Legally Sound | Smart Business

Nasir and Matt welcome Jesse Lindsleyto talk about people are ripping off successful mobile games and answer the question, "My partners and I have been developing an online software and a mobile app, but we are wondering if we should split the mobile aspect of our business into a separate LLC since not everyone is developing that and the app could stand on its own. Is that advisable?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business! This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist and also answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, can send in at ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com and we’re ready to go. MATT: Yeah, I hope we make this a good one. The Wednesday episode seemed to be the most popular one. NASIR: Yeah, it’s the hump of the week and the top of the week, I think, for us. MATT: Don’t screw up, Nasir. NASIR: I know. It’s a lot of pressure now. Great. MAT

Nasir and Matt discuss the trend of employers providing loans to employees and answer the questions, "I know I need to pay some of my employees more to prevent them from leaving but I won't have the revenue for another 6 months, what else can I do to keep them in the mean time?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: And welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news with our legal twist and also answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, submits to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. I wanted to slow it down there for the listeners writing it down. MATT: It sounds too candid at this point. I feel like you sounded like a robot. I mean, your voice isn’t robotic but it sounds like a recording almost. NASIR: I do. I just play a recording at the beginning of every episode. I don’t even record it live. MATT: Yeah, those five seconds that you spend, it’s really taxing. You want to s

Nasir and Matt talk about how a businesses based on a fad can succeed and answer, "I don't have money to pay for certain services. Can I trade my products for other company's services?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: This is Legally Sound Smart Business. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And my name is Matt Staub. NASIR: And this is the business podcast where we cover business in the news and give our legal twist and also answer some of your business legal questions that you submit, the listener, to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. You know, I think I said “business” in that last thirty seconds about 50,000 times. MATT: It’d be some sort of record, probably. NASIR: I’m pretty sure. Call Guiness. MATT: All right. Well, let’s see, we have a story here. NASIR: We do? Let’s listen! What do we have? MATT: I don’t know, you’re going to have to help me out with this one because I don’t eat sweets. I don’t eat desserts. NASIR: That’s true. MATT: It’s a cupcake-based story. There’s this company, Crumbs is wha

The guys discuss how companies use the data they collect and answer, "How can I make sure my employees don't steal my proprietary info after they leave?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: This is Legally Sound Smart Business. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: My name is Matt Staub. NASIR: Wait. I know. You don’t have to say my name. I said my name and then you can just say, “This is…” MATT: I guess there’s never been an episode intro… well, there was one when you missed, but every single episode starts off with you and me. So, at this point, it’s not like it’s a rotating group of podcast hosts. NASIR: Yeah, and we’ve talked about this before, even in our standard intro, it uses our names. So, when we introduce ourselves, it’s kind of redundant but that’s how we do it! MATT: Name repetition is how it’s done. NASIR: All right, let’s get into our creepy story of the week. MATT: It talks about creepy. I guess it kind of is but it’s more about a lot of businesses collect data from their customers and it’s talki

Nasir and Matt discuss the legalities behind the NBA banning Donald Sterling and answer the question, "One of my employees is very annoying. He does great work but I can tell he is not liked by most coworkers. I also know he will sue if I fire him. How can I handle this best?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: This is Legally Sound Smart Business and this is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: This is where we cover business news with our legal twist and answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, can send in to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. MATT: All right. Well, let’s just dive in here. I’m a big NBA fan and it’s been a great playoffs so far but, unfortunately, there’s this underlying issue that’s kind of taken the headlines. Even if you’re not a sports fan, you’ve probably heard about this. Donald Sterling, he’s the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. I believe he’s the longest-standing owner in the NBA. I think he bought it in 1981. He’s been involved in a lot

Nasir and Matt discuss the story of a woman's claim of sexual harassment at the software company Github. They then answer the question, "Is it a good idea to get a patent before I start my company or wait down the road?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: Matthew Staub, and this is our business legal podcast where we cover business in the news with our legal twist and also answer some of your business legal questions that you can send, the listener, to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. MATT: Exactly. Use my full name. NASIR: Matthew Staub. Now, everyone’s going to look you up on the phonebooks. MATT: Yeah, it was a big mystery before. Everyone didn’t know what my full first name was but you let everyone in on the secret. NASIR: I forgot you were using a pseudonym, you know, for that. Well, what do we got? We’ve covering GitHub but my first question is, do you know what GitHub is? I’m just curious. MATT: U

Nasir and Matt welcome business guru Roy Daya.  They talk about why a business might fail after an acquisition and answer the question, "I have put in many years to get my business profitable and just reached that goal this past year. We have a sound business model in place and secured investments so we have enough cash. What sort of challenges should I expect to face in scaling my business from here?" Transcript:   NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: Welcome to our business legal podcast where we cover business in the news with a legal twist and also answer some of your business legal questions where you, the listener, can submit to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. Today, we have a fun guest today. We have a nice startup guru for some of your high-tech startups listening out there. His name is Roy Daya. I call him a startup guru because pretty much every successful startup has one of these consultants in their arsenal – one of these gu

Nasir and Matt discuss the Walmartthat claimed itsemployees were home on Easter but were really working in the store. They also answer the question, "I gave a small ownership interest to a friend. Now he refuses to do any voting in which a shareholder vote is required. I have the majority so do I need to worry about him?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: And this is our podcast where we cover business in the news with our legal twist and also answer some of your business legal questions that you, the audience and listener, can submit to our podcast and we can answer. By the way, are listeners audiences, too? Or does an audience have to be in a studio? MATT: I would think audience is anyone who’s any of the five senses – listening, visually, smelling. NASIR: So, if they can just smell us, they could be an audience? MATT: Yeah, audience is the umbrella and you have everything underneath. NASIR: According to

Nasir and Matt talk about Amazon'soffer to employees to take cash to quit and answer a question on hiring employees to work remotely. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: This is Matt Staub. NASIR: And this is the podcast where we cover business legal news – well, actually, business news and we put in our legal twist. What else do we do? Oh, yeah, we answer legal questions that you submit, the listener, to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. MATT: It’s like you wrote that for yourself beforehand because you asked a question and then instantly answered it, but that’s all right. NASIR: It’s showmanship. MATT: Things get a little bit crazier on the Friday episodes. NASIR: That’s true. We’ve got to take it down a notch and get a little relaxed, right? Get ready for the weekend. MATT: We’ve got a good episode here and I like this story that we have. NASIR: Wait, wait, wait, wait. How do you know it’s a good episode already? MATT: Well, I think

The guys discuss the effect of the Heartbleed virus on small businesses and then provide guidance on exempt employees. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: And this is where we cover business in the news with our legal twist and also answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener and business owner, can send in to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness – did we get the dot-com for that? MATT: Yeah, I think we got everyone – dot-com, dot-net, dot-org, dot-pizza. NASIR: Have those come out yet? I don’t know if those subdomains or those domains have come out yet but we’re definitely getting legallysoundsmartbusiness.pizza when it comes out – unless one of our listeners takes it from us and extorts us. MATT: It’s most likely already taken because that would be really popular name that people want to have. NASIR: Especially for a pizza joint, it’d be perfect for them. MATT: When the internet was kind o

Nasir and Matt discuss a lawsuit involving Gordon Ramsay and his business partner. They then address the question of whether an attorney or a CPA should take priority. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: And this is our podcast where we cover business in the news with our legal twist and also answer some of your business legal questions that you’ve been gracious enough to send in to us at ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. By the way, that’s probably the best intro I’ve done this far. MATT: I was going to say, you got the email address correct. It’s like, 50-50 on that. NASIR: Yeah, that’s true. I didn’t mention the episode number. I didn’t want to take a chance of getting that wrong. MATT: Yeah. Well, we usually leave that for the end, anyways. NASIR: That’s true. We are ready to go, right? I’m interested in this first story because I just watched Hell’s Kitchen which is a show that’s terrible now but I just

Nasir and Matt discuss UPS laying off 250 employees over the decision by one worker. They also answer a question on the best techniques to keeping employees long-term. Update: Those 250 employees have been rehired. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: This is Matt Staub. NASIR: And we’re ready to go on Episode 30. Talking about UPS. MATT: Yeah, we have a good UPS story here that happened and this was in New York. Basically, because of the actions of one of the employees – and, for some reason, I thought that UPS drivers weren’t necessarily all employees but some of them were independent contractors, but I know you’re not going to get into that because I know you hate the distinction between the two. NASIR: Please, no. MATT: There was a 90-minute protest by one of the UPS drivers and it happened and people kind of went along with it. As a result, they have already dismissed 20 of the workers and they’re planning on terminating another 230. S

Nasir and Matt address the problem surrounding employees not taking vacation. The two also talk about overtime pay in the question of the day. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: Episode 29. Are we ready to go? MATT: I am ready. Let’s get to. NASIR: First, we have to talk about SNL. It’s recorded live and it’s broadcasted live on the East Coast but then, with a little bit of a delay. MATT: Yeah, live on the East Coast. I hear that, on the West Coast, it’s on at the same time – the 11:30 p.m. but it’s obviously not the same as it is on the East Coast. I think it even says that on the thing. It says “recorded live from a previous…” or “taped” or whatever it says. But it is live on the East Coast. NASIR: I guess we can’t call our podcast “live” because we’re not broadcasting live on the East Coast. We’ll work on it later on. MATT: Let’s get to the story we have for today. I like this one. It deals with employee

