March Madness is always an exciting time of year. This year, Florida Gulf Coast University from Fort Myers became the first ever 15-seed to advance to the Sweet 16. Along the way, the team acquired the nickname “Dunk CIty,” referring to their high-flying and fast-paced offense that generates a higher-than-average number of alley-oops and dunks. [...]
Graffagnini + Associates, a local law firm in New Orleans, released a new report towards the end of Entrepreneur Week, Louisiana Venture & Angel Capital Report. The report “shows a significant amount of money flowing into later-stage entrepreneurial projects in the state, providing necessary capital for the entrepreneurial community to not only gain a firm foothold, but to sustain [...]
By: Mark Graffagnini, Graffagnini + Associates, LLC, www.graffagninilaw.com. Mark and his law firm focus on legal and business issues for entrepreneurs and investors. mg@graffagninilaw.com In the last few days, at least 10 entrepreneurs have asked me what I think about doing a convertible note round before they raise a larger financing round in Spring or [...]
It’s every entrepreneur’s dream: come up with a great product idea, make a pledge on Kickstarter, and then raise 3.5 times your goal. Sounds awesome, right? Most of the time, I’m sure it is. But it wasn’t that awesome for Seth Quest when Neil Singh sued over the failure to deliver a $70 iPad mount. [...]
Last Wednesday, a bill unanimously passed exempting custom-based software from sales taxes in East Baton Rouge city-parish. It received strong support from the city and the Baton Rouge Area Chamber of Commerce. It all started when Logan Leger found out the city of Baton Rouge was seeking sales tax from him. Leger is the CEO [...]
When you form an LLC or Corporation, you’ll get some fancy paperwork from the Secretary of State. If you form your business through a commercial formation company, they may send a three-ring, leather-bound binder with separators for minutes, bylaws, and everything else. Many people just take that binder and leave it on the shelf collecting [...]
Last month, I discussed the Food Truck Symposium going down over on O.C. Haley. The event, thrown by the New Orleans Food Truck Coalition, Inc., was thrown to bring attention to the Food Trucks and their attempts to work with City Hall to make the city’s laws more amenable to their industry. In case you [...]
I often get questions about S-Corps when discussing new business formation with clients. An S-Corp isn’t actually an entity choice, it’s a tax classification. When you create a new business, chances are you’ll be creating either an LLC or C-Corporation. Once you chose between those two entities, you have to decide how you want to [...]
Megan Hargroder recently wrote a piece for Silicon Bayou on Finding a social media manager within your company. I was happy to see that she promoted the need for a social media policy, and even made mention of a personal experience involving a disgruntled employee who deleted the company’s 1,000 fan Facebook Page. Her experience [...]
If you have business partners, chances are there will be ownership changes somewhere in the future. You or one of your partners may move out of state, pursue a new business opportunity, become disabled or die, or, the goal of all you techy startups, seek to sell to an outsider (Hopefully, with Instragram-esque success). What [...]
