Author: Ryan Roberts
-
How Many Shares of Authorized Stock Should a Startup Company have at Incorporation?
An often overlooked aspect of filing a certificate of incorporation is determining how many shares of authorized stock should the new corporation authorize at incorporation. This decision doesn’t really matter to most businesses (I don’t have a clue how many shares I authorized when I incorporated my law firm), but startup companies aren’t like most…
-
How I Launched My Startup (Law Firm) 2016 Update
I’m often contacted by lawyers for advice about going solo or how to start a law firm. In the legal world, going solo is the equivalent of quitting your day job and launching your startup full-time. So I’m dedicating this blog post to provide some background about how I launched my startup law firm. I…
-
Initial Thoughts on the Y Combinator Angel Investor Documents
I wanted to give my initial thoughts on the Y Combinator Series AA Angel Investor Legal Documents that were officially released late last week. I plan to write a document-by-document breakdown in the coming week: Term Sheet – August 29th Stock Purchase Agreement – August 30th Board Consent – August 31st Stockholder Consent – September…
-
Making Dallas the City of Angels
I could use more palm trees here in Dallas and while I’m at it a Togo’s. However, the “City of Angels” reference in this post’s title is about bridging the gap between entrepreneurs and angel investors rather than going “Under the Bridge.” The startup ecosystem in Dallas is discombobulated if not broken. “Underperforming” would be…
-
Soliciting Investors: One Thing Twitter Should Never Be Used For
I saw this TechCrunch article in my RSS reader and thought I would pass it on to you: Social Median Disregards 60 Years of Securities Regulations With Sale of Stock on Twitter I’m a new user of Twitter and I believe it can be used for a lot of things. Soliciting Investors? Not one of…
-
When To Fire a Startup Company’s Founder-CEO
When should a founder be replaced as CEO of a venture-backed company? The topic is obviously a touchy one for a startup founder that brought early success to a company. But while a founder might have been successful leading the startup to a funding event, can the founder also lead the startup to a liquidity…
-
Enthusiasm is Not a Substitute for Caution
This morning was my son’s first day of school and he was extremely excited to get going. In fact, he would have ran across the street to his school without looking if I hadn’t stopped him. His elation overtook his ability to evaluate peril. This reminded me of how entrepreneurs can rush into a startup…
-
Still a Glitch with the Y Combinator Angel Funding Legal Documents
I mentioned last week that Y Combinator was open sourcing their angel funding legal documents. I also noted that soon after the documents were made public, people (myself included) received this error message visiting the documents’ URL: Sorry, there’s a glitch with the documents and we had to take them down. We hope to have…
-
The Entrepreneur Also Rises
I had some free time this weekend and watched “Empire of the Sun” starring Christian Bale and John Malkovich. The movie came out in 1987, but I saw it for the first time Saturday. The premise of Empire of the Sun is that an aristocratic British child is separated from his family (living in China)…
-
Y Combinator Open Sources Funding Documents…Venture Lawyers Leave Office Early
Well I guess that’s it folks. I had a fun ride. Y Combinator has “open sourced” legal documents they provide to their startups seeking funding. The documents were created by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Y Combinator’s law firm. But as of 7:39PST on August 13, there is a “glitch” with the link to the…