(612) 206-3701 info@lucerelegal.com

Three Must-Have Contracts for Every Business Owner with a New Idea

Lucere Legal helps small business owners protect their ideas

You have to be able to get your idea out into the world to be able to develop them into something you can monetize. Nonetheless, many entrepreneurs are afraid that if they talk about their idea, someone will steal it; so they keep it under wraps and don’t capitalize on it.

Here are three legal tools you can use to protect your ideas in development – with the oversight of an experienced business lawyer:

Non-disclosure agreement.  If you need to collaborate with another during development, like a manufacturer or distributor or vendor, you should require that they sign a non-disclosure agreement to protect confidentiality.

Non-compete agreement.  If you need to hire help to bring your idea to market (and odds are that you do), make sure that all employees and independent contractors sign a non-compete agreement before they start working for you to prevent them from leaving your company and taking your idea with them.

Work-for-hire agreement.  Anyone you hire for creative work, to help you refine or improve on your product or service, like web developers, designers or copywriters need to sign a work-for-hire agreement that clearly states that intellectual property rights belong to you.

The truth of the matter is that you must get your ideas out into the world for them to become reality. If you sit on your idea too long, someone else will also get that idea and beat you to the market.  So take the precautions to give you the comfort you need to take action.  We are here to help.

If you’re a small or mid-size business owner with a new idea and would love us to help you with these agreements and make sure that all of your intellectual property is poised for growth, call us at (612) 206-3701 or fill out our contact form today to schedule a business consultation session.

Image courtesy of jannoon028 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Contact us to see how we can help you with Business Agreements

You may also like . . .

Will Your Company Crumble for Words Left Unwritten?

“A verbal agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.” -Unknown If you are a parent, you probably have plenty of experience talking with your child about what they should or should not do, getting their assent, only to find the agreement cast to the wind mere...

The plain-English guide for Minnesota small business owners

When it comes to business, ignorance isn't bliss; ignorance is risk.

There's a handful of legal topics that business owners should be familiar with, at least on a rudimentary level, to reduce the risk of having something horrible come out of left field.

This book is a legal guide to help you put the most common business legal issues on your radar, with enough information for you to be on the alert for when you may need to get some professional advice.

The intention in arming you with this information is so that you can proceed in business confidently and with fewer legal quagmires.

Do you have a cabin?

The first generation that buys a cabin enjoys it to the fullest and it’s a magical place where happy memories are made and families go for some much needed respite. Unfortunately, without thoughtful planning, the chances of the cabin staying a place of happiness and tranquility into successive generations is very, very slim.

If you haven’t done the planning in advance and made it legally binding, the family members (and their ex-spouses and new spouses) will have to work every detail out for themselves. If they can’t, what is likely to happen is a lawsuit called an action for partition that forces everyone to sell their interest. This lawsuit is expensive, and the costs of litigation will come out of the proceeds of the sale of the cabin, so to add insult to injury to those who wanted to keep the cabin but couldn’t afford to buy the others out, they are footing part of the legal bills in the lawsuit against them. Ouch!

It’s no wonder that family members stop speaking for years after the cabin conflict is “resolved.” You can’t make family relationships perfect, but you can take away much of the fuel for the family conflict fire. That’s what cabin planning does, and it has the nice side effect of giving you peace of mind now.

That’s why Kimberly wrote The Minnesota Cabin Planning Guide and Workbook, and you can get a free electronic copy of her book on our cabin planning website, or you can find it in many county libraries in Minnesota, or you can get it on amazon.com.

Make An Appointment>

Join Our Mailing List

Subscribe to our newsletter list to get information and resources helpful to running your business and planning and managing your personal financial affairs delivered right to your inbox.

We don’t spam and won’t share your information with anyone, at anytime, ever.

Check out our podcast

The Small Business Buzz Podcast