Legal Question in Business Law in Louisiana

Re: How to go about forming an online business?

Cannot make any decisions about what is best for you with an online answer. You need a face-to-face meeting with an attorney and a CPA. That is, if you want to do it right and you anticipate it taking off. If you just want to form a company, you can find forms online.

Re: How to go about forming an online business?

You have a few things you should consider here. As Mr. Pizzolatta explained, its important that you have a face-to-face meeting with an attorney to really dig deep into your venture.

At the onset, however, you will want to:

1) define the type of business entity you and your partners will want to create, and what your agreement will be;

2) research your domain name and business name to ensure that there isn't another company out there with the name. Online businesses, unlike local businesses, have to consider national trademarks even more seriously. As a result of the ease for someone in China or California to get to your website, your company name and domain name will have some challenges if there is someone else with that name out there.

Run trademark searches, and register. Make sure that you are not buying a domain name, logo, etc. and wasting that money.

3) Draft "Terms of Use." Business on a website is different from business in the real world, as you cannot as easily have people sign contracts, and people are using your website and getting information without you ever knowing it (in some cases).

Therefore, you should draft a "terms of use" agreement and a disclaimer to use for customers, visitors, etc.

The hope is that this will (1) define the terms by which your users can use your website; (2) make a disclaimer to avoid liability for any information you provide to people online; (3) try to (as much as possible) limit where you might have to go to court by selecting a venue for disputes in your hometown - you don't want to be sued in Maine for something on your website, and then spend thousands of dollars every time you must go up there to defend yourself.

All of this stuff does come at some expense. Generally, you could spend between $400 and $2000 on your business entity creation (depending on number of partners and complexity), $500 and 2500 on your trademark, and between $750 and $5000 on the agreements.

We have experience in this area, and would be happy to help.

Good luck.