Hi! My name is Rick Citron. Our firm is Citron & Deutsch. We’re a boutique law firm located in Westwood, California. Our specialty is business law. Within the Los Angeles area, we focus on startups. We also have practices in the areas of employment law, trademark law, and estate planning law. We have four attorneys in the firm and are specially set up to handle young and growing companies. Take a look at our website.Read More…
A key issue that comes up when going out to raise money is preferred stock versus common stock. When you first form your company, you’re showing common stock to the founders. Eventually, you will issue preferred stock to sophisticated investors. You want to try not to have to issue this kind of stock until it is absolutely necessary. The reason for that is preferred shareholders have rights that common shareholders don’t have. In a preferredRead More…
Almost every company that comes into our offices is looking to raise capital. The limitation on raising capital is generally not that the idea isn’t good enough, it’s the management team. One of the members of this management team is what we call “the translator.” It’s a person who takes your idea and puts it into a format in writing and in a presentation that investors can understand. If you don’t have a good translatorRead More…
Corporate Tax is a critical issue when you’re forming your new company. You don’t want to pay corporate taxes if you don’t have to. The corporate tax rate at the federal level is about 35%, while at the state level it’s about 9%. You get a credit for the state tax against the federal tax, but you’re still paying about 40% in taxes. Then, when you pay out a dividend, the individual pays his ownRead More…
When building a company, there will be a point where you go after your first million dollars or more. For this, you must choose an investment banker. Finding the right banker is not an easy process. You must ensure the person you chose understands your marketplace, understands your product relatively well, and has raised money for similar companies. These things will help to ensure the highest possible probability of success in a capital raise. YourRead More…
People ask me every day why they should have an estate plan. An estate plan is a revocable trust or pour-over will. Your trust will say where to put everything, it will hold your assets and other documents that surround that including a healthcare directive. If someone dies without an estate plan, they’ll have what’s called probate. Probate goes to court, takes time, costs money, and could have been easily avoided with an estate plan.Read More…
When you start your new company, you’ll likely want to build a board of directors to raise capital in order to have good people involved in your company. Most people don’t want to be involved in a start-up as a board of directors member because there is liability between the board member and the shareholders. Rather, for a startup, we create a board of advisors. Advisors have no voting rights. They can sit on theRead More…
We will often have an inventor come to us and say “I’ve got a great idea and want to make a company out of it.” The most important part of forming a company is the people you surround yourself with. First, you go out and protect anything that is protectable with a trademark, patent, or copyright. Then, you talk to as many people as you can. You want those you chose to be good peopleRead More…
Corporate bylaws are generally thought of as a standard set of documents that you get from a legal zoom or a legal forms book. They tell you when to hold your meetings, how to hold those meetings, and the kinds of notices that are required for those kinds of meetings. They also talk about the officers and directors roles in the company. It’s important to make sure you understand what your bylaws say at theRead More…
Corporate bylaws are generally thought of as a standard set of documents that you get from a legal zoom or a legal forms book. They tell you when to hold your meetings, how to hold those meetings, and the kinds of notices that are required for those kinds of meetings. They also talk about the officers and directors roles in the company. It’s important to make sure you understand what your bylaws say at theRead More…