Entering into a new business ventures require a lot of legal obligation that entrepreneurs are required to fulfil. To start with, figure out the base model of your business and the industry it will be categorized in. This will help you understand how you can run your business and at the same time protect it from customers and competitors.
Start-up businesses mostly create an impression of college students working out on a great idea, close to how Mark Zukerberg built Facebook. A start up doesn’t necessarily have to be a big invention, a great app idea or a first-in-the-world software, it can be anything that is currently trending or something that the world has been following for years. We have all seen movies and that is one reason why we all romanticise a new business venture as a creation of something that the world has never seen. This idea may work a great deal as a motivational factor.
Let’s look from the perspective of an artist who wants to open a gallery or a clothing designer who is looking to open his/her clothing label. Every single individual who is planning to kick start their new business venture, irrespective of the nature of their work, is entitled to call themselves as start-ups.
The gradual advancement of technology has been a blessing to all of us, acquainting us with the basics of legal formalities that we must follow while laying the foundation of our new business venture. However, if you are planning on legally forming a company of your own, there some basic rules that only professionals can help you with. If you are based in Cork, you can always reach out to the Best Solicitor in Cork for expert legal advice.
In this blog, we will majorly focus on four legal issue that most new business owners face while setting up their new venture.
Creation of privacy policy
Most normally, “Privacy Policy” and “Terms of Use” are documents that we all know exist but never really go through the pain of reading. The truth is that these documents can guard your business from unexpected trouble, most likely when a third party threatens to sue you. It is important to form the strongest policy possible while forming the privacy
policy for your company and also involve a legal body in the process.
Make sure you don’t copy these policies from another organisation, the nature of services they offer can be the same but it is quite possible that their policy in not very well framed. Think of the services that you will providing to your customers and the data you will be collecting from your customers. Additionally, contemplate situations when your customers can threaten you over the use of your products or services. These policies should also cover the liability that you hold towards your customers if they have suffered due to using your products. These are just the basic points that should be included in a Private Policy or Terms & Conditions.
Agreement with contractual employees
Like many businesses, you may also require to hire people on contractual basis, especially if you can’t afford to employee someone on permanent basis. Getting someone to work for you on a part time basis in no way means that you don’t have define the terms on which they will be working. To simplify things for future, prepare a dummy contract that your part time employees can sign when they start working with you.
This agreement can mostly talk about the responsibilities that the contractors will be taking while they work for you. In any way, if contractors does harm to the reputation of your business, what will be the legal consequences that they will be facing. Make sure you cover the fee they will charge you and the number of hours they will be working for you, every day. Most importantly, don’t forget to mention the intellectual property right for the work they do for your business. While we all agree that part time employees can’t be as loyal to your business as full time employees are, they should still be working closely with you for the benefit of your business.
Contract with full time employees
Hiring a team of people is not easy as it sounds. Most countries in the world have stringent laws to protect the interest of employees, especially if you haven’t protected your business through an employee contract. Some countries make it mandatory for organisations who have more than 20 female employees to set appoint a dedicated personnel who they report a sexual harassment problem too.
Besides, the agreement should cover the designation of the employee, their payroll, the number of hours they will be required to work every day and the number of leaves they will be entitled to. A signed copy of the agreement that also protects your intellectual property rights, expected behaviour from the employees, terms of severance, drug and alcohol usage during office hours and confidentiality terms should all be included. You can also issue an employee handbook to your staff members that can lay down all the guidelines that they are expected to follow.
Appoint the best solicitor
Start-ups normally try to avoid hiring a legal body to cut down expenses as much as possible. Also, some of these new ventures believe that they will never need legal advice to run their business, especially in the initial years. This strategy, however, can cost you dearly. The consequences of not hiring a legal firm for your new business can be more expensive than you ever imagined.
Working with a professional legal body has its own advantages, you can form a perfect policy, employee agreements and terms and conditions. You can also keep away from litigation if you a legal firm is protecting you. In case you are accused of some serious charges, you can fight them back if you have strong privacy policies, documents supporting your terms and conditions, contract for both part time and full time employees, which can only be formed during the initial years. If you are based in Cork, the best thing to do is get in touch with Top Law Firms in Cork.
Starting a new venture can be both exciting and exhaustive. While we understand that laying down the core operations is more important for your business to sustain, make sure your business doesn’t suffer losses because of unexpected charges. Always take help of professional by reaching out to a best solicitor or a law firm.