I’m using Twitter as a form of micro-blogging to share interesting blog posts, articles and podcasts relating to entrepreneurship and startups, M&A and legal issues. Below are my five most popular tweets (via bit.ly) for the past two weeks and a few blog-related tweets. If you’d like to see all of my tweets (or an RSS feed of them), you can do so here. Cheers, Scott
I’m using Twitter as a form of micro-blogging to share interesting blog posts, articles and podcasts relating to entrepreneurship and startups, M&A and legal issues. Below are my five most popular tweets (via bit.ly) for the past two weeks and a few blog-related tweets. If you’d like to see all of my tweets (or an RSS feed of them), you can do so here. Cheers, Scott
Introduction
We are in the golden age of seed financing. Venture capital funds, seed funds, super angels, angel groups, incubators, and “friends and family” are all playing the seed financing game and investing early in startups in an attempt to land the next Facebook.
As a result, the pendulum has swung dramatically in the founders’ favor, and the issuance of convertible notes for seed financing has never been more prolific. Indeed, as a corporate lawyer for 18+ years, I have seen this development first-hand.
To Our Clients & Friends: Welcome to our weekly series entitled “Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed.” Each week, we share a favorite video of a successful entrepreneur, investor or business leader on a variety of topics. This week, we again present Mark Suster, a partner at GRP Partners, blogger extraordinaire, and a very smart entrepreneur turned VC.
Introduction
This post is part 3 of my three-part series: “How do I raise seed capital if I don’t know any investors?” In part 1, I discussed the importance of hustling and building relationships in order to get warm introductions to investors. In part 2, I discussed some of the different mentorship and seed capital programs, including Y Combinator and TechStars. In this post, I will discuss applying directly to a relatively new site called “AngelList.”
In the spirit of entrepreneurship (and fun), I wrote the following poem about my experience at last night’s Open Angel Forum. (more…)
To Our Clients & Friends:
I am using Twitter as a form of microblogging to share insightful articles, blog posts and podcasts relating to entrepreneurship, mergers & acquisitions, and business and corporate law issues.
For those of you who missed this week’s Twitter updates, below you’ll find highlights of our top tweets. If you’d like to see all of our tweets (or an RSS feed of them), you can do so here.
If you have any questions or comments with respect to any of the tweets below, please contact me through the comments section of this post. Many thanks, Scott
Introduction
My colleague, Susan Morgan, conducted a webinar yesterday with respect to venture capital term sheets for the “CFO University,” which is group of Chief Financial Officers convening monthly webinars via CFOwise. As I have previously discussed, Susan recently joined our team and has strong financing experience, including 7+ years at Fenwick & West in Silicon Valley where she closed more than 30 financings. (You can learn more about Susan’s background on her bio page.) In conjunction with the webinar, Susan also wrote a brief post on convertible notes. You can see the webinar and read the post below. Many thanks, Scott
Introduction
This is part two of my two-part series on angel financings. In part one, I provided the following five tips for entrepreneurs: (i) push for the issuance of convertible notes; (ii) understand the key business terms; (iii) diligence the angel(s); (iv) never subject yourself to personal liability; and (v) comply with applicable securities laws. Below are five additional tips for entrepreneurs to help them through the angel financing process. Obviously, this is still a difficult environment in which to raise capital; however, I am confident that 2010 will bring greener pastures.
Introduction
I am currently working with several smart, young entrepreneurs who are trying to raise capital from “angels” (i.e., wealthy individuals who invest in start-up companies). Indeed, since I moved to Los Angeles from New York City in 2005, I have been involved in a number of angel financings; and what’s interesting from my perspective as a corporate attorney is that the deals run the gamut from an angel handing a check to an entrepreneur and instructing him to “send the paperwork when it’s ready” — to an angel retaining a large, aggressive law firm and insisting on shares of preferred stock, with all the “bells and whistles.” Below are five tips for entrepreneurs to help them through the angel financing process. (This is part one of a two-part series; I will provide five additional tips in my next post.) (more…)
For those of you who do not follow Walker Corporate Law Group, PLLC (Walker) on Twitter, I have set forth below highlights of our tweets for the past six days (in reverse chronological order). I indeed hope that a few of the links to articles, blog posts, podcasts and videos are helpful to our clients and friends. If you would like to follow Walker on Twitter (or if you would like to receive an RSS feed of our tweets), you can sign-up here. You can also check out the recent tweets of some of the entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and others Walker is following by clicking their photos on such page. If you have any questions or comments (or if you would like any additional information) with respect to any of the tweets below, please contact me through the comments section of this post. Many thanks, Scott (more…)
Introduction
There has been quite a bit of excitement on the blogosphere and twitter with respect to Jason Calacanis’s crusade against angel groups charging entrepreneurs fees to pitch them (see, e.g., the discussion on Hacker News and this recent post). As a corporate attorney representing entrepreneurs, I generally agree in principle with Jason’s position; however, I think it is important to distinguish among the different angel groups and their respective practices.
Needless to say, to the extent an angel group (i) is not adequately disclosing their fees, (ii) is charging unreasonable fees and/or (iii) is deceiving entrepreneurs, it is a significant problem that needs to be addressed. On the other hand, (i) if the fees are reasonable/de minimis and are adequately disclosed and (ii) the angel group is providing a legitimate service to entrepreneurs, there may be compelling reasons to support such a fee-based service. Indeed, as discussed below, John Dilts (the founder and President of Maverick Angels, LLC) recently attempted to make that case to Frank Peters during his podcast interview on 9/24/09 here (referred to herein as the “Dilts Podcast”).
This post briefly (i) provides some background and context, (ii) sets forth the respective arguments made by Jason and John and (iii) concludes by recommending that they should meet face-to-face and have a live debate (in the great American tradition). (more…)
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