What’s the Most Important Thing I Should Do When Starting My Business? Pt. 2

Once you’ve set a clear mission statement, it’s time to look into the future of your business and define your end goal.

Defining your end goal is slightly different from defining your mission statement. It’s more specific and it’s more concrete.

“Defining your end goal is slightly different from defining your mission statement. It’s more specific and it’s more concrete.”

Picture your business in one year, five years, ten years, and at the end of your career. Where do you see your business down the road?

Do you want to have lots of outside investors?

Do you want to be publicly traded on a stock exchange?

Do you want it to remain small and fit into your existing life?

Do you want to sell the business and spend the rest of your days on a beach?

It might seem too early to think about your exit, but defining your end goal will affect all of your later legal decisions.

For example, if you want your business to become publicly traded, you likely to want to set yourself up as a C-corp (a subchapter C corporation) right from the get-go (we’ll go into more details about selecting an entity type in future chapters).

Another example of how your end goal can have legal impacts on your business is if your end goal differs from your business partner. If that’s the case, you could face legal complications down the road.

Your end goal will also affect where you do business and even what state you register your business in. There are advantages to registering in different states, but those advantages are only worth it if you have a specific end goal in mind. For example, registering a business in Delaware can be advantageous for large corporations, but it probably doesn’t make sense for a small local business.