Author: Ryan Roberts
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The Ultimate Startup Hiring Guide
How to use this startup hiring guide If you’re a founder hiring your first 1 to 20 people at a U.S. startup (assume Delaware C-Corp, venture-style expectations), this is the 80/20 startup hiring legal playbook. The goal is not to turn you into HR. The goal is to help you make decisions that hold up…
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Venture Capital Term Sheet Survival Guide
If you are a founder with a venture capital term sheet in your inbox, you’re not “almost closed.” You’re at the moment where a few pages of business terms quietly lock in years of economics and control for your startup. A VC term sheet is a short summary of the key terms of a proposed…
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Seed Funding: Complete SAFEs vs Notes Guide
Table of Contents – Seed Funding: Complete SAFEs vs Notes Guide TL;DR: For most seed funding rounds, a post-money SAFE is the default because it’s fast, market-familiar, and makes dilution easier to estimate when you’re stacking multiple checks. Use a convertible note when a real maturity clock is part of the deal (for example, a…
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Startup Equity 101: Splits and Vesting
Table of Contents – Startup Equity 101: Splits and Vesting TL;DR: Startup equity is only useful if it’s structured so you can keep building, hire talent, and pass diligence later. In a typical Delaware C-Corp, that means agreeing on a founder split that maps to real contributions, putting most founder stock on a standard 4-year…
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Startup Incorporation: The Complete Guide
Table of Contents – Startup Incorporation: The Complete Guide TL;DR: Startup incorporation is the process of forming your legal entity and setting up clean ownership so you can sign contracts, issue equity, and raise money without surprises later. If you are building a high-growth company that might raise venture capital, you usually want a Delaware…
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Founder Employment Agreements in Exits
TL;DR: In most acquisitions, founder employment agreements is where the buyer sets your post-close reality: role, reporting line, compensation and retention, severance, and the exit ramps if it does not work out. Buyers often deliver a broad, standard-form restrictive covenant package late in the process to create time pressure, and it can include a much…
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Founder Secondary: Liquidity and Signaling
TL;DR: A Founder Secondary is when you sell some of your shares for cash usually in connection with a financing. It’s typically healthy when it’s modest, the round is otherwise strong, and it reduces personal financial pressure so you can stay focused; it’s usually dangerous when it’s large, early, or a major negotiation point, because…
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The Ultimate Pre-Incorporation Checklist
TL;DR: If your startup is pre-incorporation, you can still lock down the things that usually blow up later: who owns what, who can bind the company, and whether your IP is actually yours. The expensive problems aren’t abstract legal issues. They’re diligence surprises like a cofounder who “thought” they owned 50%, contractor code with unclear…
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Board Composition: Sticky Control Shifts
If you’re raising a priced round (especially Series A), board composition is one of the few terms that can change your day-to-day reality as a CEO faster than your cap table does. Once you give up voting control at the board level, you may not be able to “earn it back” later without someone else’s…
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Escrow and Holdback in Startup M&A
TL;DR: In most private-company startup acquisitions, it’s normal for the buyer to hold back a portion of the purchase price in an escrow (or as a holdback) for 12 to 18 months to cover post-closing surprises, so the real question is not “why isn’t my money here,” but how big it is, how long it lasts, and how easy it is for…