I am in serious talks with the founders of a startup. I’m not very interested in their business model, although I think it’s decent, but we do have aligned interests. They require premises to run their business out of and I need to invest some money into property having recently sold a couple of buildings. […]
I have mentioned NDA’s in a lot of separate articles, so I thought I would outline the purpose and features of a good NDA and in so doing, point out the many mistakes everybody (including large corporations) make in constructing them. A non disclosure agreement (or NDA) is a simple legal contract that permits two […]
So, for many technology based startups with intellectual property, patents are an obvious route to go down. However it is not always the correct route and what you might think of as a good form of protection may actually achieve the opposite. Let me explain why: Patents are filed public documents that describe your intellectual […]
I thought I would lighten this blogs mood with a more esoteric experience that I refer to on a daily basis. There are considered to be three conditions of knowledge: Known Known’s – things you know that you know Known Unknown’s – things you know you have no knowledge of Unknown Unkown’s – things you didn’t […]
So, I’ve got to that time in any investors life where I have to make a fundamental decision. With ever increasing regularity, I get offered investment opportunities which compete with my existing portfolio. On the occasional times its happened before, I have declined the investment. However as time goes on, this causes my options to […]
So, I’ve been in quite serious investment negotiation with a startup that I had previously mentored. They are doing well and are looking for an additional investment round to fund growth. While competent with their own business and market, the primary founder is a little lacking in general business experience, so I have to date […]
A theme repeated now several times during my mentoring sessions, is the misunderstanding of what legal advice is or should be. The first time this happened, was about a year ago, when a promising startup asked for my advice on how to offer share options to new employees. Now any startup with some traction has […]
I realised that I had discussed company valuations several times, but had not explored or discussed the most common mistake that many startups make, the cliched “My startup is worth £1M” Here are a few compelling reasons why you’re not: 1. As mentioned in a previous blog, if your startup really is worth £1M, why […]
So I’ve just been offered an investment in a company. The company has been valued at a pre-money figure. Pre-money valuations are a less than reputable tactic used in the VC industry to increase the value of a company and it works like this. Your company is worth £1M, and you want to raise £500K, […]
In an earlier blog I described the traditional way to value a company. Paul Graham of Y Combinator, attempts to value a company based on “equity vs. investor added value” using mathematical equations, essentially an ROI model: There is a third model which is often unspoken, and the only true measure: Your company is worth what […]