Pathway 04
Founder agreements, guarantees, breach and remedies, franchising, and closing a company correctly.
Most business disputes are decided years before anyone sues — in the documents signed at the start. This pathway covers the paper that matters: founder agreements, guarantees, the contracts a company lives by, franchise disclosure, and the filings that end a business cleanly.
The guides share one operating principle: read for the downside. Every checklist here asks what happens on the bad day — a co-founder leaves, a deal collapses, a franchisor's projections miss — because that is when the clause you skimmed becomes the whole case.
Foundational guide
Business Formation & Contracts
Most co-founder blowups trace back to questions nobody answered in writing: who owns what, who decides what, and what happens when someone leaves. Settle those questions early and cheaply — or later, expensively.
Equity, vesting, roles, and exits agreed before the first dispute.
Business Formation & Contracts
Most co-founder blowups trace back to questions nobody answered in writing: who owns what, who decides what, and what happens when someone leaves. Settle those questions early and cheaply — or later, expensively.
Guarantees, breach, and the remedies that actually get ordered.
Business Formation & Contracts
A personal guarantee makes you — not just your company — liable for a business debt. One signature can put your savings and home on the line, so the terms deserve as much scrutiny as the loan itself.
Business Formation & Contracts
Most breach cases end in money, not drama. Here is how courts size the check, when you may walk away from the deal, and which clauses quietly cap what you can recover.
Business Formation & Contracts
The FDD is 100-plus pages because federal law makes the franchisor show you the risks. Here is how to mine it — and the agreement behind it — before your deposit becomes nonrefundable.
Dissolving correctly so liabilities don't follow you home.
Business Formation & Contracts
A business that just stops operating keeps generating fees, tax notices, and personal exposure. Formal dissolution — done in the right order — is what actually turns the lights off.
Questions here often lead into these areas next.