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Legal , Insurance & Compliance
251 posts
When Do You Need Business Insurance?
A few weeks ago, I bought a new car. It was a stressful experience because of the shortage of vehicles at dealerships across the country. Incredibly, I was able to work out a sale price my wife and I were comfortable with, but we still purchased the car in a seller’s market. Worse, unlike homes...
10 Tips for Landing a Product Licensing Deal
When you’ve got a great idea for a product, there’s an important decision to make right up front: Do you want to build a brand new company from the ground up in order to commercialize the product, or do you sign a product licensing deal with a preexisting company that already has the resources in...
An SOC 2 Audit: Why Your Business Should Get One
Information security is more important than ever, and part of that includes conducting SOC 2 audits. SOC 2 stands for System and Organization Control 2 report. Simply put, an SOC 2 report is designed to instill confidence in business owners and stakeholders by proving that all operations are happening in a secure manner. However, there's...
5 Ways to Grow Your Startup Using the Power of Negotiation
Negotiation is one of the fundamental parts of staring your own business. Everything from acquiring a business loan to clinching deals with new clients and settling prices with suppliers will take an element of bargaining and compromise. For some, this type of haggling comes as second nature; but for others, the mere thought of business...
Think Intellectual Property First to Protect Your Brand From Competition
The following is excerpted from “Brand Tuned” by Shireen Smith (Practical Inspiration Publishing, September 2021) with permission. Think IP first! In chapter 3, we became familiar with the concept of IP, and in chapter 2 we had a short introduction to the problems that can arise from ignoring IP in your branding process. In...
The Top 5 Accounting Mistakes Startups Make
Our team has worked with hundreds of startups, and year after year we inevitably come across the same common issues around financial reporting. There are remedies for these accounting mistakes, but it’s crucial to flag them as soon as possible, ideally before a startup begins a seed round or approaches any major growth. One of...
Workplace Safety: Conduct a Workplace Risk Assessment
A complete workplace risk assessment is critical to protect your employees and your business. Be proactive in identifying risks before you are forced to because of liability. A thorough inspection of the work environment, equipment and systems must be done to determine potential hazards and to implement safety systems. Often, this inspection is timed to...
What Every Business Needs to Know About Intellectual Property Rights
Intellectual property (IP) – intangible creations such as inventions, ideas and processes – covers some of the most valuable aspects of a business, yet many treat it as an afterthought. While IP law can be complex, confusing and overwhelming, it’s important to have an understanding of your rights, and luckily, the basics are fairly simple....
Employer Guides: Vaccine Policies in the Workplace
Lately the topic of vaccines in the workplace, specifically what employers can do, has been a popular point of discussion, and now with the new executive order in place regarding COVID-19 vaccinations, employers are wondering how they can implement a vaccine policy in their workplace. There are many factors that come into play when implementing...
Ask the Experts on StartupNation Radio: Michael Spath on Cyber Insurance
On this week's episode of StartupNation Radio, Jeff speaks with Michael Spath of Kapnick Insurance Group about cyber insurance. Tune in to the StartupNation Radio show with Michael Spath below: Michael, a client executive for Michigan-based Kapnick Insurance Group, is a full-service insurance brokerage. He is StartupNation's insurance expert. During the episode, Michael discusses: The...
6 Types of Business Insurance That Protect Small Businesses
Why do small businesses need insurance? The answer is protection. The right insurance coverage helps protect your business and acts as a safeguard against potential risks and losses across a wide range of scenarios including bodily injuries and property damage. How do you know which insurance policies your business needs? Generally, coverage tends to vary...
Doing the Data Dance: Why Data Protection is Paramount to Your Business
You are setting up your business and have a million problems to worry about. Languishing toward the bottom of your painfully long to-do list are the words "privacy policy for website." You plan to find a precedent online at some point and use that for now. After all, nobody actually reads privacy policies, right? Data...
Trade Secrets or Patents: Which Should You Choose?
Most businesses need to continuously innovate to stay relevant in the marketplace. With such intense focus on innovation, businesses naturally seek to patent their inventions to avoid infringement by other parties. But there’s an alternative: trade secrets. Getting a patent is a very time-consuming and costly process. In niches such as tech, where first mover...
How Biden’s COVID-19 Vaccine Requirement Impacts Your Business
The Biden administration issued new executive orders on Sept. 9 regarding the requirement of COVID-19 vaccines. The most pertinent order requires COVID-19 vaccines for federal contractors and private employers with more than 100 employees. The order addresses the many accessibility issues workers face when seeking the vaccine or testing and asks the Occupational Safety and...
Errors and Omissions Coverage Is A Must for Technology Businesses
In early September, I attended the Ann Arbor New Tech showcase. This event featured several startups in the technology sector, ranging from software programming to app development. After three presentations, I offered a two-minute spiel on business insurance, how to procure it for new enterprises and the potential coverages needed to secure a business’ financial...
The 7 Benefits of Forming a Corporation
Whether you are just starting your business or you have already been operating as a sole proprietorship or general partnership, you may be wondering about the benefits of forming your business as a corporation. Often, business owners think that incorporation is too costly or too time-consuming, and neither is the case. The benefits entrepreneurs gain...
Ask the Experts on StartupNation Radio: Michael Spath on the Insurance You Need for Storm Coverage
On this week's episode of StartupNation Radio, Jeff speaks with Michael Spath of Kapnick Insurance Group about the importance of having the right insurance -- and enough of it -- to cover storm damage. Tune in to the StartupNation Radio show with Michael Spath below: Michael, a client executive for Michigan-based Kapnick Insurance Group, is...
Protecting Your Projects: Beat Copycats and Intellectual Property Pirates
Copycats are thieves, not just in the literal sense but also figuratively when they steal another person’s work and present it as their own. You have put a lot of time, effort and your own money into designing and manufacturing a product, or creating your teaching or coaching course. You hope that it will become...
A Summer Of Storms In Michigan Has Made Business Income Interruption Insurance A Must
In early August, on one particular Wednesday, thunderstorms raged through southeast Michigan for hours – I remember well because our 1.5-year-old was awoken by every loud rumble of thunder – leaving more than 900,000 DTE Energy customers without power, according to the Detroit Free Press. Many of those customers went days without electricity in their...
Raising Capital for Your Startup: Top Legal Considerations to Know
It’s an issue every entrepreneur and new business must face: raising capital for your business. Even though you may start your business with your own nest egg or your company may be able to operate for a while on its own revenues, at some point, you’re likely to need outside funding to grow. While capital...