VC Deal Lawyer

I really enjoyed Seth Godin’s short entry entitled The Reason Riding a Unicycle is Difficult.  In fact, I generally enjoys his entries – as he posts often and even the short ones can be packed with thoughtful ideas.  Back to the entry – I can really appreciate his view of the binary nature of riding [...]

To some, liquidation preference may sound like a bankruptcy term of art and drag along rights may sound like a move in mixed martial arts.  Venture finance term sheets consist of many unique terms and moving parts, some of which will sound foreign to an entrepreneur raising outside capital for the first time.  Whether by design or misfortune, however, [...]

I recently attended the 2009 Early Stage East Venture Conference.  Very exciting day spent networking and listening to 8 minute pitches from 21 companies seeking funding at different stages.  On the whole, I thought the presentations were well done (although a few presenters seemed to forget that they only had 8 minutes). 
During the conference lunch I met [...]

Here are a couple of good articles I’ve recently read:
‘Super Angels’ Shake Up Venture Capital (Business Week)- this one is centered around one of our hometown greats, Josh Kopelman (First Round Capital).  He is very insightful.  I believe in his current model.
Nothing Ventured (The Deal Magazine)- this one is written by two more hometown VCs, [...]

Is there a correlation between your number of “friends” or “connections” and the true value of your online business network?  If you have 500 “friends” (assuming you use Facebook for business networking), are you more connected from a networking sense than someone with just 150?
Some might say only quantity matters.  For instance, you can go [...]

In short, I would say that being structured as an LLC rather than a corporation will never turn a venture capitalist or angel investor away from a great investment opportunity.  That being said, I believe that venture capitalists still prefer to invest in a corporate entity rather than a limited liability company.  If you intend [...]

Here’s some quick information on the difference between S-Corps, C-Corps and LLCs.  This is meant to be a summary rather than gospel; entire chapters have been written on this topic elsewhere. 
The first thing you should know is that people run their business through a corporation or limited liability company because they desire to limit their liability to third parties.  [...]

This article by Knowledge @ Wharton reminded me of good, old-fashioned selflessness.  Here’s the description provided by K@W:
When Leonard Abess sold a majority stake in Miami-based City National Bank last fall, he did something very unusual. He took $60 million of that money and gave it out as bonuses to 399 current bank employees and [...]

Wow!  How much press can this thing get in the venture community?  Lots – and I think that was the whole point.
Of course, I am talking about WSGR’s term sheet generator which was launched publicly a few weeks ago.  If you read WSGR’s web site, you get the impression that this tool is only part of a larger [...]