STARTING A NEW BUSINESS: AVOID THESE COMMON MISTAKES By:Murray-Lobb, PLLC

Few activities in life are more challenging and exciting than starting a new business. So, if you’re determined to succeed, always accept advice from those who’ve been where you are now and know what often works best. Careful early planning can pay you back many times over later when your properly marketed goods and services motivate satisfied customers to tell others about your unique offerings.
By making the hard choices described below during your start-up phase, you can avoid many errors that often prevent hard-working people with great ideas from carving out a highly profitable niche in today’s marketplace.
The Key Early Decisions New Business Owners Must Make

• Choose your co-owners wisely. Always look beyond each person’s academic degrees and decide if their experience is strong enough to withstand the challenges of running a business. Clearly define each owner’s responsibilities and how you’ll regularly monitor each other’s performance. Consider requiring every major stakeholder to undergo professional personality testing so you’ll know if you can each offset the specific strengths and weaknesses of one another that high-stress situations often reveal.
• Fully track all money being spent and coming in. Be sure to hire a competent, in-house accountant. Agree in writing how all funding will be spent.
• Have your lawyers draft one or more standard form contracts that fully protect your company’s rights. They should be thorough, but not so burdensome or one-sided that customers will refuse to sign them.
• Meet early on with your trustworthy Houston business law attorneys. Carefully listen as they describe the various business structures that might best suit your company and the different tax consequences that accompany each one. Learn all you can about the state and federal employment laws and regulations you must follow. Ask for help drawing up your first employee handbook (spelling out all employee benefits) and decide if your employees should all sign “at-will” employment offer letters. Obtain advice on choosing the best available name for your company. Inquire about having everyone sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) protecting company secrets. And learn all you can about properly handling sexual harassment issues and claims of discrimination;
• Create a flexible business plan with reasonable goals. This should normally be drawn up after you’ve decided on your business structure (such as a “C” corporation or “LLC”) and created a written operating agreement that clearly defines all key partners’ general duties and responsibilities, financial contributions, and liabilities. Be sure everyone knows that added responsibilities may be added to each person’s assigned tasks as unexpected needs arise. You should also agree in writing whether you must obtain help through arbitration or mediation services when internal problems cannot be readily resolved;
• Hire the best employees you can afford. Just as you need to choose co-founders with proven records of making ethical business decisions, you also need highly flexible employees who are told up front that they may need to “wear many hats” as new duties must be assigned.
• Check out your competition ahead of time and properly fund adequate marketing of your goods and services. Never assume all your company’s offerings are completely unique. Fully handle all due diligence tasks in a timely manner so you can hopefully determine how your competitors have been successfully reaching the very customers you hope to win over. Be sure the market (or location) you’re targeting can handle all the current competition – and make adequate plans to distinguish your brand from all the others.

While the suggestions shared above should help you, always be ready to consult with others as you broaden your web of industry experts and colleagues. If you need to raise more capital for your business, keep in mind that it’s often wise to befriend employees at companies currently funded by the specific venture capitalists you hope to meet with in the future.
Always Place a High Value on Customer Feedback – Readily Making Changes as Needed
No matter how good your in-house experts may be, your customers can often offer you invaluable information about how you may need to periodically change specific products or services. You should also ask them for their ideas on how you might improve your marketing efforts. Consider offering fee discounts to current customers if they’ll undergo brief interviews about your company. You might also simply ask customers to complete brief online surveys about your products and services.
If you’ll meet regularly with your co-founders and openly discuss problems as soon as they arise, chances are your new business will succeed.

Posted in Avoiding Common Mistakes, Business, Business Formation, Caution
Tagged #avoidingmistakes, #commonmistakes, #employees, #employers, #houstonbusiness, #knowledgeispower, #murraylobbattorneys, #new, #startingout, #texaslaw, Business, Houston, HoustonLaw

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