You’ve Been Sued—Now What?

Less than a year into launching HireAHelper in 2007, co-founders Mike Glanz and Pete Johnson were close to turning a profit. But the owners would soon find themselves fighting to keep their moving-services marketplace alive, when industry behemoth U-Haul sued the startup over a trademark dispute. “We were just about to break even—and all of a sudden we were looking at five-and six-figure legal bills coming in,” says Glanz, CEO of the Oceanside, California–based company.

Soon the founders were embroiled in a three-year court battle that drastically upended their company’s plans. Until the litigation was settled out of court,