When Craig Wortmann, in his series “Entrepreneurial Selling”, describes the entrepreneur, racing back and forth across the long side of a triangle, teetering on a teeny tiny point, trying not to tip over, something about the image rings so true. He so vividly describes: “as the entrepreneur you’re running back and forth on the top, doing everything that has to be done — from making the coffee to creating the product, to overseeing the sales, marketing, and communications. And he’s right. I’ve sat in the office of more than one entrepreneur, while they told me how the furniture we’re using came in from IKEA in the dark of night and was assembled by a couple of people in time for a big meeting. (Be honest, that has been you, too).

With all of those details to attend to it could be easy to lose track of important things that could make a huge difference in your business. One of these important issues is intellectual property. Peter McDermott’s Founders School series on intellectual property highlights several pitfalls common to startup life that could really sink your startup from an IP perspective. Peter’s series discusses everything from employee agreements, invention documentation, and the ins and outs of patents, trademarks, copyright, and trade secrets. He acknowledges that you may face limitations of time, or money, and provides suggestions for how to think about the relationship between the plans you have for your business and the intellectual property protection you seek.

Take a minute (or no more than 10) to brush up on your intellectual property knowledge, so the time you spend making your startup great, will be equaled by a sound intellectual property portfolio.