How do solo founders actually handle the legal side?
Hey, Product Hunt!
I've been a software engineer for almost 8 years (started in Android, then moved to .NET backend). Lately, I've been building my own SaaS project.
It's a booking platform with two sides. On one side, businesses - salons, clinics, tutors, studios - get an admin panel to manage their services, staff, availability, and clients. On the other, their customers get a clean public page to book an appointment in a few taps. B2B on the back, B2C on the front, one system keeping them in sync.
The product side I've got covered. The legal side is the part I keep second-guessing, and I'd love to hear how you handle it.
How do solopreneurs actually handle the legal side? Terms, GDPR/data privacy, cancellation policies, invoicing rules, liability - most people running a one-person business have zero legal training and no budget for a lawyer. So what do you actually do? Copy a template off the internet and hope? Ignore it until it bites? Pay someone once and never touch it again?
(For context, I’m based in Romania/EU, so GDPR and local invoicing rules are top of mind for me, but I'd love perspectives from anywhere!)
How did you tackle this when you launched your first app?
Replies
As someone who worked in policy in the US last year, this point in time is super unprecedented because most software companies had pretty strict regulations up until AI exploded the number of startups coming out. I believe, at least for the most part, most startups ignore that side, as far as I know. All Big Tech companies here have a government relations team, so perhaps it's on the back burner for most startups until it either 'bites' like you said or they have enough bandwith to hire a team to sort it out.
Nobody’s suing your pre-revenue booking app over a refund clause. What actually matters early: clean incorporation, clear IP ownership, and since you’re handling clinic and salon data, real GDPR plus a DPA your clients can sign. Template the boring low-risk stuff, pay a pro once for the foundation and privacy bits, and go build. Not legal advice—just the pattern I see as an investor in founders who don’t shoot themselves in the foot.