Corporate titles of your key people can really hurt you or help you. Two real cases show why.

The first case: Brady and two friends were officers and employees of a company which flew small planes to ferry people from little city airports to a major airport.

One day, they learned that an opportunity was coming up: a chance to do the same thing to a new city. They figured this was a great chance to do their own thing. So they quit the company they’d been working for, formed a new company for themselves, and bought the new route.

The only problem: the new route was the kind of business their old employer did, and would have done.

The second case: Bellomo was hired to be “Director of Wireless Sales” for a company which did wireless networks. Two years later, while still employed by that company, he and a partner secretly formed a new company to do the same thing. Read more