Week 8 (Final week!) Reading for the Business of Entrepreneurship (LAWS 61702)

Week 8 (May 19)

Topics: IPOs. Hypotheticals from the course material. Course wrap up. Improvements for next year.

Readings: Available for free on the web, with links to them here (remember to read the comments of the blog posts): http://del.icio.us/jrodkin/laws61702 :

• “How IPOs Work” – short article at Briefing.com
• “VC Cliché of the Week – Back Door IPO”– blog post by Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures

Week 7 Reading for The Business of Entrepreneurship (LAWS 61702)

Section 3 – Exiting a business

Week 7 (May 12)

Topics: Exiting through acquisition.

Readings: Available for free on the web, with links to them here (remember to read the comments of the blog posts): http://del.icio.us/jrodkin/laws61702 :

• “No Exit: When Venture Capital Isn’t Right” – blog post by Tim Oren, Pacifica Fund.
• “Merger and Acquisition Due Diligence – What to Expect” – blog post at Ask the VC (Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson)
• “How Do You Plan for M&A?” – blog post at Ask the VC by Will Price, formerly of Hummer Winblad, now CEO of Widgetbox
• “The Top Ten Commandments of Venture M&A” – blog post by Bill Burnham, Inductive Capital
• Flyswat Summary of Transaction Terms
• Flyswat LOI

Week 6 Reading for The Business of Entrepreneurship (LAWS 61702)

Topics: Sales and marketing. Metrics in the business. Interacting with the board of directors.

Readings: Available for free on the web, with links to them here (remember to read the comments of the blog posts): http://del.icio.us/jrodkin/laws61702 :

• “Boards that are not Bored” – blog post by Brad Feld, The Foundry Group
• “The Art of the Board Meeting” – blog post by Guy Kawasaki, Garage Technology Ventures
• “How and What to Measure” – blog post by Dick Costolo, Founder/CEO of Feedburner (acquired by Google)
• “The World’s Shortest Marketing Plan” – blog post by Kelly Odell, Volvo
• “Improve Sales with a Marketing Plan” – Article in Entrepreneur Magazine by Kim Gordon
• “No Surprises” – blog post by Josh Kopelman, First Round Capital
• “Using Scorecards with Your Board” – blog post by Matt McCall, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Portage Ventures
• “Pipeline Management” - blog post by Matt McCall, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Portage Ventures

Week 5 reading for The Business of Entrepreneurship (LAWS 61702)

Week 5 (April 28)


Topic: Representing startups as corporate counsel. Guest speaker: Peter Werner from Cooley Godward Kronish.

Readings:

Available for free on the web, with links to them (except the employee docs) here (remember to read the comments of the blog posts): http://del.icio.us/jrodkin/laws61702:

• "BigCo Warning Letter"
• "BigCo PIIA"
• “How to Save Money Running a Startup" - blog post by Jason Calacanis
• DGCL 141(b)
• "409A Government Maximus Interruptus" - blog post by Brad Feld, The Foundry Group
• 409A Cooley Alert series

For reference (won't be discussed directly in class, but will be helpful for your practice)

• NVCA docs link: http://www.nvca.org/model_documents/model_docs.html
• Corporate counsel: http://www.thecorporatecounsel.net/home/
• SLD: http://www.law.uc.edu/CCL/index.html
• Potter Anderson's DGCL reference guide for handheld devices: http://www.potteranderson.com/edelaware.html

Week 4 reading for The Business of Entrepreneurship (LAWS 61702)

Week 4 (April 21)


Topics: Personnel (and documents). Compensation. Intellectual Property (NDAs, PIIs, patents); Non-competes, non-solicitation, and non-disparagement.

Readings:

These are left over from week 3 and are under the week 3 tag at Del.icio.us

• “Nine Questions to Ask a Startup” – blog post by Guy Kawasaki, Garage Technology Ventures
• “The Truth about Venture Capitalists, Part 1” – blog post by Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, Opsware, and Ning
• “The Truth about Venture Capitalists, Part 2” - blog post by Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, Opsware, and Ning
• “Build your own Cap Table” – article at Venture Hacks. (If you need help with this one, watch the video walk through.)
• “Cap Table Hygiene” – blog post by Will Price, CEO of WidgetBox, former VC

Available for free on the web, with links to them (except the employee docs) here (remember to read the comments of the blog posts): http://del.icio.us/jrodkin/laws61702:

• Proprietary Info and Inventions Agreement
• Sample MNDA
• Offer letter template
• “What are Typical Compensation Numbers” – blog post at Ask the VC
• The Sales Commission Dilemma – Inc Magazine
  

Week 3 reading for The Business of Entrepreneurship (LAWS 61702)

Week 3 (April 14)

Topics: Financing strategy and execution; Cap table.

Readings:

Available for free on the web, with links to them here (remember to read the comments of the blog posts): http://del.icio.us/jrodkin/laws61702

- “Nine Questions to Ask a Startup” – blog post by Guy Kawasaki, Garage Technology Ventures
- “The Valuation Trap” – blog post by Stu Phillips, Ridgelift Ventures
- “Venture Capital Deal Algebra” – blog post by Brad Feld, Foundry Group
- “The Truth about Venture Capitalists, Part 1” – blog post by Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, Opsware, and Ning
- “The Truth about Venture Capitalists, Part 2” - blog post by Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, Opsware, and Ning
- “Ten Pragmatic Steps to Raising Venture Capital” – blog post by Bill Burnham, hedge fund manager (Inductive Capital) and former VC
- “Build your own Cap Table” – article at Venture Hacks. (If you need help with this one, watch the video walk through.)
- “Create a Market for your Shares” – article at Venture Hacks
- “Cap Table Hygiene” – blog post by Will Price, CEO of WidgetBox, former VC
- “Liquidation Preferences” – blog post by Brad Feld, Foundry Group
- “To Participate or Not” – blog post by Brad Feld, Foundry Group

MIT track freshman record falls after 16 years

With John Noland, Andrew Romain, and Ed Patron, I helped set the 3200m relay freshman record at MIT in 1992 at 8:05.13.  We had broken the previous record, set the year before, by 17 seconds.  Sadly, 16 years later, our own record has been broken by 8 seconds (and the same team has already broken their own record by 3 more seconds).

Congrats to Prevost, Welle, Conrad, and Kleinguetl!

***

The race recap:

The freshman 4x880 relay team of Richard Prevost, Paul Welle, Shawn Conrad and Kevin Kleinguetl wanted to go for the MIT freshman record of 8:05.13 set back in 1992, also at Harvard. Prevost, primarily a distance runner, led off with a fine 1:59.2 and handed the baton to Welle in third place. Even though the handoff was a bit sloppy, Welle got out well, took the lead halfway through and held on to first place, running an outstanding 1:57.6. Conrad held onto the lead for a while but could not stay with the top two runners in the final 200, handing off to Kleinguetl in a distant third despite running 2:01.5. Kleinguetl could not close the gap despite a 57.4 first 400 and finished with a 1:58.8 for a new freshman record of 7:57.23.