Growing startups often reach a point at which fundraising is either necessary to continue the growth of the business, or appealing for other reasons. If you are considering taking on investment funds for your startup, there are several basic considerations you should keep in mind. This post covers two aspects that may often be overlooked by founders, causing potentially significant issues for your business and fundraising in later stages.  

You're thinking of starting a business. You might have researched the requirements for legally forming a business in your state, which usually means filing certain documents with the secretary of state. Is this all you need to do? Are there any additional documents or agreements you should have in place? While your state may not require additional documents be filed, many companies will want to create additional internal documents governing the company, perhaps for the reasons described in this post.

Common formation documents include bylaws or an operating agreement, depending on the type of entity you filed; resolutions confirming your officers and/or board members, and setting forth the ownership of your company, if there are multiple owners or members; and certain agreements for founders, depending on your business, which may include intellectual property transfer agreements, or vesting agreements for the founders' equity.

Gutwein Law exists for one reason – to help some of the best, most forward‐thinking businesses in the world and their stakeholders grow through high‐level legal counsel. Gutwein Law knows that we can only help grow companies and their stakeholders if we have the most forward-thinking, business-minded legal talent, so we continuously invest in the development of our people.

That’s it – our mission statement. It may sound straightforward, but a lot goes into making it a reality, especially behind-the-scenes. We make it a habit to continually invest in our people, so they can focus on providing the best possible service to our clients. Here are some ways we do just that:

Keeping track of employee documentation can be tedious, but it’s necessary and
especially helpful in the event of an employee-related issue. The big question is: what
kinds of documentation do you need to file away? In comes our personnel file checklist.
Below we’ve outlined our recommendations for what documents you should keep in
personnel files and those you should keep separately. If you have any questions, please
give us a call at 765.423.7900.

Choosing the employment policies that are right for your company is a big deal. Things like dress code requirements, remote working options, and time off allowances can have an enormous impact on your company’s culture and the happiness of your employees. There are some policies, though, you simply must have in place – the kind that can protect you and your company in the event of an employee-related issue.

So where do you start? How do you know what types of policies and documents you need to create? Well, we created this blog post to answer these very questions. At a high level, there are three items we suggest all companies have in place: