Understanding the Legal Side of Your Business with Olamide Michelle

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So you’ve been riding the wave of entrepreneurship for a while. It’s been ebb & flow and suddenly the ride gets rocky. The reality that your business needs protection enters the picture – someone copied your branding, stole a product, and invaded the boundaries of your business. 

Scary I know, but it can happen. This is why hiring an attorney, and having a basic understanding of the legal side of your business is so important. 

IOlamide Michelle Imoukhuede (Michelle) is a licensed attorney and longtime creative based in Atlanta, Georgia. She created The Boho Business Guide as a platform for education, support, and guidance for entrepreneurs searching for direction and balanced success. Michelle has worked for law firms, non-profits, and even a major legal recruiting company. After exploring some of the traditional paths towards success, she knew it was time to follow her calling and support others on their entrepreneurial journey. When she’s not serving her clients she’s the podcast host of the Boho Business Guide Podcast. 

Olamide is passionate about building and protecting brands while adding peace and balance on the entrepreneurial side. After trying the traditional path only to realize that the non-traditional way was where her heart was she decided to launch her own business and help entrepreneurs with the legal side of their business. 

This is definitely a topic that a lot of entrepreneurs shove in the corner. But keep in mind that it’s not a different side of your business and certainly not something that’s separate. You should be taking care of all the divisions of your business and the legal side is to complement that support. Everything that you’re creating needs to be protected. Lacking a legal understanding or protection can lead to someone copying your ideas or failing to pay you for something. 

It’s easy when you’re running your business to think that nothing is going to happen (believe me, I’ve been there too) but the truth is, you never know. 

Here’s the hard truth – the more you scale and your audience grows you don’t know what type of people are going to be out there. In a perfect work, we assume things won’t happen but that’s not the reality. People are not always going to value your program or business. 

So what can you do to protect yourself and your business?

Some tips Olamide gives us, especially in the early stages, is to always make sure that you are assessing your specific situation and bring it to your attorney.  On a baseline, there’s a space you can protect in each step of your business. Make a checklist of where you’re afraid something could go wrong. 

Some examples of this are – creating a name, is that going to be a trademark? Should we protect that name? If you’re hosting an interview or guest speaker, that guest should have a release form? Asses which of those concerns require legal protection. 

It may feel like a lot but is all a part of the process to best protect and serve your brand in the long run.

If you think now is the time to invest in protecting your business you can visit Olamide’s website or connect with her on Instagram and learn how to implement these practices into your business.

ABOUT THE THRIVE SOCIETY PODCAST 

The Thrive Society Podcast hosted by Hannah Nieves was born out of the desire to showcase high-level entrepreneurs and brands and their unique stories and experiences into entrepreneurship. You’ll hear raw and uncut stories from these women and how they learned to Thrive. Episodes are released weekly.

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