What sort of business operators can we predict will be disproportionately drawn to using a funding mechanism that is designed from the ground up to leverage a large number of middle-class individual investors with minimal bargaining power under circumstances involving minimal disclosure, toothless corporate governance and little-to-no liability to shareholders?
Guide to laying the legal foundations of a successful startup company by startup lawyer Antone Johnson, Founding Principal of Bottom Line Law Group
A key advisory role of startup lawyers in my opinion is to level the playing field by bringing our own perspectives to bear, having gone through the twists and turns with many clients over the years. Knowledge is power.
Following is the new, improved, Top 15 List of free online resources addressing key recurring themes and questions that founders raise in our initial meetings: Assembling a founding team, choosing and forming a legal entity, deciding on how to compensate co-founders and employees, gauging market conditions for VC and angel funding, deciphering legal jargon and documents used in VC and angel financing rounds, identifying and retaining the best professional advisors, and so forth.
Only a few days later, I’m needing to break my own “Top 10″ rule and add two more valuable resources, making it an even dozen. For founders who want to get into the nitty-gritty details of venture capital and angel financing documents, there are two online resources from leading Silicon Valley law firms that are well worth your time.
Having recently met with quite a few founders of tech startups, I’ve identified several recurring themes and questions. I thought it would be helpful to pull together a quick list of resources to help new entrepreneurs avoid reinventing the wheel.
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