Not sure if you meant a book on the web but I liked Venture Deals - http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalis...

Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson released an excellent book this year.

Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist

http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalis...

I wonder how well they explain to their employees how this can wipe out their upside. Venture Deals by Brad Feld is a great read to help understand why this is potentially a dangerous situation to be in: https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitali...

Check out Venture Deals by Feld & Mendelson. It explains in layman's terms most anything you'll encounter during fundraising.

For those who want to gain some context on how such a thing could happen, I recommend the book Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson [1]. There's a good section in the book that talk about share preferences and the order in which the pile of money is cashed out.

[1] - http://a.co/aeI2gqq

Read Venture Deals by Brad Feld. It will make you more knowledgeable then 99.9% of all the people in venture funded companies and put you on the level playing field with the VC's.

I'd recommend the book "Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist" for any entrepreneur seeking funding, especially if you feel in over your head with all this due diligence talk.

Venture Deals by Jason Mendelson and Brad Feld is a good overview. If you want to get more technical, the NVCA publishes a list of their own "standard" documents, which go into depth on some of the standard and non-standard provisions and what they mean, but it's not quite as user friendly.

Venture Deals by Brad Feld is great for how to fundraise and he does go over most of the basics and how things work.

Mark Suster, from Upfront Ventures, has a really great list of blog articles you can read about raising VC: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/pitching-a-vc/

This should give you a general idea of how VC's operate: http://founderequity.com/the-new-reality-of-venture-capital/

Venture Deals by Brad Feld is a good one. Mind you, I'm an earlyish employee and not a founder, but the startup I'm at is thankfully transparent and gives us enough financial metrics for me to put a lot of that book to use in contextualizing our previous fundraising rounds.

Venture Deals, by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson. The full title is "Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist." It's aimed at founders who have little understanding of the processes, players, and terms in a funding round. It's definitely worth the $30 cost.

I highly recommend reading Venture Deals by Brad Feld - this book alone lays out perfectly how minuscule are your chances of getting rich, working for a startup.

The areas to lose money are: liquidation preferences, insuficient voting rights, dilution, different stock classes, general benefits to investor's equity compared to staff equity, investor drag-along, 409A valuation, options expiration or company staying private forever.

Have you read the book "Venture Deals" [1] by Foundry Group VCs? If not, grab a copy now and read through the first few chapters.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalis...

I think the best way to learn about startups and funding is to hear what founders have to say. For this I recommend Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston, http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/d...
While this isn't specifically about funding, many of the founders talk about their funding experience, because this tends to be a painful part for many of them.

As mindcrime mentioned in his comment, Brad Feld's Venture Deals is a great book, though focused on raising from VCs.

Another great source is not books but YouTube. The "This week in venture capital" series is usually interesting. For example here is the most recent episode, with Naval Ravikant, co-founder of AngelList: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP_MJCASwsY
This way you don't only learn about startups and funding, but also about key players in the industry. I'm in the habit of watching those videos daily as I work out on my elliptical trainer... As I learn about a certain investor / founder in one video, I search for more videos of them. Some are more interesting than others. For example Mark Andreesen is always a pleasure to listen to.

If you prefer reading, some interesting relevant bloggers are Brad Feld, Fred Wilson, Chris Dixon and Mark Suster.

I agree that the scope of books that entrepreneurs would find helpful should be wider. I'd recommend some that might be a
little easier to get through (just of the top of my head):

-Losing my virginity (Branson)

-How to win friends and influence people (Carnegie)

-Venture deals (Feld)

-Man's Search for meaning (Frankl)

I'm the author of the notes. I was surprised to find them here =). Just wondering, do people find notes like this useful? I am considering summarizing some startup and business related books at my new blog, http://codingvc.com (I no longer maintain leoexplor.es). Books I'd like to summarize: Art of Profitability, Venture Deals, Founder's Dilemmas, etc.

Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson is required reading before fundraising.

https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitali...

A quick answer. I will expand later if I have time.

(1) Finding VCs: Research online. Nowadays most VCs want to be known, and they have websites and blogs and Twitter accounts. Find the appropriate VCs and send them a short email with a link to your deck. Join founder communities such as YC's https://startupschool.org or https://openland.com.

