Category: Startup Issues
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Virgin Money
I heard about Virgin Money last week and I finally got the chance to take a look around last night. Basically, Richard Branson’s Virgin US investment firm acquired a majority stake in CircleLending, a venture that helps manage loans between family and friends. In typical Virgin fashion, they re-branded CircleLending into a cheekier (their adjective,…
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How to Avoid Being Ripped Off When You Lease Office Space, Part II
This article is part II in a series about leasing office space. In part I, we discussed how a tenant’s representative can help–and hurt–your office space search. In part II, we’ll discuss some provisions to consider negotiating before your startup company signs a commercial office space lease. The following list is in no particular order…
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Fixed Fees: A Must Have When You Hire a Law Firm
Lawyers and their law firms are increasingly making fixed fee or “project pricing” available to their clients. This is especially true for startup company clients, as they typically have well-defined legal issues and needs. There are 3 main reasons why your startup company should have a fixed fee arrangement with your law firm instead of…
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Funding Your Buy-Sell Agreement For All Scenarios
Before you execute a buy-sell agreement, make sure that you have adequately funded it. To adequately fund your buy-sell agreement, take each event that would trigger your buy-sell agreement (death, disability, retirement, etc.) and ask yourself “If this event happened tomorrow, would there be enough available funds to purchase the shares?” The most common mistake…
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Getting Subpoenaed Does Not Make You a Target–Just Be Sure to Tell the Truth
As a former Securities and Exchange Commission legal clerk and a current Apple fanatic, the following story is of high interest: Steve Jobs subpoenaed in backdating case September 20 2007: 5:27 PM EDT SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been subpoenaed by the Securities and Exchange Commission to give a deposition…
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How to Make Sure Your Startup Company Will Fail
1. Don’t form an LLC or incorporate. Make sure you and your partner have all the personal liability legally possible. 2. Don’t have any difficult conversations with your partner. Leave important global issues with your partner unaddressed so that you can fight over them later when you have less time and more stress. 3. Agree…
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Why Good Communication with Your Partner is Essential from the Start
Today I’ll get right to it: You need to have good communication with your partner from the start or else you’ll fumble your initial corporate documents. For example, if a multiple-owner corporation’s bylaws are less than 7 pages, that tells me the corporation’s co-founders did not have enough discussion about how their corporation should be…
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Which Type of Entrepreneur are You?
CNNMONEY.com is running a series called “America’s Best Colleges For Entrepreneurs.” One of its feature articles is titled Is it smart to go to school for entrepreneurship? in which 9 entrepreneurs tell their story about how taking classes affected their businesses. The 9 different types of entrepreneurs profiled are: -The Professional -The Undergrad -The E-Learner…
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How to Know You Have Found a Great Startup Lawyer
A reader emailed me asking: How do I know I have found a great startup lawyer? And judging by this blog’s most frequent search keywords, you may be asking yourself that question, too.Evaluating your startup lawyer (or any lawyer for that matter) can be a difficult task because a lawyer’s work product tends to be…