I’ve gotten a little play lately for saying, “Linkedin is your resume; Twitter is your personality.” (Borges, Marketing 2.0: Bridging the Gap between Seller and Buyer through Social Media Marketing, 2009.) Now I’m being asked, in so many words, “OK bub, you think you’re so full of pith and vinegar… Let’s have a metaphor for […]
For 15 years or so I have been pursuing an agenda dubbed “ideas2money,” a slightly tongue-in-cheek abstraction of the premise that all business is about monetizing good ideas, in turn premised on the relatively venerable notion that the sole role of any business is maximizing profit and, thus, shareholder wealth. After observing progressive companies such
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Three Reasons Why It’s the Dawn of the Entrepreneurial Age. Opening Keynote, TechVenture2009 Conference, 16 Nov 2009, Tampa Some moments matter more than others. Humanity is at an inflexion point in history that makes this moment the Entrepreneur’s moment. When the history of this time is written, they will call it the true dawn of
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Why should I bother with patents? Don’t they take forever to be awarded? Doesn’t copyright last longer? (And aren’t patents evil?) The conservative (as in conservation of value – I’m not using it in the political sense) business practice is to patent wherever possible and use copyright registration or trade secret protection as simultaneous regimes
Why should I spend all this money on registering a trademark? Isn’t my domain name enough? Short answer: because it’s cool to own stuff. Long answer: Your brand tells your customers where your products (and services) come from. In the minds of your customers, your brand is you. Artful brand selection fortifies market recognition. Pick
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Why put a Terms of Service agreement on your website? Look, everything’s got a little legal legend to it, ok? You see them everywhere. The masthead of a magazine, the fine print on an advertisement, even the coffee cups at McDonald’s. Everything just seems to go better when emblazoned with a bunch of juicy legal
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What’s the big deal with owning all this IP? Isn’t there more to my company than just my IP? Yes, there is a bit more to your company than its Intellectual Property. But, on average, not much more. So it’s important to keep good records about the IP you have. Here is one of a
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Ein minuten, bitte. Aren’t you forgetting something back there? If my company doesn’t get a work-for-hire agreement, why can’t we just get an assignment agreement later?” As assignment is good, but not as good as a work-for-hire. A proper work-for-hire is a permanent vesting of copyright ownership in the buyer. But if there is no
I suppose I need an independent contractor agreement too? Yes. Yes you do. Ideally, you need one that uses the magic words “works made for hire.” Ownership of intellectual property is counterintuitive. Mere payment for deliverables does not necessarily secure clean title from independent contractors. Under US copyright law, in order to be deemed to
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Why do I need employment agreements? Can’t I trust my own employees? Of course you should hire people you can trust. You may even enjoy a personal bond with your employees and treat them like friends and family. But the employment relationship is fundamentally a business deal. And business deals should be governed by written
Startup FAQ 8-9: Why use employment agreements? Read More »
