In an earlier article, we gave some tips on how to find a good lawyer to help you set up your new business. But you don’t always need a lawyer’s help. If you’re the only owner, you can start an LLC or corporation by using an online business formation service.… Read More »How to Start an LLC or Corporation Yourself
Most businesses start with an idea. It can be an idea on how to make a better chocolate chip cookie or an idea on how to make a flying car. To protect this idea from your competitors, you’ll need the help of an intellectual property lawyer. Finding a good intellectual… Read More »How to Find a Good Intellectual Property Lawyer
Starting a new business is hard work. It’s full of research, and, if you’ve made it this far into our blog, you’ve done your share already. So far, you’ve looked at the viability of your business idea, thought through what type of business entity you want to operate as, and… Read More »Finding the Right Lawyer for Your Small Business
There’s a saying: There are too many lawyers but not enough good ones. So how do you find a good lawyer? Sadly, not even lawyers know the secret to finding a good lawyer. Lawyers who work in a certain specialty might know good lawyers and bad lawyers in the same… Read More »How to Find a Good Lawyer
If you’re the only owner of your business—whether as a sole proprietor, as a single-member LLC, or as the sole shareholder of a corporation—from time to time, you’ll probably find yourself making a personal loan to your business. You don’t really think of it as a loan, though. Because you’re… Read More »The Right Way to Make a Personal Loan to Your Business
Before we go further, I want to take a detour and talk about a mistake often made by sole owners of businesses. The mistake can have serious consequences but is easy to avoid. You just have to do a few things early and make a habit of it for the… Read More »Avoid This Common Mistake When Funding Your Business
Most people want a unique name for their new business. It’s good for marketing. Not only that, when you file an assumed name certificate, set up your LLC, or form a corporation, the state agency will check if another business is already using the same name. So, you need to… Read More »How to Check if Your Business Name is Taken: The Trademark Clearance Search
I bet, by now, you’ve been obsessing over what to call your new business. After all, having the perfect business name is important, right? That’s OK. We all do it. You might even have landed on one or two names you really like and are wondering when you can officially… Read More »How to Find the Right Name for Your New Business
Some people just know how to pick a great business name. Others, like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, settled on Apple only because they couldn’t come up with anything better. So, if you’ve been obsessing about what to call your new business and haven’t been able to decide, you’re not… Read More »How to Pick a Great Business Name: Marketing & Trademark Tips
I recently wrote about the concept of limitation of liability for LLCs and corporations. In those articles, I defined the concept in a general way. For those of you who are very new to business ownership, let me explain the concept in a more concrete way. It always helps when… Read More »What Does Limitation of Liability Really Mean?
