While most people ask themselves “What should I do?” when seeking VC financing, there are also some things that a person should not do. Doing any of the following at best makes you look like a rookie (which is okay, we all were rookies once) and at worst kills any chance that you have of […]

Regardless of how much you know about term sheets, you still need to be able to negotiate a good deal. We’ve found that most people, including many lawyers, are weak negotiators. Fortunately for our portfolio company executives, they can read about everything we know online and in this book, so hopefully in addition to being […]

Before we talk about the dynamics of the negotiation of the deal, it’s useful to understand the motivation of the person you’ll be negotiating against, namely the venture capitalist (VC). We’ve been asked many times to divulge the deep, dark secrets of what makes VCs tick. One night over dinner we talked through much of […]

Now is your chance to show off their proficiency with a spreadsheet. Even if you know what a cap table is, we’ll give you a simple way to calculate the summary level ownership categories with a calculator (or a simple spreadsheet model).  Now that we’ve worked through all of the specific clauses in the term […]

In this chapter we cover the non-economic and non-control terms in the term sheet. Some matter, some don’t, and context matters a lot. Hopefully we’ll give you plenty of it to use in your negotiation with your venture capitalist. Up to this point we’ve been exploring terms that matter a lot and fall under the […]

Yup – many VCs are control freaks. And they love control terms. In this chapter we tell you which ones matter, why they matter, and what you should pay attention to. We also give you some advice on what is worth negotiating hard for, as well as what you shouldn’t worry about too much. The […]