General Legal Issues
Articles that discuss legal issues that don’t fall into other categories.
17 MayFive Fun Friday Facts about Privacy Policies
For your Friday morning, here are five facts about privacy policies that you may not have already known: 1) Privacy policies might not be necessary — Technically, not every website or online business needs a privacy policy. With certain industry exceptions (discussed below), a website needs to have a privacy policy only if it actually [...]
Read More ...07 MayStarting up a Franchise
Franchises are a big, though perhaps sometimes overlooked, type of start-up business. However, whether you are the franchisee, or a small company looking to scale as a franchisor, there are important considerations to keep in mind when starting up a franchise. First, both parties will obviously want to check the financial health of the other. [...]
Read More ...16 AprDoing a Startup Weekend or Hackathon Type Event? You May Want to Write a Collaboration Agreement
When teams of entrepreneurs come together for Startup Weekend- or hackathon-type events, they may only be coming together to work on the project for the experience, or some or all of the team members conclude that the project isn’t a viable business. But sometimes projects from such weekend events do end up blossoming into full-fledged [...]
Read More ...12 AprStartup Stock Value
Startup stock value is an important issue to be mindful of, particularly when it comes to taxes. If someone receives stock for less than its fair market value, they receive a taxable gain. Therefore, when issuing common stock, whether it be the initial purchase by the founders during incorporation, or even with employee equity compensation, [...]
Read More ...09 AprPrivacy Issues of Big Data
Big data has become a big business, but it also raises some big privacy concerns. First, big data often tries to avoid privacy issues through aggregation and anonymization of the data they collect — that is, they try to construe the data such that an individual’s data set cannot be linked or traced back to [...]
Read More ...15 MarBring-Your-Own-Device Policies
Startups, particularly in the early stages, often can’t afford to outfit their employees with computers, tablets, and smartphones, and so have their employees simply use their personal computers, tables, and smartphones. In such a case, it is imperative to have a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy, since employees will be storing all the company data their work [...]
Read More ...12 MarContests and Sweepstakes
Your startup may run a contest or a sweepstakes in order to generate buzz and brand awareness for your company. But there are a couple of issues to be cognizant of when designing your contest or sweepstakes in order to comply with rules and regulations and ensure that it is not actually an illegal lottery. [...]
Read More ...05 MarEmployee Stock Options and Acquisition
Acquisition is the end result for many successful startups, so one of the questions that comes up is what to do with outstanding employee stock options. There are a couple of factors that go into determining what an employee’s options are as to his os her options in the event of an acquisition. The first [...]
Read More ...01 MarLetters of Intent
Letters of intent are documents that parties in negotiation use to begin to put down the details and parameters of their proposed relationship without actually fully binding the parties. Letters of intent also come in different varieties such as memoranda of understanding, and in the startup space, term sheets. However, there are some issues to [...]
Read More ...15 FebIs Startup Act 3.0 the Right Path?
High-skilled immigration is becoming an important topic for American business, so much so that President Obama devoted time during this week’s State of the Union to discussing the issue. The topic is particular important for the startup community, who want to tap into foreign high-skill talent, particularly the tens of thousands of non-citizens who graduate [...]
Read More ...