Never let the lawyers win

Every entrepreneur should be able to read and understand the legal agreements that they sign. Lawyers may make assumptions about how you want to run your business that are far from your real wishes. Spend the time to painstakingly read at least one user-license agreement and try to understand what purpose each paragraph serves.

Legal agreements are not going to be any good to you if the will to cooperate is no longer present, forcing an unwilling participant to adhere to his legal obligations is unlikely to have a positive outcome.

Try writing the intent of your agreement in simple, clear language and have your lawyer review it. It will be cheaper and is more likely to meet your actual needs. More on what to do if you are sued in the next post...

Don't fear competition

Don’t avoid your so-called competitors.

You should be talking to them (without giving away your business strategy or long term plans), cooperating to serve customers, and sharing leads when you can’t or won’t serve them. I like to call this co-opetition.

If your product and service are superior then you will outperform the competition over the long term. In the meantime they could be potential acquisitions or acquirers and you want to have a healthy, friendly yet business-like attitude towards them.

When I meet people who are obsessed by the competition I always ask 'Are you smarter than them? Do you work harder than them?' The answer to both questions is always 'yes' and they suddenly seem a lot less menacing...