There Are Questions You Need To Ask Yourself When Starting A Business
https://youtu.be/OwuNBcsIAg4
Video Transcribed: I am Isaiah Brydie with Urban Legal, coming at you with another video. And this video was going to be about a subject that I really, really loved while I was in law school. And that subject is corporations and business organizations. And I absolutely love this stuff. It was a lot fun. They’re really, really dynamic cases and they involve a bunch of money.
So when talking about business structures and business organizations, the first question that you actually have to ask is, well, which business organization is best for me? And there are four general ones that we’re actually going to talk about, but before we actually dive deeper in to which business structure is more appropriate for you, there are some foundation questions that we need to establish.
So that first foundation question is going to be, what am I trying to do? What is the service that I’m doing, my product is going to solve, blank? Those are questions you actually have to sit down and have to really evaluate as foundation questions. So, for example, if you’re a plumber, where you’re providing a service, you may not need as much of a sophisticated business structure as somebody who is selling, $10 million worth of product every year.
But on the other hand, you might want to have some more structure and have management end with you as the business owner. Or you may be open to having other people make business decisions on your behalf and you just sit in the back and collect money. These are questions that you have to ask yourself. But they all start in that fundamental premise of what am I trying to do? What am I trying to accomplish with my business?
So the second thing you need to actually ask is, and it goes into what I was just expounding on and that is well, who all do I want to have, be in control of my business. Do I want it to just stop with me, do I want to have a board of individuals, do I want it to be me and a partner and then just a bunch of employees? So all of these are other questions that you have to ask.
The next question that you have to ask is, well, are taxes something that I’m concerned about? So different business entities get taxed at different rates or don’t even get taxed at all, depending on if you have a charity or not. From there we have to actually then go into profits and revenues, so how often do you want to pay out revenues? How often do you want to pay out profits, all those kinds of things. Who do you want to pay profits and revenues to, if you’re willing to pay them at all?
These are all questions that you have to ask. And then a big question that a lot of people don’t know about is whether or not the business structure that I want needs to be insured or not. Some business entities in the state of Oklahoma are required to be insured to a certain dollar amount, some are not.
And then the actual biggest question is the actual business question. Biggest question that you need to ask is how indemnified do I want me personally to be from my business? I might’ve said that a little questionably, but do I want indemnification from my business structure, aside from me, so that where if 
my business structure is sued, I am protected and shielded from any liability that my business might incur.
That is the driving force between making a determination of what kind of business structure do you want.
Because while some business structures are completely indemnifying their members, some are not. And that is a big thing when you actually talk about liability of the business and being sued, later on down the line if that was to happen. So like I said, this is just the beginning of a conversation. They’re going to get a lot more videos coming on after this.
So again, let me guys know what you think. Again, we do a lot more than just business law here at Urban Legal. Come with us with your family law matters, your criminal law matters, probate, wills and trust, whatever it is. And hope to see you guys some day.
