Dead on Arrival: How to Avoid the Legal Mistakes That Could Kill Your Start-Up

By: Roger Royse

Narrated by: Roger Royse

Dead on Arrival, Avoiding the Legal Mistakes That Could Kill Your Start-Up takes you through the legal mistakes that start-up companies and their lawyers make on their way to success and how to avoid making those mistakes. Some of those mistakes can be rectified, but many will result in your start-up company being Dead on Arrival when it looks for financing or acquisition opportunities. Knowing what those mistakes are and how to avoid them is essential to starting and building a successful company. This book is essential to help you recognize potential pitfalls and to avoid falling victim to the mistakes that cause companies to fail. This book is a must read for every start-up entrepreneur and lawyer in the start-up space.

Roger Royse is the founder of Royse Law Firm, a business and tax law firm with offices in Northern and Southern California. Roger has practiced tax and business law since 1984 in markets as diverse as Hollywood, Wall Street and Silicon Valley and has helped clients navigate legal issues and opportunities in a variety of industries including technology, entertainment and real estate. Roger has served as an adjunct professor at Golden Gate University and is a frequent speaker, writer and blogger for bar associations CPA organizations, and prominent business groups. Roger regularly advises domestic and international startup and emerging growth companies on formation, financing and exit planning. In addition to providing in-depth legal counsel, Roger's firm applies innovative technology platforms to offer cost-effective, efficient and responsive legal solutions, opportunities, and connections to the business community.

©2012 Roger Royse (P)2013 Roger Royse

very insightful, highly recommended to start up founders and CxOs

avoid the traps... a start up is not rich enough to save money on good legal advice

Tons of information at breakneck speed

The book offer a cacophony of information, but the author sounds like he is racing through the material. I can't imagine trying to internalize this amount of material as a non-attorney. That said, there is a ton of useful information for start-up founders.

Makes legal interesting

Roger does a good job of succinctly describing common startup pitfalls. He uses funny anecdotes too!

very informative!

This book is very informative, practical, useful. It is based on real examples in Silicon Valley.

Useful, compact, and therefore dense

It seems there's a lot of great nuggets of advice here for a start-up, with clear anecdotes about the potentially painful consequences. I like how short and to the point it is. My only caution is,, while the author does try to define some of the terms as he goes (e.g. employee option pools, vesting schedules, preferred shares, etc.) if you're unfamiliar with this kind of terminology I think it might be hard to follow.

A good wake-up call for budding entrepreneurs

Laypersons, faced with making decisions involving legal issues, often don't know what they are missing. The imagination cannot readily produce scenarios of situations not studied or otherwise imagined. Depending on previous background in this area, a listener might or might not understand all of this book, especially on the first pass, but it has huge usefulness in flagging issues and problems, and demonstrating some of the complexities that, if not dealt with prospectively, can jump up later and bite the entrepreneur (at a time perhaps too late to correct the problem short of litigation). There is little as disheartening as watching, for example, one's small business evaporate in a legal fight between its own people. One may wish not to start a business-legal "marriage" with such somber thoughts, but it is better to take time, get sophisticated, and iron things out at the earliest moment, than later. I think the author has done a useful service with this book. Merely grasping the innate complexities can affect how people approach their business ventures. And time spent self-educating about the issues makes for more economical interaction with a lawyer when that is needed. The price and my time invested here are well worth it, I think.

mix of legal and practical considerations

read this book in preparation for a tax conference that's coming up! I enjoyed how this covered legal taxation aspects coupled with very real practical considerations for business and startups. gives many do's and don'ts for those negotiating sale or purchase of businesses. gives persuasive examples why qualified legal and accounting staff are a must. by trying to cut Corners you can cost yourself loads of money time and by yourself major headaches.