To Our Clients & Friends: Welcome to our weekly series entitled “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 present David Heinemeier Hansson, who is the creator of the Ruby on Rails web development framework, a co-founder of 37signals and the co-author of the best-selling book Rework. In this interesting, three-minute clip (courtesy of Stanford University’s Entrepreneurship Corner), David discusses the problem with accepting venture capital funding. I hope you enjoy it. Many thanks, Scott
To Our Clients & Friends: Welcome to our new weekly series entitled “Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed.” Each week, we will post a short video interview of one or more successful entrepreneurs, investors or business leaders on a variety of relevant topics to help entrepreneurs succeed.
This week, we present heavyweight VCs Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway and David Hornik courtesy of TechCrunch and its founder Michael Arrington (who conducted the interview). They discuss valuation issues, hot investments, and issues relating to venture capital generally. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks, Scott
I’m using Twitter as a form of micro-blogging to share interesting articles, blog posts and podcasts relating to entrepreneurship, raising capital, mergers & acquisitions, and lawyering.
For those of you who missed this week’s Twitter updates, below are my five most popular tweets (via bit.ly) and my blog-related tweets. If you’d like to see all of my tweets (or an RSS feed of them), you can do so here. Many thanks, Scott
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 us through the comments section of this post. Many thanks, Scott
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
I had originally intended to discuss “Series FF” stock in today’s post (as a follow-up to last week’s post regarding “Class F” stock); however, I had several telephone calls in the past few days with respect to the issue of choice of entity for startups and thought it would be helpful to get this post up.
Indeed, one of the most important early decisions an entrepreneur must make in connection with his or her venture is the choice of entity. There are basically six choices: (1) sole proprietorship, (2) general partnership, (3) limited partnership, (4) C corporation, (5) S corporation or (6) limited liability company. Below is a discussion of each entity, including a basic description, the advantages and disadvantages, the ideal candidate/business for such entity, the cost to set-up such entity and the most important take-away.
For those of you who missed this week’s Twitter updates, below you’ll find highlights of our top tweets. If you would like to see all of our tweets (or if you would like to receive 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 us through the comments section of this post. Many thanks, Scott
This post is a longer, more comprehensive version of the post I wrote a couple of weeks ago for VentureHacks, one of the best websites for startups, in which I recommended five New Year’s resolutions for entrepreneurs. Indeed, as I noted in that post, during my 15+ years as a corporate lawyer (including nearly eight years at two major law firms New York City), I have seen entrepreneurs make certain fundamental mistakes over and over again in connection with doing deals. So what better way to welcome in the new decade than to provide seven basic tips for entrepreneurs.
(Message to all of my female clients and readers: (i) the term “guys” includes “gals”; and (ii) in tip #6, you can decide what the term “balls” includes.)
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 seven 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…)
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…)
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 seven 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…)
For those of you who do not follow Walker Corporate Law Group (Walker) on Twitter, I have set forth below highlights of our tweets for the past seven 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
For those of you who do not follow Walker Corporate Law Group (Walker) on Twitter, I have set forth below highlights of our tweets for the past seven days. Indeed, I 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
I’ve been doing deals as a corporate attorney for over 15 years, including nearly eight years in the trenches at two major law firms in New York City; and during that period, I have seen certain mistakes made by entrepreneurs (and inexperienced deal guys) over and over again. The purpose of this post (which is part I of a series) is to discuss the following five basic mistakes made by entrepreneurs in connection with corporate transactions: (1) the failure to diligence the guys on the other side of the table; (2) the failure to build a strong transaction team; (3) the failure to run the negotiations through the lawyers; (4) the failure to check their emotions and to remain disciplined; and (5) blinking first. The video version of this post is set forth immediately below.
Below are ten tips for entrepreneurs who are launching a start-up that will seek venture capital (“VC”) financing.
1. Protect Yourself from Personal Liability. The entrepreneur’s first step in connection with launching a start-up should be to form an organization that will protect against personal liability. As discussed below, a Delaware C-corporation is the structure that VC investors will generally require; however, if a financing is not imminent, it may be prudent for the entrepreneur to form an S-corporation or a limited liability company to obtain “pass-through” tax treatment (and then convert the entity to a C-corporation down the road, if necessary) to take advantage of the company’s initial losses, if applicable. The bottom line is that the entrepreneur should seek the advice of counsel in connection with the formation of any business organization, including the advice of tax counsel (e.g., shareholders in S-corporations — as opposed to C-corporations — are not eligible for the “qualified small business stock” capital gains tax break; and losses in C-corporations may be deductible up to $50,000/yr. or $100,000/yr. on a joint return with respect to “Section 1244 stock”). (more…)
Scott Edward Walker is the founder and CEO of the Firm. Scott has 16+ years of broad corporate and securities law experience, including nearly eight years at two prominent New York City law firms. Read more »
