10 Common Mistakes When Launching a New Business.

• Author: Taxali, Vandana
• Position: Feature: Low for Entrepreneurs

Launching a new business for the first time is not always easy. There many factors to take into consideration--whether financing, marketing, customer acquisition or dealing with legal issues. Many new businesses place legal concerns on the back burner due to costs and time constraints. They assume that legal problems can be dealt with later, but it may be too late or even more costly to fix.

As a mentor for various Canadian startups and entrepreneurs such as OCAD's Imagination Catalyst, George Brown's DigiFest, Oshawa's Community Innovation Lab and Osgoode Hall Law School's, Hack Justice, I noticed that are common mistakes and legal issues that business failed to take into consideration from the outset.

Businesses think that they need to spend less in order to succeed. This is taught to entrepreneurs by the accelerators and start up incubators that teach them about the "lean" start up model as developed by Eric Ries in his book, "The Lean Startup".

However, the principles behind The Lean Startup are not to be thrifty. Rather, being "lean" according to Ries, means to continuously test a start up's vision instead of spending years developing it and introducing it to a customer afterwards. It's this misconception and misinterpretation of this concept that gets businesses into trouble, especially by failing to get their legal ducks in a row. The following checklist outlines ten common mistakes start ups make by trying to save money on legal costs. Hopefully will help them take the necessary legal steps to be successful in the long run. Spending money wisely saves a business money and headaches later on.

1. Choosing A Business Name Without Rights To An Online Presence

   It is important to choose a business name that a business can use online with a website and social media presence. A business should ensure that they can have exclusive right to use it in association with the goods and services of their company to prevent others from hijacking or diverting attention from their brand. A tool to check for a domain and social media name availability is at Name Check, but there are many others.

   It is advisable to check the trademark potential and social media status of a business name before proceeding with registering, incorporating or attempting to trademark a business. Once you have checked for its availability online and the potential for trademark protection, then a business should proceed to register it.

2. The Business Name Does Not Comply With Applicable Legislation

   The...