As a small-medium business CEO, you’re forced to wear many hats. You have to handle sales, marketing, product or service development, building out operations, hiring and managing a team – the list goes on and on. Even though there’s a lot to handle, for most entrepreneurs these are the fun parts of the business and at least some of these tasks come naturally to you. In fact, that’s probably why you got into the business in the first place. You had a great idea for a product or service, the ability to sell the vision for the idea to your partners, investors and customers, and the drive to execute a business plan based on your vision.
And then there are those pesky issues that come up when you first meet with your lawyer or CPA. Did the right tax forms get completed? Is your corporate paperwork up to date? If you’ve already started your company, did you even set this legal stuff up properly in the first place? Do you have a financial accounting system in place? None of this strikes most of us as fun and even thinking about it is boring.
I too enjoy the strategy side of the business more than the nuts-and-bolts basics. I’d much rather be sitting in a meeting with a CEO and a white board, thinking through the various strategic decisions and game-theorying the options in front of us. It’s fun, engaging and creative – and one of my favorite parts about being a business lawyer.
And while those other boring items might seem a nuisance at first, not tackling them upfront creates unnecessary risk. In some cases, the risks can be catastrophic. These basic legal requirements are foundational, but you often don’t find out how shaky a poorly-laid foundation is until it’s too late. And, the main reason these risks aren’t addressed is almost always due to cost. Founders often think of these early legal and accounting costs as unnecessary when their precious cash could be better used working on product development or making their first hires. I get it.
To make things easier to conceptualize, I often say that instead of looking at it like you’re “paying a lawyer” or “paying a CPA”, it might be easier to think of it as an insurance payment: you are paying a reasonable and proportionate insurance premium to protect against catastrophic loss in the future.
This is the first of a series of blog posts outlining the basic legal requirements that need to be in place to de-risk your business. This list applies to both new start-ups as well as currently-operating growth stage businesses. If you haven’t put these steps in place yet, don’t wait. When it’s time to raise outside money, get a bank loan, or go through due diligence to try to sell your company, you’ll be left scrambling without this stuff in place and potentially scuttle your opportunities.
In the next post, we’ll start with a real-life story that perfectly illustrates the dangers to not de-risking your biz upfront.
De-Risk Your Biz: Minimum Small Business Legal Requirements
- Part 1: Introduction
- Part 2: Penny Wise & Pound Foolish – A True Story
- Part 3: Company Set-Up Basics
- Part 4: Minimum Company Set-Up Documentation Required
- Part 5: Finance Department – The Three-Headed Monster
- Part 6: Intellectual Property – The Four Buckets
- Part 7: Intellectual Property – Registration & Titling
- Part 8: Small Business Licensing & Insurance: Quick Overview
- Part 9: Wrap-Up