The Law for Founders
If your business is worth protecting, this book is worth reading.
Wade through the trenches with practical legal tips for building and protecting your Canadian business.
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About The Book
Starting and growing a business in Canada comes with a unique set of legal challenges. “The Law for Founders” is your essential guide to navigating these complexities. Written by experienced corporate lawyer John Wires, this book offers real-world examples and information to help founders protect their startups and manage legal risk.
With clear language, “The Law for Founders” covers crucial topics such as choosing the right business structure, securing intellectual property, negotiating co-founder and shareholder agreements, raising capital, and understanding employment law. The book also delves into the specifics of operating internet-based businesses, dealing with regulatory issues, and planning for a profitable exit. Each chapter is designed to equip you with the knowledge needed to make informed decisions and avoid common legal pitfalls that can derail your business.
John draws on his experience working with tech entrepreneurs and startups to provide insights that are both practical and actionable.
Whether you’re in the early stages of launching your business or looking to scale and attract investors, this book will serve as a valuable resource. The blend of legal expertise and real-world case studies makes it an indispensable guide for any Canadian founder.
There are ‘known risks’ and ‘unknown risks’ that lurk in the future for every founder. This book intends to shift some of the ‘unknown risks’, the ones you might not have even contemplated, and make them ‘known risks’ for you to navigate on the way to success.
What’s inside
In's and Out's of Corporations
Raising Capital
Hiring and Firing
Founder Agreements
Protecting IP
Selling Your Business
INTRO
This book is for founders, not lawyers.
If you are a founder, or an aspiring founder, this book is to help you wade through the trenches with practical legal tips and information for building and protecting your business.
Consider this book as a legal guide to implementing your business idea and understanding the legal framework around your business. Using case examples and examples from my own practice the book covers core legal issues every startup should consider.
*****
Entrepreneurship is alive and well in Canada. More and more Canadians are capitalizing on their dreams of operating their own businesses. The success of organizations like Victoria Lennox’s Start-up Canada are a testament to the growing popularity of becoming an entrepreneur.
Somewhere along the line, entrepreneurship not only became an option in university programs, but it actually became “cool”. As college students started making money online and building business empires like Facebook and Google, fewer hockey players were born in Canada. Now more than ever, teenagers and young adults are aspiring to become founders.
In the early 2000’s, as tech entrepreneurship grew, so did the support systems for founders. From educational institutions building a host of incubator and accelerator programs to crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter giving a funding boost to new ventures and products.
However, one support network that lags is the legal services industry. Startups are lean and lawyers are expensive. This leads to a legal knowledge gap for founders and often a failure to fully consider how the law impacts a founder’s business.
Many founders fray from meeting with a lawyer until they view it as absolutely necessary or there is some existential crisis. I see it frequently, where founders wish they met with a lawyer sooner to understand the implications of decisions they made, agreements they signed or risks they took. Decisions which, unwittingly, can materially impact the success of a business.
Starting in 2011, I practiced corporate litigation. I came to realize that many businesses fail or face setbacks as a result of not having completed important legal processes early on. From not entering contracts with third parties and founder disputes tearing a business apart, to government regulators seizing assets and shutting businesses down. In some cases, it was hard to watch.
With an interest in tech, I decided I would pursue a career helping founders build businesses, rather than tear them down. So, in 2013 I started my own corporate law firm and for the last 11 years I’ve enjoyed working with founders. Their personalities are positive and optimistic, unlike many lawyers (especially litigation lawyers).
Yet, founders often face a blind spot for the law. I realized that part of the lawyer’s role becomes not just giving advice and drafting contracts, but educating clients on the legal issues and legal framework around the decisions they make. As I found myself educating clients on common topics, I decided to sit one night and map out a table of contents with all the things a founder will wish they knew about the law when they started.
And so, my motivation in writing this book became filling the legal knowledge gap for Canadian founders. To enable founders to make more calculated decisions about their business and operate from a position of confidence and strength. With the knowledgebase from this book, you will make more informed decisions about protecting your business and stick-handling legal challenges you will undoubtably face.
There are known risks and unknown risks that lurk in the future for every founder. This book intends to shift some of the unknown risks, the ones you might not have even contemplated, and make them known risks for you to navigate on the way to success.
Enjoy.
Chapters
Pages
Get ready to get deep in the weeds on legal issues with 9 chapters on incorporating, negotiating founder and shareholder agreements, raising capital, using holding companies, securing your IP rights, hiring and firing, and preparing for the ‘Exit’ to sell your business.
If your business is worth protecting, this book is worth reading.
About the author.
John Wires
John Wires is a Canadian corporate lawyer. In 2013 he opened his own corporate law firm (Wires Law) offering legal services to founders, investors, and businesses across Canada.
John advises companies, founders and shareholders of software enterprises, app developers, e-commerce retailers and platforms, consulting firms and digital media companies. John’s clients and their executives answer to boards of directors and shareholders, hire and fire employees, negotiate and sign contracts, invent new products, license technologies, raise capital and deal with a host of legal issues every day.
John helps clients reduce legal risks in their daily decision making and in the agreements they enter. His services range from setting up and protecting businesses to closing M&A transactions for clients selling their businesses. As a former website builder, John has a passion for technology always playing with the latest tech to see how it can integrate into the practice of law.