Perhaps you are among those in Texas who have had a dream since childhood and are finally at a point in life when they can make it a reality. Then again, maybe you’ve only recently begun to think about starting your own company. Either way, the more you know about the three phases of business formation, the less chance you have of running into legal problems.
As you work your way through the early stage of a business startup and onto the growth stage and late stage, you’re likely to encounter challenges, which is fine. What you don’t want, however, is to hit a legal obstacle that impedes your ability to see your dream to fruition. If legal complications arise, it’s important to know where to seek support.
Domains, trademarks, copyrights and more affect business formation
In the early stages of launching a business from the ground up, there are numerous legal issues to resolve. As you develop your product, name your company, register it under a specific structure, create a website and more, you must make sure you are not infringing on someone’s intellectual property rights.
You’ll also want to be aware of the flip side of these issues. If you have registered a trademark for your business or purchased a domain, etc., and someone else is using it, you can take legal action to protect your interests.
The growth stage is where you obtain funding and expand your operations
Once you make it through the early stage of business formation, you can move forward to the venture-funded phase, otherwise known as “the growth stage.” By the time you reach this stage, you should have a working product. Your team should be almost or totally complete at this point. You have investors on board and are ready to proceed to the final stage of building a business, which is the late stage.
The late stage of a startup is all about performance
When your team is in place, the product is working, investors are on board and all the kinks of your startup have been ironed out, you’re ready for the final stage, which is when you put your full-scale business plan into action. Prior to this stage, it was about ideas, plans, legal steps and lining up all your ducks in a row. Now, it’s time to show the world what your business can do.
No two business formation plans are exactly alike. One company might spend several months in each phase. For others, the stages can last for years. If legal complications arise at any part of the journey, support is available and can be the key to a swift and economically feasible solution.