The Traklight Blog

I attended the fourth of the five Global Crowdfunding Convention (GCC) hosted by Ruth Hedges in Las Vegas. Due to Traklight, Evolve Law, and family commitments, I was only able to attend for Monday, October 17^th.  

In Part VI, our final blog in the series based on attending David Durick of Paychex’s workshop at the Small Business Expo 2016, we analyze step nine and ten. The necessary contracts are identified with Traklight’s free Business Risk Assessment,  which you can access here. To identify, track, and protect valuable IP, you can upgrade to our Full ID your IP product for a special price of $99 with this code: BMBPC16.  The Risk Chart and IP Diagnostic link you to Paychex partners who can help both address your issues and protect your IP.

The fifth part in our series  based on David Durick of Paychex’s workshop at the Small Business Expo 2016, examines step seven and eight of the ten critical steps to building and protecting your business. If you are not sure which administrative tasks apply to you, please join Traklight here and take the free Business Risk Assessment. The Risk Chart on your dashboard will help by linking to Paychex partners who can minimize your risks and increase your chances of successfully launching your business. You can save time and money on some of these tasks by downloading and reviewing your Strategy Report located on your dashboard as indicated below.

In our fourth installment on avoiding failure to launch in our series from David Durick of Paychex’s workshop at the Small Business Expo 2016, we talk about critical steps five and six: putting yourself on payroll and online marketing.

The third in our series based on attending David Durick of Paychex’s workshop at the Small Business Expo 2016 examines the third and fourth of the ten critical steps to building and protecting your business. If you are not sure which steps apply to you, please join Traklight here and take the free Business Risk Assessment with our compliments.

In Part II of our series based on attending David Durick of Paychex’s workshop at the Small Business Expo 2016, we will dive deeper into the first two of the ten critical steps to building and protecting your business.

I recently had the pleasure of attending David Durick of Paychex’s workshop at the Small Business Expo 2016 in San Diego. David, a 32-year business veteran, has worked mainly in business to business throughout his career but almost exclusively with small business, five to ten employees.  David spearheads BuildMyBiz.com for Paychex and presented 10 critical steps to building and protecting a business.

This blog originally appeared on Attorney at Work.

This article originally appeared on the GoDaddy blog. 

This article originally appeared on the GoDaddy blog. 

This article originally appeared on the GoDaddy blog.

This article originally appeared on the GoDaddy blog. 

This article originally appeared on the GoDaddy blog

I presented last month at Davis Wright Tremaine’s first Women’s Entrepreneurial Bootcamp and as I was explaining Evolve Law, I was asked how my investors let me start a second company. That brought up some interesting thoughts for me that I did not have time to address on the fundraising panel.

A legal technology entrepreneur and friend of mine created automated intake forms for her practice. Her goal was to sell this technology to law firms and consumers. Unfortunately, though, consumers will not proactively complete the forms. She found out the hard way that she had created a product with no demand. Much has been written on how to succeed, including tips and tricks for all the challenges that small businesses face. You often read stories about rapid growth and startups killing it, but it’s not too often you hear about the unsuccessful journeys.

Whenever I hear something repeated, questioned, or discussed by three independent sources, I consider it a sign that I should pay attention, and in today’s case, my personal “rule of three” inspired me to write this article. There are some amazing, exciting things happening in Arizona’s tech ecosystem, but we have to step back and look at this environment from an outsider’s perspective. To draw from Brad Feld’s books, I believe we should worry less about branding our community and instead focus on pushing forward. We should just freaking do it with the “it” being taking care of our businesses.

I recently attended WebSummit’s US franchise Collision in New Orleans. Note to self: bring along gluten-free snacks for next trip to NOLA! In all seriousness, it was a very slick conference – excellent use of space to pack in 630 startups! 

We end our lessons learned series (co-authored by me and Mike Willee) with our favorite topic, intellectual property (IP). Many entrepreneurs fail to recognize the importance of IP—let alone the value of an IP protection plan in the earliest stages of their businesses. Building a brand, creating a minimum viable product, generating sales leads, and keeping your head above water all push the pressing matter of IP to the back burner. However, having a firm grasp on the importance of intellectual property from the outset can reduce future headaches and chances of financial loss.

My research into the more than 50 year history of the legal plan was assisted by a comprehensive 2014 law journal article by Jeremy Tomes, titled “The Emergence of Group and Prepaid Legal Services: Embracing a New Reality.” Tomes’ paper outlines the “tortured history” of the legal plans that started in the early 1960s as a response to the access to the justice problem. After battling ethical concerns, the plans benefited from the new model ethics rules in the late 1970s and grew from trade union into group and prepaid plans via employee benefits enjoyed today by some 20-40% of Americans. Unfortunately, the fight against the unauthorized practice of law was battled out, mainly by Legal Zoom, in most states to allow for the web-based, self-service, automated documents required to make the legal plan economical.

In this installment of our lessons learned series (co-authored by me and Traklight’s Mike Willee), we move from funding challenges to getting your product or service to market. You start a business with the aim of creating a product or service to offer to consumers or businesses. You spend time and resources developing this product along with a website to showcase your creation. But when you unveil your new business for the world to see, you’re met with indifference.  While it’s probably unreasonable to expect that customers would be beating down your door from day one, you expected at least a few curious souls to check out what you have to offer. Such can be the frustration that comes when you neglect to build your brand before your launch.