An Entrepreneur's Guide

As small business owners, we all know the importance of legal documents. Be it contracts, non-disclosure agreements or operating agreements. It is critical that we have these legal structures in place to maximize interest and maintain focus. Let us not forget, these documents are more of an insurance policy.
There would not be any need to enforce any of them unless the worst happens.

Like an insurance policy, it is extremely important to have these measures in place and active before work commences and before anyone feels incorrectly compensated and accusations made.

It is incredible how many small businesses I have seen over the last few years skip this important step with the idea that "we can always do that later". No, you cannot.
Just last week, a friend of a friend lost a lot in salary, percentage stake in the company and morale when his business partner reneged on all previous verbal deals. The reason the defending person has no legal leverage? They were getting the legal paperwork completed by next week. Next week is not good enough. This should have been completed the day you stepped foot into your new offices.

Legal advice is often expensive and the rule of thumb is that you never bargain with your attorney, your accountant and your dentist. However, it is interesting to note that many attorneys look favorably towards Small Business clients. This is their version of Venture Legal Service. Venture Legal Service is a type of Venture Service, not unlike Venture Capital.
However, unlike Venture Capital, Venture Services are not so much an infusion of cash but of time into the small business. Another important differentiating factor is that Venture Services look for future growth prospects of the small business as a future client, not a direct payback on their investment.

I was recently at an event where I had the chance to speak with Justin Escher Alpert, Esq. of OlenderFeldman LLP, based in Union NJ. He gave me tips on why would a successful Law firm suddenly give out inexpensive services to a Small Business.

Justin’s explanation was simple. If they take a small risk in profits with a Small Business client (which will not have big legal bills for a few years), they have the advantage of getting a foot in the door early on. When your Small Business does expand and is successful, you obviously want to keep your existing lawyers who understood your business and your needs from day one.

At that point, they do not break your bank on the price, but still offer extremely useful legal services at competitive rates. The initial discounts they gave your struggling company are a decent marketing expense that they were willing to expend.

I believe you should go ahead and ask your legal advisors how much risk are they willing to take on your small enterprise and how open they are giving you a more flexible payment plan when you need it most: In the first year of your company.
You might be pleasantly surprised.

Note:
OlenderFeldman is in no way affiliated with MindPillar LLC as of this posting. They are not a service provider or client as of this posting.

Even though outsource has a new connotation to it now, small companies have been faced with the decision of keeping work inhouse vs. outsourcing for a while.

This question can come up at any time, for example should you design your brochures or should you 'outsource' them? Or, should you manage my own payroll or 'outsource' it.

Of course, the general belief is that the you should focus on your core business and outsource everything else. However, this belief quickly comes to a halt as soon as you realise that you are spending $5000 designing a brochure and then some more fixing it up. opportunity cost however, is something which is tough to measure.

The solution ends up being different for every company. If you think you have the time [and the brains] to do your own payroll, then go ahead, save those dollars.

Did you know that legally, only a s-corp can write its name with out the words 'LLC', 'LLP' etc.

So what this means is that if your company's name is TheGreatestCompany and you are an LLC, then you can not print business cards as
TheGreatestCompany
144 California Ave,
Summerville, XY

You HAVE to (and I mean required by law) write
TheGreatestCompany LLC
144 California Ave,
Summerville, XY

When entrepreneurs decide to start their own companies, they are filled with excitement and of course, the 'knowledge' that they can do it better than anyone else.
Three years later, 40% of those still running a business believe that they were right. However, in retrospect, if they had been able to learn someone else's methods, they might have saved all those hours trying to understand and finding the best way of doing stupid tasks.

You see, it is not the major strategic decisions, but the small day to day ones that make the difference between a company that makes it beyond the first and third years.

This blog is to help all those entrepreneurs who are looking for simple answers for simple questions. As all blogs go, we will post our daily musings with these suggestions.

For those interested,
Apply for startup help at our VentureTechnology program:
http://mindpillar.com/venture_technology.php