Posts Tagged ‘Chris Dixon’

Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed: Jeff Clavier

by Scott Edward Walker on March 21st, 2012

To Our Clients & Friends: Welcome to our weekly series “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 Jeff Clavier, the Founder and Managing Partner of SoftTech VC, and a smart, savvy investor.

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How To Launch a Startup and Avoid Ending-up in Jail

by Scott Edward Walker on June 23rd, 2011

Introduction

jail

I love working with startups and trying to protect founders (and watch their backs).  Not only are there key contractual issues that must be buttoned-down (like vesting and IP assignment), but also there is a minefield of laws and regulations that must be complied with.  Indeed, in a world of easy access to online documents and web sites like LegalZoom, it is often this legal compliance which is overlooked by founders, as they attempt to stay “lean” and “scrappy.”  As discussed below, however, non-compliance with certain laws and regulations could lead to founders’ criminal liability.

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How to Hire a Superstar Engineer for Your Startup

by Scott Edward Walker on June 2nd, 2011

Introduction

This post was originally part of my “Ask the Attorney” series which I am writing for VentureBeat (one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs).  Below is a longer, more comprehensive version.  Please shoot me any questions you may have in the comments section – or feel free to call me directly at 310-288-6667 (Los Angeles) or 415-979-9998 (San Francisco).  Many thanks, Scott

Question

We launched a consumer internet site about a year ago, and we’re starting to get some really good traction.  We’ve spoken to a bunch of angel investors and they all told us that we need to get an engineer on our team (my partner and I are both business guys and we outsourced the development).  The problem is we’re in Silicon Valley, and we obviously don’t have the money to compete with the big tech companies for talent.  Can you please give us some advice on hiring a superstar engineer and the key legal issues that we should be addressing.  Thanks!

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Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed: Dennis Crowley

by Scott Edward Walker on March 22nd, 2011

We have these things in our head, and we just want to get them built. –Dennis Crowley

To Our Clients & Friends: Welcome to our weekly series “Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed.”  Each week, we post a short video clip of a successful entrepreneur, investor or business leader on a variety of topics to help entrepreneurs succeed.

This week, we again present Dennis Crowley, Co-founder and CEO of foursquare and a super smart and successful entrepreneur.  In this interesting, four-minute interview with Chris Dixon (courtesy of TechCrunch TV), Dennis discusses (i) launching a startup in New York City, (ii) fundraising and (iii) growing from 2 to 50 people (i.e., “building the machine that builds the products”).  I hope you enjoy it.  Many thanks, Scott