Advice please, How to protect a business idea

Purple said:

Excellent advise from newtothis.

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Thanks! I got loads of free advice when starting the most recent venture, both from the government agencies and other entrepreneurs. I'm a great believer the way to pay it back is to do the same for anyone setting out on the same journey, so am more than happy to do so.

@newtothis @thedaddyman

Thank you both very kindly for your solid advice, I have been on to my local Leo yesterday and to get the ball rolling I have signed up to do one of their start your own business course.
As I am currently self employed I don't see it as something I already know about but I'm hoping it will give me the opportunity to meet like minded people and a stepping stone to get my idea across to the right person/people, while also learning some valuable nuggets of information I'm sure throughout the course.

i understand it's not easy starting a business, I have been self employed for about a number of years, i moved county in 2008 to where my wife is from and set up again from scratch not knowing anybody and also just as the bad recession had started to turn really bad, but I still made a success of it (I'm in construction) they were tough years so I understand hard work ethic and determination and how much of it you really need to get To where you want to be.

I also understand that I will be moving on to the next level with employees, taxation and more responsibilities etc but I will embrace that rather than be put off by it.
At now I am comfortably making a living as I have developed and excellent reputation but I am also bored and feel the need to move on to the next challenge and I also dont want to be doing what I do for the rest of my life (as much as I like doing it)
I have a solid business idea so Am looking forward to getting my hands dirty and hopefully Leo will be the starting point.

I appreciate your time in replying to me on here, if I have any more questions I would also be very grateful for your opinions.

New biz said:

@newtothis @thedaddyman
I appreciate your time in replying to me on here, if I have any more questions I would also be very grateful for your opinions.

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Thanks! I'd be more than happy to offer advice based on my own experience.

One further observation I'd make is that I've started businesses a couple of times now (the first about 15 years ago), and there's been a sea change in the level of support available from government agencies. This applies across the board, not just the obvious ones like LEO and EI. For example, my latest venture is food based, which involves a lot of regulation. We set up a meeting before we started, and the inspector spent most of his time advising us on how to minimise the cost of compliance than the compliance itself. I've no doubt there are exceptions, but my experience is that there's been a definite shift in attitude to support rather than placing barriers. There's a lot of support and advice available from other businesses as well, especially those who've started recently: you generally just have to ask.

Best of luck with the new venture!