Yesterday the United States Supreme Court upheld, in a 5-4 decision, the constitutionality of the individual mandate under the Affordable Care Act. I am no expert on the act and I have not had time to closely review the decision. Consequently, I suggest you do what I am doing and go read some of the
Veterans Moving Toward Franchises?
I read an interesting article from Entrepreneur Magazine entitled Back to Civilian Life, Veterans Try Franchises. The article discusses how a former fighter pilot purchased a franchise after retiring from the U.S. Air Force.
A couple of months ago I spoke at the Iowa Veterans Career Retreat. Many of those in attendance were looking
Business Partnerships Always End
Mike Colwell of the BIZ recently wrote an excellent post on IowaBiz titled Partnerships a Guaranteed Divorce. Mike explains in his post that wise business people will always plan for the divorce. The end is inevitable, whether it’s due to death, retirement, disagreement or other reasons.
Mike also linked to my recent seminar on
Corporation, S Corporation or LLC? What to Choose for Your Business?
The Boulder Business Advisor has a general overview of the three main types of business structures and the factors that go into making a decision about which entity to choose for your startup business.
It’s important to get tax advice when deciding what entity is best for you. Another critical question, as mentioned in
Contract Negotiations: Find the Person that Wants the Deal
I was busy reading an article on Why Lawyers Don’t Run Startups (And Why Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers) when I ran across a terrific lesson learned from the article’s author, Steve Blank.
In every company that gives you a contract there’s someone who wants a deal. When you run into contract issues, call them first
Employee Wage Misclassification Should Be Taken Seriously
Last December I wrote about how an employee wage misclassification case cost Oracle $35 million. The question about whether an employee is exempt v. non-exempt is often misunderstood by employers. Often, employers want to avoid paying overtime to employees. So employers will play a game of Russian roulette by paying those workers a salary instead
Business Succession Planning Seminar
Over the years I’ve noticed that very few businesses actually plan for selling or passing on their business to employees or family. It’s one of the most important things any business owner can do.
I’ve teamed up with business coach Monte Wyatt to provide a free seminar to business owners on business succession planning. The
Copyright Infringement: What do I do if Someone Copies My Website
* This is a guest post from Aaron Hall. Aaron is a Minnesota business lawyer that handles intellectual property matters. See his information below.
Someone is copying my website. What are my options?
Illegally copying websites is a big problem as the internet grows. Illegal copies of your website may be made by competitors, spammy
Business Innovation Zone: Raising Capital Seminar
The Business Innovation Zone (BIZ) is holding its annual Raising Capital seminar at StartupCity Des Moines on March 27 starting at 9:00 a.m. Raising capital for your business is complex and often time consuming. This is a great seminar to get you started.
There are several lawyers, accountants and business people presenting including Ben Milne
Franchisees: Be Careful to Include Corporate Entity on Contracts
A common thing I see from franchisees is that they include only the name of the franchisor in contracts as opposed to including the corporate or limited liability company name of THEIR franchisee business. Most of the time the names are different. For example, if I own a "Subway" franchise but my corporate name is "Rush Nigut Enterprises, Inc.", I