(2) What to prepare: A pitch deck. https://blog.ycombinator.com/intro-to-the-yc-seed-deck/

(3) What to avoid: Inexperienced startup investors. Also, in the United States, unaccredited investors. Before taking money from an investor, you might talk to a founder of one of their other portfolio companies. Also avoid complex financial agreements: learn about SAFEs and convertible notes beforehand. Overall, you should just review all of YC's latest Startup School materials. https://www.startupschool.org/latest If that's not the way you like to learn, get a copy of Feld and Mendelson's Venture Deals book -- they also run a free online course twice a year.

(4) Common mistakes: Contacting VCs who were not appropriate for the business, location, and stage.

(5) The number one way to increase your chances for getting a VC investment is to not need the VC's money in the first place. A business that is growing exponentially creates its own gravity. Barring that, each investor will have their own priorities. For me, it is the speed of the founder's iterations and progress. That often means I meet the founders long before any serious consideration of investing (e.g., https://bothsidesofthetable.com/invest-in-lines-not-dots-611... )

Let's say the pre-money valuation of a startup is $4m and they raise $1m. The syndicate would own 20% of the company.

Let's say the company exits for $20m. Let's ignore preferred stock and assume it's all common to make the math easier. The syndicate would get $4m.

The first $1m would be payed back to the entire syndicate. The lead would get an additional 20% of the $3m or $600k. Then the rest of the $2.4m would be split amongst the syndicate.

Read chapter 9 of Venture Deals for more detail.

Sounds like a real mess.
Is there a service that takes care of all these problems automagically? I feel I'm very inexperienced to be able to handle all the tax/expense pitfalls (I'm not familiar with the US tax system).

Or at least a resource that describes everything that is needed from start to finish?
For example the book Venture Deals (by Brad Feld) describes the basics of venture funding, but is there any practical guide for incorporating?

I'm very reluctant to incorporate because I don't know if I will be able to handle all the bureaucratic mess and keep up with everything (time and cost wise).

Really liked the 'army of 1' phrase, I'm in the same situation.

Lots of updates in the book I wrote with Jason Mendelson titled Venture Deals - http://amzn.to/2mbB6jW

Options are a complex topic, this article gets a lot wrong.

1. The base offer. Many startups pay competitive or close to competitive salaries + equity.
2. The value of the options depends on your ability to pick the right startup and you believe that you can make a difference to the company. I have a friend who picked the right startup 4 times in a row.
3. Stock options are typically priced at 25% of the last round. The reason this is possible via 409a valuations has to do with the differences between common stock and preferred.
4. Issues with investors right impacting the value of your stock options are more problematic with later stage startups. Warning signs are companies that raised a lot of capital but didn't live up to their expectations. Those companies will often be under pressure to accept terms in later stage financing that could destroy founder and stock option pool upside.
5. Venture Deals by Brad Feld is a great read to understand different investment terms.
6. Yes you get more equity if you create your own company. Doing so is extremely risky, stressful and hard though. I'd guess that even with the extra equity, on average, you'll make more money working for one of the big companies.
7. So in a nutshell, starting companies, joining early stage companies. It really depends on your ability to pick the right company and perhaps more importantly your ability to make a difference.

Well that, and a bit of luck :)

Largely dependent on what you mean by "business man", but going from dev to sales can be as easy as transitioning to a sales engineering / solutions architect role and getting exposure to closing deals that way. The next leap you'd make is figuring out how to get into a closing role; which will take a little patience in order to find a good fit (namely: a company willing to put someone with engineering experience in a closing role -- they're out there!).

If you mean other parts of the business (operations, finance, BD, etc), the pattern is probably similar -- find a technical role that's in that org and start there, with the intention of moving into the business side more and more.

If you mean "I'm a software developer and want to understand the business side of running a company better", there is a ton of reading you can do to learn how businesses work. Some books that were helpful to me:

  * The 4 Steps to Epiphany by Steve Blank
  * How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie 
  * The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman
  * The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
  * Venture Deals by Brad Feld

Ultimately business skills are gained the same way you'd learn software skills -- self-study combined with exposure to the problems you're interested in solving.

Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson: http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalis...

Venture Deals (by Brad Feld) provides a great overview of startup finance matters. It is intended for founders and covers things other than employee equity. It’s an extremely useful read because it provides a holistic overview of the overall fundraising process and enables one to think about equity in a systematic way.

> Best thing to do: forget about them. If and when the time comes, you'll know what to do.

That is terrible advice.

If you work at a startup then compensation will be a mixture of salary and equity. You should know your worth and negotiate your number when joining a startup. You should understand the details of the last financing: how much was raised? who were the investors? how long is the runway? what were the high-level economic terms of the deal?

You should ask around to see what is fair market terms for the options you should receive. You should do a search on angel.co/jobs and look at comparables.

Read Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson even if you are not a founder. Founders and investors know this stuff. If you are naive going into your employment you may end up being screwed out of upside.

Get your papers straight.

In order of personal preference:

1) The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator, by Randall Stross

2) The Founder's Dilemmas, by Noam Wasserman

3) The Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz

4) Zero to One: Notes on Startups, by Peter Thiel, Blake Masters

5) Venture Deals, by Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson (I haven't read, but heard good things about it)

ps: title is missing "ASK HN".

Although not a book about becoming a VC or angel investor, Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson of TechStars and Foundry Group does cover a lot about investments and common things you should understand (which is something useful to know if you're looking to get into the business).

Link: http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalis...

Although again this isn't a book on the subject, here is a blog post talking about it: http://www.askthevc.com/wp/archives/2007/01/how-to-become-a-...

Also: http://www.quora.com/How-do-you-become-a-venture-capitalist?...

Thanks.

Pretty much all books gives you something or the other to learn. I started writing about the books I read, each year, since 2018. For this year, here are few, in no particular order that I feel happy and fulfilled reading them. I will be digging deeper and doing a retrospective, and write a blog post by early 2021.

- Cant't hurt me by David Goggins.

- Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.

- Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday. (Re-read)

- Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford. A very un-assuming book that taught me lot about leadership.

- How to influence and win friends (re-read 3rd or 4th time).

- Humble Inquiry by Edgar Schein.

- I am Malala (daughter like it and so I read it)

- Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Issacson. (I'm taking this real slow, still reading after 6+ months.)

- Range (the one mentioned by Bill Gates)

- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.

- The Future is Asian by Parag Khanna.

- Turn the Ship Around.

- Under Pressure by Lisa Damour (I have a daughter, turning teenager in another year.)

- Venture Deals (still valid in today's fund raising scenes)

- Why we Sleep by Matthew Walker. Still reading but learning a lot already.

MOOCs are a great alternative / supplement to the the modern day debt peonage that often results from standard educational options. One to watch? Minerva Project, which has Miriam Rivera as COO: http://www.minervaproject.com/

I found out about it after taking several courses on www.Novoed.com including: "Technology Entrepreneurship" with Chuck Eesley (free, two-part course offered by Stanford University), "Startup CEO" with Matt Blumberg, "Venture Deals" with Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson, "The Startup Pitch" with +Chris Lipp, and "Raising Startup Capital" with Clint Korver. Miriam was previously CEO of Kauffman Fellows Academy.

I've referenced these courses and the type of opportunity MOOCs present on my personal blog while addressing the "Pipeline Problem" that has come up in relation to diversity numbers at major tech cos.

http://timesnewromanempire.blogspot.com/2014/08/is-entrepren...

Aye, that's the plan. I've been reading a few books about startups. I've read Venture Deals and I have worked with multiple agreements like stock purchase, asset purchase, note purchase, term loan credit agreements.

I have worked with fictitious clients in helping them incorporate, plan a business, initiate a stock purchase, asset purchase, and lastly, how to handle taxation.

I'm midway through The Lean Startup and unfortunately, I realize the startup field is dominated by engineers with inventions. I understand the purpose of funds like Ycombinator and techstars is to provide guidance for engineers and to help them understand the non-engineer aspects that go with running a company. I want some of that experience! They just don't offer it in my law school.

I've worked in a clinical program with real inventors, but it was directed towards helping them with trademarks and patents and not so much as helping them plan a business.