Why the Legal Set-up Matters Early
What goes wrong when founders leave the legal set-up until later, and what this course covers.
8 min
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Most founders start with a product idea and a first customer. The legal side feels like paperwork that can wait. Often it cannot. Many of the most expensive problems in a young business come from legal choices made quickly, or not made at all, in the first months.
This course is for founders and small-business owners who are starting a company, or who started trading informally and now want to put the business on a proper footing. It explains, in plain words, the main legal choices a founder makes:
- which business form to use, such as a sole trader, a partnership or a limited liability company;
- how to register the company and its name, and which founding documents it needs;
- which permits and licences the business may need, and the duties that start once it trades: a bank account, records, filings and the first employee;
- how to own and protect the business's intellectual property (IP): its brand, its content, its inventions and its know-how.
Four problems that start in the first months
Cheap now, expensive later
Most of these problems are cheap to prevent and expensive to fix. Checking a name costs an hour. Rebranding a shop costs months of work. A one-page agreement with a freelancer costs little. Buying back the rights to your own software, after the business has grown, can cost a great deal.
The goal is not to spend heavily on lawyers before you have a customer. The goal is to make each legal choice on purpose, at the right time, and to know which choices need professional help. The last module covers when to pay for a lawyer.
A founder has traded informally in her own name for a year. A customer now claims damages. Why is she personally at risk?
Where does your business stand today?
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