I get it. Startup life is hard. Your entire day seems like a balancing exercise as you try to accomplish as much as you can with limited resources. Who has time, let alone the money, to seek professional advice when there are a hundred other pressing issues competing for you attention.
Dean Atkins and Andy Gelman are the passionate owners of Omar & the Marvellous Coffee Bird – a boutique coffee roaster, wholesaler, café and retail outlet based in the Bayside suburb of Gardenvale. They are also my first clients as a lawyer.
Practical advice, in plain English: that’s what I promised. I am taking on that challenge by setting out some basic business structures and explaining the differences between them – without the legal and accounting jargon that causes most people’s eyes to glaze over. Impossible you say? Well, check out the below series of 4 posts …
A trust is an artificial legal construct that best describes a relationship between individuals. A trust relationship exists where there is a separation between legal ownership of an asset and the persons entitled to benefit from that asset (called beneficial ownership). Let me explain: If I owned a block of land, and I said to …
When talking about business structuring, most people naturally think that involves starting a company – and for the most part, they’d be right. However, whilst most people know about companies, I regularly come across clients who may not know exactly how they work and what the various terms connected with companies actually mean. Hopefully this …
Everyone knows what a partnership is, right? Perhaps in a colloquial sense. However, when it comes to the formalities of a partnership, I find that people are regularly surprised by some of the key aspects of what a partnership entails. The Basics A partnership is simply two or more people carrying on business in common …
The Basics As a sole trader, you simply run a business as an individual. No complex structures or fancy accounting work: you simply register an ABN in your own name, and away you go. You can trade under your own name (e.g. Sami Sara Legal), or if you register a business name, under any name …
What do you do when you have a passion for tech and startups, but are happily working within a more traditional legal environment? That is the question that I have been grappling with for some months now. Today’s business landscape is defined by our ability to utilise technology to accomplish more and engage with people …