Venture Deals

Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist

By: Jason Mendelson, Brad Feld

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

As each new generation of entrepreneurs emerges, there is a renewed interest in how venture capital deals come together. Yet there really is no definitive guide to venture capital deals. Nobody understands this better than authors Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson. For more than seventeen years, they've been involved in hundreds of venture capital financings, and now, with Venture Deals, they share their experiences in this field with you.

Inspired by a series of blog posts - created by the authors after a particularly challenging deal - this reliable resource demystifies the venture capital financing process and helps you gain a practical perspective of this dynamic discipline.

Whether you're an experienced or aspiring entrepreneur, venture capitalist, or lawyer who partakes in these particular types of deals, you can benefit from the insights found throughout this book. Engaging and informative, Venture Deals skillfully outlines the essential elements of the venture capital term sheet - from terms related to economics to terms related to control. Feld and Mendelson strive to give a balanced view of the particular terms along with the strategies to getting to a fair deal. In addition to examining the nuts and bolts of the term sheet, Venture Deals also introduces you to the various participants in the process, discusses how fundraising works, reveals how VC firms operate, and describes how to apply different negotiating tactics to your deals. You'll also gain valuable insights into several common legal issues most startups face and, as a bonus, discover what a typical letter of intent to acquire your company looks like.

©2011 Jason Mendelson, Brad Feld (P)2011 Gildan Media Corp

Valuable and dry

There are dozens of things you'll learn from this book, any one could save you a ton of time and money

Really helpful.

Highly recommend this for the VC noobs out there. I thought I understood the deal making process since I've been through a few on the outside. It helped.

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Must read for any entrepreneur. great intro to the VC world. good advice and guidance for any new start up

Useful book with "inside information"

What did you love best about Venture Deals?

Well written book, explained concepts in simple and easy to understand terms. Also managed to add humour into something than can be seen as dry.

Knowledge is Power..!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes..!

Any additional comments?

As a former author (of legal, tax, financial, and business issues), I was impressed with Brad and Jason's crystal-clear writing style.

There were so many things I found insightful. Here are a few of their recommendations: 1. Select the right lawyer. The lawyer you pick is a reflection of you. If you pick a "lame" lawyer (my word, not theirs), your own credibility drops more than a notch or two. 2. Keep tabs on (and control of) the negotiation with the VCs. Do not just hand over the reins to your attorney. The way to stay involved and in charge is to understand what is important in the negotiations and what is not. This way you can prevent each side's lawyers from quibbling over unimportant points which only serve to run up legal bills...and/or so you can prevent your attorney from straining your relationship with your investors. 3. Understand that the early rounds of financing can have a big effect on the future of your company (and they explain why, what you need to know, and what mistakes you should not make). 4. Understand the concept of ANTI-DILUTION. It's very important! 5. Understand FOUNDER VESTING. For example, if one of the founders decides to leave after a year or two, you do not want him or her to walk away with a large ownership stake, while you remain at the company and continue to work (hard).

Brad and Jason also teach you that not all VC firms are the same. Different firms specialize in different types of startups or in different stages of the funding process. And some firms are much better at mentoring entrepreneurs than others. The authors also discuss the TIMING of the funds run by VCs (most funds run approximately 10 years, and they explain why this is important for you to know).

They also help you to understand things from the perspective of VCs and angel investors, so you can present yourself well to them.

And all throughout, they teach you how avoid mistakes and nasty pitfalls that could result in serious and regrettable problems. In short, this book is exactly what every entrepreneur, VC, and advisor needs.

Thanks Brad and Jason. Your book is so well done, and written in such a wonderful, kind spirit. You have made an important contribution. I am tremendously impressed.

Though I enjoyed this audio version very much, I do believe that it is important to have this in a book or kindle form, too, so that you can refer to it as needed.

Great Content & Clarification with Viewpoints from as a VC & Entrepreneur!!

Great book with a splash of unexpected humor. Mostly because of the monotone voice you don't expect it but I found it hilarious!! Literally laughing!! I started listening to the audiobook because I was too impatient to wait for my book to arrive. Thankfully it'll arrive on Friday but I spent one day listening to this while I was working. Great content!! Wish I had stumbled upon this over a year ago. But with persistence & continued searching I found what I had been looking for. Finding investors for non-tech companies seems like a black hole and would love more insight. There were a couple of areas where they mentioned would be perceived as red flags by a VC that I would love to bounce off of them to get advice on how to mitigate the perception. The only thing that would be icing on the cake is a visual representation of the stages with common milestones & timeline guides for the process and who you engage, when, etc. They provided their emails so I may reach out to them after all the worst they can say is no and I lose nothing by trying. :)

Great knowledge, MUST for entrepreneurs

This was a very useful book BUT a complimentary pdf with all the examples was necessary. Trying to calculate how much percentage each founder and investor has after 2 rounds of financing and after unique circumstances is challenging without a piece of paper.

Probably better in hard copy

Great information in here & the book is structured in a logical way... still some of the ideas are complex / dry in nature. Hard to listen to this as an audiobook while doing other things

thank you!

I learned a lot that I was unaware even though I am on my third entrepreneurial project as an entrepreneur. thank you!

The Venture Capital Bible

A pair of guys who wrote a book, and it turns out to be just the book any entrepreneur/VC should read.