Business Launch

During the early stages of a start-up, we understand that funds can be tight, and your ability to hire employees or pay contractors may be near impossible. To assist you in growing the company, you may have a friend or relative who offers to help you out by providing their business experience or helping to develop your product out of the goodness of their heart. While you may want to jump at this offer of free labour, it is important to understand the potential implications of allowing someone to provide “free” services to your company. Contractor vs. Employee Considerations A commonly held misbelief among start-ups is that by merely designating a person as an “independent contractor,” the person cannot be an employee.  The start-up is therefore not required to pay at least minimum wage, collect income tax, CPP or EI deductions or give the person notice of termination. While this may be your intention, it is easy for the relationship between the parties to change into an emp...

Understand why insurance combined with carefully drafted shareholder agreement clauses are powerful tools for helping protect the value your businesses. Most of the entrepreneurs that we meet are generally optimistic about their businesses’ prospects.  The majority of their time and resources are spent working towards the future success of their business.  Most businesses are required to carry general commercial liability insurance by their landlords or other third parties, and in some cases business interruption insurance.  However, it is very common for entrepreneurs to believe the benefits of obtaining other types of insurance to protect against events that  will “never happen” to them or their co-founders is vastly outweighed by the costs of planning, obtaining and maintaining such insurance.  Unfortunately death, disability or liability may arrive at some point for any entrepreneur regardless of age and experience.  Having the appropriate type...

Got your .com/.ca domain?   Before proceeding with building a new brand, smart entrepreneurs will conduct a thorough clearance search to determine what limitations, if any, exist on the use of the key elements in their new brand starting with their proposed trademarks. The main purpose of a clearance search is to determine whether a proposed trademark is available for use. In addition, the search will also help determine whether the owner of the proposed trademark is legally entitled to become the exclusive user. A good clearance search will uncover similar trademarks already in use, which could impose limits on the scope of the goods and services that the proposed trademark can be used in association with. Entrepreneurs should strongly consider selecting an alternative trademark if the results of the clearance search indicate that a large number of similar trademarks are already in use. At a minimum, the clearance search should include a search of the Canadian Trademark ...