Global Entrepreneurship Week: Legal essentials every start up and scale up needs to get right
Written by Jasmine Peglar | Corporate and Business Law Team | 12 November 2025
Global Entrepreneurship Week is a celebration of innovation, ambition and new ideas. Every year, thousands of entrepreneurs take the leap; from first-time founders with a single concept to experienced business owners looking to scale.
While creativity and energy drive a new venture forward, the legal foundations underneath it are what protect the business when things become more complex.
Many early-stage companies begin informally. It is easy to prioritise product development, marketing and investment conversations, leaving the legal structure until later.
Unfortunately, this is often when problems arise—between co-founders, with investors, or even at the point of sale. Setting the right legal framework at the start is one of the most effective ways to avoid disputes, protect value, and ensure the company can grow without unnecessary risk.
One of the first decisions for any entrepreneur is how to structure the business.
Choose the right structure – it’s more than just a formality
The legal structure you choose affects tax, liability, control and investment options. Common choices include:
Sole trader
Partnership / LLP
Private limited company (by shares or by guarantee)
Community or social enterprise structures – CIC or charity if social impact is central
A sole trader or partnership arrangement may work in the very early days, but a private limited company is usually the most practical option for growth. A company separates personal and business liability, provides credibility to the outside world, and allows shares to be issued to founders, investors and staff. It also creates a structure that can be sold, invested in, or handed on in the future. If you’re already trading informally, you can still incorporate and transfer the business into a company with tax-efficient planning.
Don’t lose control of your own company
However, simply incorporating a company is not enough. Many founders issue shares on a “50/50” basis to appear fair, but this frequently causes deadlock and conflict later. Without a clear mechanism for decision-making, a business can stall at a critical moment—particularly when investors become involved. Thinking strategically about share structure at the start can avoid these pitfalls. Different classes of shares, carefully defined voting rights, or founder-protection mechanisms can all preserve control while still allowing new people to join the business.
Implementing a Shareholders or Partnership Agreement
Where there is more than one founder, a shareholders’ agreement is essential – even if it created with family or friends. It does far more than record who owns what. A well-drafted agreement sets out how decisions are made, what happens if someone wants to exit, and how disputes are resolved if the worst happens and who gets what if a buyer comes along. It can also address competition, confidentiality, intellectual property and the expectations placed on each founder. Without one, there is little protection if relationships change or someone stops contributing. With one, investors see good governance and long-term planning.
Scaling up or taking investment
As a business begins to scale, the legal questions evolve. Investment rounds require clean paperwork, properly issued shares and clearly owned intellectual property. Employees may need share options or incentive schemes. Data protection, commercial contracts and website compliance all become important. A company that has planned properly can move quickly; a company with messy records can find investment delayed or even lost.
Protect your Intellectual Property
Protecting your intellectual property is one of the most important – and frequently overlooked – steps for any start-up. Every business has IP, whether it is a brand name, logo, website content, software, product design, or simply the know-how that makes the business unique. If this ownership is not clearly documented, a company can quickly lose control of its most valuable asset.
Put it in writing: why your contracts matter
As your business grows, the relationships you build with customers, suppliers and freelancers become more complex, and the risks increase. Well-written terms and conditions are one of the simplest and most cost-effective forms of protection a business can have. They set out exactly what a customer is buying, when payment is due, what happens if something goes wrong and how disputes will be resolved. Without them, it becomes far harder to recover unpaid invoices or defend complaints, and disagreements can quickly escalate into expensive legal problems.
The same applies when you work with consultants or freelancers. Many start-ups rely on external specialists for marketing, design, software development or content creation, but without a clear consultancy agreement, it may be unclear who owns the work, what standards must be met, or how confidential information is protected. A master consultancy agreement, supported by individual project or purchase orders, gives you a flexible but secure structure: you can bring people in as needed, keep control of intellectual property and data, and ensure that everyone knows what is expected from the start. In short, solid contracts are not paperwork for paperwork’s sake—they are the backbone of smooth, scalable and low-risk growth.
None of this is about slowing entrepreneurs down—it is about making sure rapid growth is sustainable and protected.
The most successful fast-growth companies are often the ones that took time at the beginning to get their legal foundations right.
Our Corporate team at Nash & Co is supporting founders, family businesses, scale-ups and innovators who want to build something secure and investable. If you are launching a venture, taking on co-founders, planning an employee incentive scheme or preparing for investment, we would be happy to help. We work with founders at every stage of the journey—from idea to exit—and would be pleased to advise on the right approach for your business.
For a conversation about structuring your company, shareholder arrangements or future growth planning, please contact Austin Blackburn or Jasmine Peglar in our Corporate and Commercial team at Nash & Co by calling 01752 827125 or filling out our contact form.
