Latest Blog Posts
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A Venture SLA
I wish the world could be more like this for startups, but it isn’t, at least not in Canada. The Venture SLA has some interesting insights into terms, and is apropos of a conversation over at the StartupNorth Facebook page.
Paul Graham’s post on startup investing trends is a useful complement. It’s very frustrating as a lawyer to see entire deal structures – including vetos over founder control of the business – driven off of (ie getting more complicated and expensive for the company) the VC’s calculation of how much of the company they need to own at Series A in order to make the time investment worthwhile.
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Unpaid Intern Scams Continue to Flourish in Ontario. What Can be Done?
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Breaking the time barrier
My mesh partner and Freshbooks CEO Mike McDerment has written a book on unlocking earning potential in the service industry. The download is here. It’s next on my list, but anything Mike writes is awesome.
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On startup term sheets
This discussion I had with David about seed terms in Canada reminded me that from time to time I save stuff I read related to startups under some delicious tags (my stuff is mostly on pinboard now but I keep this stuff on delicious because I keep hoping they will iterate that site back to its former glory). The stuff on financing terms is here.
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A Public Service Announcement
All startups should read this great David Crow post:
I keep seeing entrepreneurs that complain to me after the fact that they took an investment with bum terms. It comes in many different ways, usually something like, “here’s my cap table what do you think?” or “I have this term sheet what do you think of the terms?”. The terms are usually appalling. But the entrepreneurs asking don’t know this until it is too late, they signed the documents, they spent the money, and now they want advice raising the next round. …
