To retain control of your business, you need to control decisions taken at general (shareholder) meetings and decisions taken at board meetings.
If you are only raising a limited amount of external investment, keeping control of general meetings may be straightforward. If you own more than 50% of the shares - and voting rights - you are usually in control. It may also be possible to retain control while owning less than 50% of the shares: for example, by offering external investors non-voting shares.
So long as you control shareholder meetings, and have an existing majority of the board of directors, you should also be able to keep control of the board.
However, you may have to accept limitations on your control in order to attract outside investors in the first place. Typically, you would negotiate a shareholders' agreement that protects their interests (see question 16). Even so, it should not be necessary to accept conditions that restrict your ability to take legitimate commercial decisions.
Commonly, any shareholders' agreement will also include restrictions on external investors. In particular, other (e.g. family) shareholders may have the right of first refusal should an external investor wish to sell their shares.
