What do you do when someone really likes your business and wants to join forces calling it a “joint venture” or “strategic alliance”? Or, perhaps should it be called a ”I really like your business and want to gain from it but I don’t want to pay you for it” venture.  Don’t fall for the hype!

There are many different legal issues to deal with when structuring something like this. People say you need to be careful if a venture capital firm gives you money as you will lose control of your business. However, the upside is at least everyone knows what everyone is doing as in, the VC (acronym for a venture capital firm) gave you money and you need to perform accordingly.

Joint ventures are an interesting legal proposition as you get to truly lay out the responsibilities of each working party. I would venture (no pun intended of course) to say rather than paying an attorney thousands of dollars to put together a joint venture agreement, you might as well start working together and see what plays out. Now of course, there are caveats to all situations so here is a bulletin:

Calling all joint venturers - let me know who is coming to you for what and let’s see whether putting together an agreement is worth it or not.