by Brian McKay
When you’re first starting a new business, you’re probably focused on all of the exciting parts like designing a new product and coming up with great marketing campaigns. But unfortunately, business isn’t all fun and games and there are a lot of boring things that you have to deal with, especially the legal aspects. This is one of the things that new business owners struggle the most with because they aren’t prepared for just how many legal issues that they’re going to have to deal with. If you aren’t ready to face those legal issues, you might find yourself on the wrong side of the law and that’s bad news for your business. If you’re about to start your own business, these are the legal issues that you need to be prepared for.
Establishing The Business
Before you can even call yourself a business, you need to get over some legal hurdles. Most people think that they know how to start a business, they wouldn’t be doing it otherwise, but when it comes down to all of the legal paperwork they get a bit stuck. There’s a difference between knowing how to market a product and manage a team and knowing how to actually register yourself as a company and deal with all of the legal paperwork that goes alongside that. It can be tricky but there are companies out there that will deal with all of that for you. You don’t want to make any mistakes here so it may be a worthwhile investment having somebody else deal with that for you.
Copyright Issues
Hopefully, you’re starting a business because you’ve got an amazing product idea. If that’s the case, you want to make sure that nobody else can take that idea and make it for themselves, which is why copyright and patent law is so important for new businesses. You need to take out a patent on your new product idea right away so nobody can recreate it. Copyrighting your business name is vital as well, otherwise, another company could use it and piggyback on your success in the future. When it comes to choosing a business name in the first place, always make sure that nobody else has a copyright on it. If you start trading under a name that somebody else already owns the rights to, you’ll find yourself on the receiving end of an expensive lawsuit.
Employment Law
When the business starts doing well and there is too much work for you to handle on your own, it’s time to start hiring your first employees. It’s an exciting time that marks the start of a new chapter for your business, but there are also a lot of tricky legal issues to contend with. Employment law can get very complicated and there are a lot of strict guidelines about your hiring process, how much you must pay employees, what their working conditions should be like, and how many hours they can work. Penalties for breaking employment law can be very strict so make sure that you understand your obligations before you start hiring people.
These legal hurdles cause a lot of trouble for new business owners but you should be able to tackle them easily as long as you are prepared for them beforehand.
