What to Consider When Signing Legal Paperwork for an LLC You Want to Operate by Distributed Governance

For those of you who desire and value more of a peer-to-peer distribution of decision making and responsibility in your business, who are ready to embark on the agreement stage of your journey as new business partners/parents (because birthing a business is a lot like having a baby together), here’s a selection of the things you’ll want to know:

1. You can think of the journey you’re taking into an agreement much like a Quest, where you’ll encounter challenges and pick up clues for how you’ll be engaging with each other, other people, clients and partners along the way. It’s a non-linear journey and you’ll likely hop around and diverge from any planned ideas that you may have had, based on what’s arising real time for you, so don’t let that phase you;

2. The process is no joke- there’s a reason 95% of startups fail and a lot of it stems from the agreement piece not being given due attention and energy. If you rush into it it’s like rushing into marriage, so you’ll want to take as much time as is needed to maximize the likelihood of you having a happy and functional relationship with continuity over time. The alternative is that you are free to pay a traditional lawyer $10k to go old school, with an off the shelf solution and just get ‘er done. If that’s what you choose just be sure to do so with your eyes open to the fact that:

(a) you’re entering into an invisible social contract that will have you swimming in the energetics of a masculine top down hierarchical structure; and

(b) if you know you want a model that can distribute power and decision making, adapt easily and keep accommodating your expanding relationships while maintaining its integrity, that’s simply not what the traditional models are designed for.

3. Your Quest will be inviting you to align at the deepest levels and address many of the challenges that often break businesses and relationships by talking about it all ahead of signing your agreements (rather than afterwards when you’re already bound by the contract). That means you may face some discomfort and can probably anticipate some unconscious aversion to the process. Even if you love and adore each other now, statistics…