ever have before, you might want to rethink things.

When things get challenging—and they definitely will—this mix of passion and fortitude will allow you to stay the course.

Know what it takes to LIFT your business right from the start

Starting a business involves setting up the correct legal, insurance, financial, and tax systems to support your goals and objectives.

You can begin with the MVP of legal, insurance, financial, and tax (LIFT) systems, but don’t go bare. At the very minimum, you need a legal entity (in the right state and of the right type), some basic agreements, and possibly a trademark. You also need basic insurance coverage, financial tracking and reporting systems, and tax planning.

You may be able to do some of this yourself, provided you’ve got the right guidance to make wise decisions. We offer exactly this kind of support with our LIFT Start-Up Sessions. Contact us to schedule one before starting your business—or if you’ve started a company but have yet to set up LIFT systems, or if you’re simply not sure they’ve been set up correctly.

We’ll make sure you’ve got the right LIFT foundation to support your vision and goals, so your startup has the best possible chances for both initial success and future growth.

We offer a complete spectrum of legal services for businesses and can help you make the wisest choices on how to deal with your business throughout life and in the event of your death. We also offer a LIFT Start-Up Session™ or a LIFT Audit for an ongoing business, which includes a review of all the legal, financial, and tax systems you need for your business. Call us today to schedule. Or, schedule online.

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mistakes to avoid
Business Planning

New Business Owner? Avoid These Common Startup Mistakes

The startup life can be exciting and for many the learning curve is huge. In the midst of growth and opportunity, many entrepreneurs make costly legal mistakes which can be easily avoided with the proper preparation. Here are some of the most common startup legal mistakes:

Not Drafting a Clear Founder Agreement

A crystal-clear agreement between co-founders before you start making a profit (or losses, as the case may be) will prevent financial misunderstandings about who gets what and when. Decide early on how profits will be distributed and losses made up to avoid much bigger conflict down the road. Use the “Agreement Process” (part of our LIFT Foundation System) to determine how you handle the hard issues, right up front, before you make big investments.

Starting as a Sole Proprietorship

Sole proprietorships are easy to set up but expose you to personal risk and potentially higher taxes. Consider an LLC or S-Corporation to protect your personal assets and possibly even reduce your tax burden.

Ignoring Securities Laws When Issuing Stock

They say it takes a village to raise a child. The same adage applies to startups. If you want to issue stock to those who’ve helped you along the way, heed all state and federal securities laws. Contact us before you issue any stock, so we can get you set up right.

Not Having Enough Employment Documentation

Every startup should have a set of comprehensive employment (or independent contractor) agreements in its arsenal. Avoid the high cost of resolving employee conflicts in court by making sure your policies and agreements are absolutely clear, and that you’ve properly categorized team members as either employees, or independent contractors. If you aren’t sure, contact us.

Neglecting IP Protections

Your intellectual property is an asset, and should be protected from day one. That means trademarks registered, and copyrights filed. If you aren’t sure what needs protecting, contact us to get an audit scheduled.

Failing to Develop a Tax Strategy

If you’re not making a lot of money, why worry about taxes, right? Think again. Work with a tax advisor to develop a tax strategy, and don’t wait until tax season to do so! We meet with our clients’ and their tax advisor at least annually in the Fall to begin identifying the tax opportunities that must be planned for well before year end.

Negligent Naming

Before you register your name or your domain, make sure there aren’t any trademarks or similarly named companies already using your name.

Not Having Clear User Agreements

Don’t launch your website without getting terms of use agreement and privacy policy in place and on your site. We can help with that too.

Perhaps the biggest legal mistake a startup can make is not having good legal counsel. Don’t wait until it’s too late to hire an attorney to help you avoid sticky situations. Having a trustworthy and experienced attorney in your ring from day one will help you start-up with the solid foundation you need for success.

Startups can be risky ventures, but with sound planning, you can beat the odds. If you want to avoid the costly legal mistakes many startups make, begin by sitting down with a Creative Business Lawyer®. As your Creative Business Lawyer®, we can establish a sound legal, insurance, financial, and tax system for your business so you can focus on running your growing startup.

We offer a complete spectrum of legal services for businesses and can help you make the wisest choices on how to deal with your business throughout life and in the event of your death. We also offer a LIFT Start-Up Session™ or a LIFT Audit for an ongoing business, which includes a review of all the legal, financial, and tax systems you need for your business. Call us today to schedule. Or, schedule online.

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