As this year draws to a close, it’s time to ensure you have the legal strategies and practices in place now (or a plan to put them in place in the near future) so you can reach your 2025 growth goals.
A smart plan looks at the full picture of where you are now and outlines a roadmap to get to exactly where you want to be in the future. As your business grows and scales, making sure you have the correct legal structures in place from the beginning saves you from having to start over or being held back.
Read on to see what we recommend thinking about and implementing today to guarantee your best year yet in 2025.
Strong legal business foundations start with an audit
You can’t fix something unless you know it’s broken or missing. That’s why we always recommend starting with a legal audit to get the full landscape of your existing legal strategy, identify gaps that exist, and make a plan to fill in what’s missing over the course of the next few months based on your goals and plans.
We complete a legal audit each year with our Fractional General Counsel clients so we can scope out what’s working and make specific plans to add in protections or change up how things are structured to support their next stage of growth. It’s a comprehensive service that gives us a clear starting position and clearly outlines the custom services they will need in our work together.
Starting with an audit is the best way to understand how your business is currently operating and what needs to be changed, introduced, or removed in order for your business to meet your growth goals in the new year.
Protecting your IP
As you grow, your intellectual property becomes even more valuable.
Every business needs to protect their main IP, but if you’re in a business where scaling is dependent on your intellectual property – like technology, training, coaching, media, or consumer goods – it’s even more critical that everything you create and use (or plan to use) is protected from IP theft.
Legal steps we recommend taking to protect your Intellectual Property:
Complete a trademark search to make sure your business name, tagline, logo, and main products or services are unique and able to be trademarked.
Conduct a thorough overview of your existing intellectual property to ensure that you own what you think you own.
Protect your business with relevant trademark and copyright applications.
Monitor your IP with alerts for unauthorized use or theft by competitors.
Are partnership agreements part of your business foundations?
When you’re starting a business, you often do most of the work on your own.
But as you scale, partnerships are often a viable (or required) way to grow your business and reach new revenue goals. There are many benefits to entering into a partnership agreement, but this is one area that you absolutely must ensure is legally structured and protected before you ever sign an agreement or begin working together.
Every partnership requires clear parameters and expectations, defined roles, and a pre-determined process for resolving disputes. It may seem like a “perfect” partnership, but don’t let the initial excitement get in the way of proper legal planning.
Some things to think about when forming a partnership:
Who will fill each role? What is each role specifically responsible for?
What is the financial agreement? How will you share profits or otherwise be compensated?
Do you have any initial strategic partners in mind?
What type of agreements will you need to have legally drafted?
How will you plan for changes in leadership or roles within the partnership?
Creating a scalable foundation
The way your business is structured has a massive impact on how you can grow and scale now and into the future.
When planning for 2025, it’s important to make sure your business structure will not only support your growth, but that it will allow you to grow in the ways you plan to. Your business structure influences your taxes, liabilities, and ability to appeal to investors and key partners.
The most common business structures are:
LLC: An LLC gives you a lot of flexibility, but it might not be the best choice if you plan to take your company public or raise capital.
Corporation: Many start-ups and small organizations operate as closely-held corporations and make an S-Corp tax election because it offers major tax benefits to the owners - but this structure will limit your options for working with investors. Operating as a C-Corp usually involves extra taxes, but it might be time to make the leap if you want to go public or bring in large investors.
We work with our clients to plan for the future and make sure your business structure not only offers the benefits you want, but also enables you to grow and scale to plan. The good news is that your business structure isn't set in stone and can be changes as your business grows.
Creating strong business foundations now helps you future-proof your business
Our goal is to always help our clients avoid unwanted “surprises” or interruptions to their business growth.
A huge part of the legal work we do is anticipating the near future, based on your goals and priorities, and ensuring that you’re protected and ready to move forward with confidence and ease.
We’re pros at considering issues like supply chain, tech upgrades, hiring needs, and more to create a custom roadmap that’s designed to help you navigate potential problems before they even arise.
One key to successful growth is having a consistent legal partner who is there with you to make the big plans and sticks around to monitor how things are working and make changes and shifts as needed throughout the year.
That’s why we offer Fractional General Counsel services – giving you the opportunity to have a consistent legal partner without the expense of in-house general counsel.
If you want to future-proof your business and ensure you have all the legal protections and structures in place to reach your 2025 growth goals, we would love to help you!
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