5 Legal tips EVERY entrepreneur needs to know

If you’ve been following me a while you already know that my favorite line is: “You don’t know what you don’t know, but it could seriously hurt you.” I started advising entrepreneurs because after being a corporate lawyer myself, I realized a major gap existed between the legal knowledge among entrepreneurs, and the fact that the lack of that knowledge could potentially cost them their business. (And nobody wants that!) 

In my ten years of practicing law thus far, I have noticed there are a few common denominators. Here are the five critical things that ALL entrepreneurs need to know, regardless if you run a store front, online business or are an influencer. 

1. If you request email address you have to have a privacy policy on your website. 

2. Your blog should include a disclaimer – which includes info such as the fact that the blog is written by you, it’s your personal opinion, you aren’t liable for any mistakes, it shouldn’t be taken as health / medical / legal / financial etc. advice. (I’m going to do a whole post soon all about disclaimers, so check back for more info!) 

3. You need to include your address in your emails to your email list. If you don’t want to share your home address, you can get a PO Box. 

4. You are REQUIRED by US law to disclose when you’ve been paid to review a product/service. 

5. If your social media post is promotional or for a brand (such as you have affiliate links, like liketoknow or how it’s spelled or you were paid to tweet), your first hashtag should indicate this: #ad or #sponsored of #affiliate should suffice to make it clear to your readers you were paid. 

***Bonus for all my loves living outside the U.S. 

***If your website is hosted by a US based company or if you do business in the U.S. (even if you live outside the U.S.) you are required to comply by FTC and not just your local governments legal requirements.