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Startup legal questions FAQ (startupcompanylawyer.com)
32 points by bdr on Dec 4, 2008 | hide | past | favorite | 7 comments



Yokum, I would recommend that you re-order the category headers in the top to make it more linear for the various stages of a startup: Incorporation and Founders to the left of Series A and Down Rounds, as examples. It would be helpful for me when I recommend your site to others (which I do constantly).

Also, I'd also recommend that you add something about "how to hire me/WSGR to incorporate/represent your company" in the FAQs or Contact Yokum sections. This is not obvious, and picking up the phone and calling a partner at Wilson is scary. Some semblence of the process and ballpark fees would be very helpful. As you say, an experienced attorney is no comparison to one of those online legal form mills - and people would be surprised to know how affordable quality advice actually is. Of course, if you're not interested in new business, I understand. :)


Those are both very good points. On the order of the category headers, I'll implement that today.

On the "how to hire" me comment, I've struggled with whether to put more info out there as the original point of the site was so that I could understand what blogging was about (and providing a public service by demystifying things for entrepreneurs). While I have been cold-contacted by a couple of entrepreneurs who have gone on to raise venture financing, I also end up getting contacted by a lot of people who will likely not be successful. I've generally taken the attitude that you have to kiss a lot of frogs in order to find a prince, but some people who have cold-contacted might know that I constantly joke about having to weed out potential axe-murderers. I'll probably add an FAQ in the near future to address how to engage attorneys and how much things cost.


Glad that people find the site helpful.


"From a purely mathematical perspective, it doesn’t matter whether there are 1 million or 10 million fully-diluted shares. However, when companies are granting options to new employees, even the smartest engineers feel better receiving options to purchase 100,000 shares as opposed to 10,000 shares, even if it represents the same percentage ownership of the company."

So very true, that.


Life is all about deception, isn't it?


I don't think so. What I meant was, if everything else is equal, perception plays a significant role.


I've not really been able to absorb much detail yet... but this seems like an excellent resource. Great find.




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