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Are you an entrepreneur? There are obstacles you must be aware of 

 

As an entrepreneur, there are common obstacles you must be aware of and prepared for, in order to implement smart mechanisms that support growth, and that will help you to build a healthy company and succeed.

 

As an example, a known obstacle is to fall in love with your product without willing to adapt it to the market.

YouTube was initially formed as a platform for video dating. The founders understood that people are only looking for a platform to share music videos, changed the product and the rest is history.

 

In the legal side, there are many obstacles which if known in advance, will help you to prepare and implement mechanisms that will assist you to grow and avoid or overcome them.

 

A few examples are below:

 

Founders Agreement. Two entrepreneurs who are childhood friends, decided to set up a startup. They were so enthusiastic to move forward and in light of their excellent and long-time friendship, they decided not to sign a founder's agreement first.

The result- in their first main dispute, they got stuck in a big disagreement, froze and the startup failed.

A good founder's agreement sets properly the expectations of the parties, and includes, amongst other things, smart mechanisms that help in similar cases.

 

Agreements with customers. An entrepreneur developed a brilliant technology in the field of public health. Samsung and Apple are competing to win a contract with the entrepreneur, for distributing its technology, and Apple wins. An agreement was signed with Apple, but the entrepreneur failed to notice that the intellectual property rights in the technology transferred to Apple.

The result-the technology does no longer belong to the entrepreneur, and it cannot distribute it without Apple's confirmation.

A good agreement would have enabled the deal to move forward, while keeping the intellectual property rights with the entrepreneur.

 

Agreements with consultants. Three entrepreneurs initiated a startup. They did not have free capital at the beginning, and so they engaged with a technological genius in a simple consultancy agreement, which sets the deliverables it is supposed to develop and the compensation.

The agreement however, did not set a mechanism which transfers the entire intellectual property rights to the company.  

The result- the intellectual property rights remained with the consultant, who blackmailed the company and demanded a very high sum to transfer the rights to the company. The startup failed, due to the lack of available funds demanded by the consultant.

A good agreement would have ensured, that all intellectual property rights would have been transferred on time to the company, and would have prevented the company from being blackmailed by the consultant.

 

Initial Funding. Following a few failures to raise money from VCs and banks, two entrepreneurs decided to address the Innovation Authority, and received their initial investment. The venture was very successful, and three years later Amazon entered into negotiations with the entrepreneurs to acquire the company.

Unfortunately, the entrepreneurs did not know that there are some restrictions and conditions for transferring intellectual property rights developed under the funding of the Innovation Authority.

The result- a nasty surprise rose during the negotiations, and the deal failed because of it.

An advanced legal check of the funding conditions would have made this point clear to the entrepreneurs right at the beginning and would have helped them to plan and prepare better for the deal.

 

There are many additional obstacles, which must be known in advance in order to prepare and overcome them on time and succeed.

Contact us today, and we will check how to support you in succeeding and overcoming obstacles which you may not even be aware of.

Contact us to find out

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