Top 5 Worst Seed Round Terms For Startups

Here’s a list of the top 5 worst seed round terms that cause harm to startups at the seed financing stage and therefore should be avoided: 5. Control “Control” of a startup can manifest itself in various forms such as equal (or investor-favorable) representation on the board of directors or

Read more

Term Sheet Purgatory

There’s a lot of advice about (1) how to attract VCs, and (2) how to negotiate a venture capital term sheet. Both sets of advice tend to ignore the gap between an investor’s expression of investment interest and your startup’s receipt of the term sheet. I refer to this waiting

Read more

The Basics of Convertible Debt Financing

Selecting the optimal structure when raising capital for your startup can be a challenging task. When clients ask me for my recommendation, I find myself recommending the convertible debt financing route more often than traditional equity financing (i.e., I’ll give you $100k for 20% of your company’s stock). So what

Read more

Guy Kawasaki on NDAs

Recently I have been asked a lot of questions regarding nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) and investors, either angel or venture capital. I previously wrote my thoughts on trying to drop NDAs on venture capital firms in “Why a VC Will Take a Lighter to Your NDA.” And yesterday, Guy Kawasaki echoed

Read more