Nasir and Matt talk about Google's new class of stock that has no voting rights, as well as how to bring on investors without losing equity in the company. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: And welcome to Episode 28. MATT: Yeah, we’re really getting up there in the numbers. This is impressive now. NASIR: Very good. I’m really excited for this episode today. We’re talking about classes of stock with Google. MATT: Yeah, I’m just going to get right into this. So, this is with Google Stock and it’s kind of interesting. You can have classes of stock as a corporation – at least as Google has it here. This is their new C class that just got issued. But the thing here is the shareholders for this class of stock are going to have zero voting rights at the annual shareholders’ meetings. NASIR: Yeah, I mean, pretty much no rights. I assume maybe they get dividends at the least, right? But they really strip down any ki

Nasir and Matt discuss the commercials featuring Ronald McDonalds approving of Taco Bell's breakfast. They also attack the independent contractor misclassification issue from the employee perspective in the question of the day. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right, Episode 27 and that’s 2.7 percent of a thousand episodes. MATT: Yeah, for people listening a couple of episodes ago, I’m glad we got this straight. NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: And we are starting off the day with a nice little Taco Bell and McDonald’s story. MATT: Yeah. So, hopefully, you’re having breakfast right now because, even though this is involving Taco Bell and McDonald’s, of course – this is a breakfast story now. Some of you may have already seen the commercial. I know I’ve seen it a couple of times. Basically, I’ll back up a little. Everyone knew McDonald’s has breakfast. It’s well-known that it ends at 10:30 because people make jokes about it all t

Nasir and Matt talk about the lawsuit over items of flair from Office Space and answer a question on options in purchasing a business. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Episode 26 of Legally Sound Smart Business! This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: And we’re ready to go. We’re going to talk about Office Space today – the movie. We tried to get it – at least The Office or Office Space or an episode of what else? Seinfeld and pizza. MATT: Yeah. Well, I was trying to think. I don’t know if we’ve discussed… Office Space is a pretty classic office-themed TV show or movie. I don’t think we’ve discussed it before, have we? Do you recall discussing it? NASIR: I think, tangentially, we have. I mean, I think the show, The Office, is based upon a lot of the happenings in the Office Space. MATT: I guess, for me, I’ve never really worked in an office environment like that. I did a little bit in college when I worked in this one place but, yeah, I guess I did for one summer. I had a cubicle-type s

Nasir and Matt discuss the potential benefit of PiinPoint, the digital location finder, will have on small businesses. They also answer a question on whether you should make the first draft a contract. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business! This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: And we are starting our new format at Episode 25 – a quarter of the way through to a hundred. I think that’s 1… 2.5 percent of a thousand. MATT: Great math lessons we’re giving here. NASIR: Is that right? I don’t even know. I’m probably off. MATT: Yeah, 0.25 percent is correct. As long as you put the percent after it. NASIR: Perfect, yes. Or 0.025 which is a decimal. MATT: It would be 0.0025 or, no, you’re right. NASIR: No, 0.025. MATT: Sorry, I screwed up at the beginning. NASIR: All right. Well, so long as we got our math correct. Good thing we’re not mathematicians and we’re attorneys. MATT: Right. Well, let me talk about this new company – I guess it’s not a new comp

Nasir and Matt discuss the IRS deciding that Bitcoin is property and not currency, the recent ruling that college football players may unionize, a lawsuit filed over an asset purchase gone wrong, and why one early investor is not excited about the Candy Crush IPO. They also answer questions about putting the "LLC" designation after your business name, finding the right domain name, and when you can use the trademark symbol. Also, as mentioned, Nasir's prediction of 2 perfect brackets didn't even make it to the second week of the tournament. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Episode 24 of Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: Nice formal introduction that time but we’re ready to go. MATT: Things feel right again. It was thrown off the last couple of episodes. NASIR: Well, that was the purpose. MATT: It’s good to be back. All right, let’s get into this first story for this week and this was a really big one. It’s something we’ve been waiting on.

Nasir and Matt start things off by discussing PayPal's decision to stop freezing accounts for crowdfunding, as well as Starbucks licensing its mobile payment system, a company having to advance legal fees for a manager, and which NCAA tournament bracket contests are legal. They also answer questions about what to discuss at board meetings, corporate credit cards, and firing an employee for not wearing green on St. Patrick's Day. Update: No perfect brackets remained after the first week of the tournament. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business! This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: What do we have first up today? MATT: The first story we have today deals with another company we’ve discussed a couple of times and another issue we’ve discussed a couple of times. Basically, PayPal is coming on and saying they will no longer freeze accounts for crowdfunding. I’m assuming people know what crowdfunding is because we’ve talked about it on the podcast before. B