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    By job · 4 tips

    Small shop owners and sole proprietors

    Don't lose your family's savings to the business, plus tips on routine matters and on guarding against scams.

    1 Don't lose your savings to the business

    Starting a business: don't lose the family savings

    Start a business only with money you can afford to lose; don't touch the family's savings or borrow to open

    Debts of a sole proprietor (个体户) are paid from money and property in your own name. If it can't be told whether the whole family ran the business together, the whole family's property pays. Opening a company is not a safe harbor either: when the company can't pay its debts, the investment you promised but that is not yet due can be demanded early. So decide how much to put in by this test: even if it is all lost, you can still pay the mortgage and see a doctor.

    • High value
    • Evidence B
    • Saves money
    Starting a business: don't lose the family savings

    Don't sign a personal guarantee on a company loan, and your spouse shouldn't sign along with you

    If what you sign is a "joint and several liability guarantee," then when the company can't pay, the creditor can skip the company and ask you directly. A "general guarantee" means the company is sued first, and only what is still short after its property is sold falls to you. If your spouse signs along, both people's household property is put in, and the "limited" in a limited company no longer counts for you personally.

    • High value
    • Evidence A
    • Saves money

    2 Routine matters

    Starting a business: don't lose the family savings

    Images on products, packaging, tags and promotional pictures must be made by you or bought under a license; changing the color or adding an icon doesn't make it "altered"

    Changing the color, swapping the background or adding your own icon to someone else's image is still using their work without permission. Copying someone else's artwork to make money is the crime of infringing copyright (侵犯著作权罪), with up to 3 years, if you earn 30,000 CNY, do 50,000 CNY of business, or print 500 copies. On the trademark side, being "similar enough to be confused" is itself infringement.

    • High value
    • Evidence A
    • Keeps you free

    3 Guarding against scams

    Starting a business: don't lose the family savings

    Before paying someone to run your online shop, taking a shop-opening course, or doing "no-inventory" selling, ask whether more money will be demanded later and where the sales will come from

    These scams take a sum first, then keep getting you to add more through "upgrade packages," advanced payment for goods and "unfreezing fees." The orders and income in the back end may be fabricated, and when you try to withdraw, you can't. Boosting sales by fake orders is itself illegal, and a management agency that is caught is fined.

    • High value
    • Evidence B
    • Saves money

    Related

    This site arranged the groups and order on this page; the tips come from the book. About