Resolving Sales And Legal Conflict In Indian Startups
Amey Khardenavis, PadCare Labs
ABSTRACT
When a startup is ready to close a deal, a legal objection can appear to threaten the very growth it is meant to protect. This article examines why sales and legal can repeatedly disagree over contractual commitments and what a chief executive can change. Drawing entirely on secondary research, it integrates scholarship on incentives, organisational authority, conflict, contracting and working capital with Indian legal and institutional sources. It argues that the appropriate response depends on the source of disagreement: missing information, conflicting incentives, a legal or resource constraint, or limited bargaining power. These problems require different responses; escalating every disputed clause to the founder can conceal rather than resolve them. The article proposes proportionate review, explicit trade-offs and responsibility beyond signature. Its contribution is a diagnostic framework connecting the cause of conflict to the intervention, with three propositions for further evaluation. The framework seeks to preserve useful legal challenge while reducing avoidable friction. It does not establish how frequently such conflict occurs or demonstrate that the proposed approach improves startup performance.
Keywords: Indian startups; sales and legal; deal closure; contractual risk; organisational conflict; secondary research.
