Gain the Upper Hand in Your Venture Deals: A Comprehensive Guide to the Third Edition of Venture Deals

Armando Pugno: very useful

Italy on Feb 13, 2023

Annabel J.: feel like I wasted hours reading something that was made for lawyers not startup founders

United Kingdom on Feb 21, 2022

Gary E. Hoover, the man with 60,000 Books: This is the one must-have book for any startup or company that accepts outside capital. And even if you have a private company, the book has good thoughts on board structure etc. This book can save you time, money, and heartache. Not just generalities about legal structure and finance, but specific real-world solutions and options. If you are incorporating a business, read it before you even write your by-laws, if you can. If you are raising capital from angel investors, as most startups do, the ideas still apply. In my experience, angels who think like professional investors (VCs) are the best type of angels, especially if they are patient, longer-term investors.

United States on Jun 28, 2021

Chris Lundberg: This book is useful for founders, investors, lawyers, and anyone generally interested in the dynamics and considerations involved in the financing of start ups. In my opinion the book goes into just the right amount of detail when discussing term sheets, cap tables, valuations, and other artifacts of VC investment.

The authors do a great job of keeping the focus on the motivations and concerns of the various parties involved in a venture deal. They emphasize the importance of trust and honesty on the part of both the VC and the founder(s) and make it clear that the decision to invest (or take investment) shouldn't be based purely on the numbers.

United States on Mar 09, 2020

@Timothy_Hughes: Being the CEO of a start-up I wanted to know what I can about Venture capital, after reading "Lost and Founder" by Rank Fishkin (highly recommended by the way, in fact I insisted all my board read it). Rand recommends "Venture Deals" and I would too. There is a chapter on the basics in Rand's book, but Brad Feld really goes into the detail. As you can imagine the book is not a laugh a minute, it takes you through the (US) (I'm in the UK) legal framework and the calculations. Of course for some that will make it too dry, but if you want to be successful you have to put in the hours. Well worth the investment and read.

United Kingdom on Nov 18, 2018

Akber Khan: This was a great book. And you need to buy it and read it NOW. Just do it.

Backstory: I'm a startup founder, new to the VC game, and currently raising our seed round for our startup. I didn't know very much about raising money other than I heard the term "Term Sheet" and "Seed Round, Series A, B" "Valuation" etc being thrown around in the startup world. After watching a few youtube videos on raising money and the VC world it was time to buy this book and get into the details.

What this book does: It breaks all of the different elements of raising money (focused a lot on Seed stage - which I think most people want to know about and is the author's focus) and the different terms being thrown around or discussed during the process. What you should watch out for, what are the terms in the term sheet, what's worth arguing over, understanding how the different types of investors will get paid and in what order when you EXIT (Sell your company or IPO)... this is very important btw.

Highlights & Best part: It gives you the "Entrepreneur's Perspective" for each section, which is awesome... So you can see how you, as the entrepreneur, should view this sections and...

United States on Nov 13, 2017

Robert J. Dunn: I read this book cover to cover in a week earlier in the year. There were several sections I definitely had to reread as there is an abundance of practical knowledge to absorb.

This is a MUST read this book if you are an entrepreneur seeking funding. Not only is packed full of knowledge, but I appreciate the balance it has between the VC and entrepreneur. It is written by Brad and Jason who are partners at the Foundry VC. It provides depth but illuminates what is truly important. Its oriented at win-win-win between VC, their investors, and the founders, which is important to me and should be important to any venture.

I didn't know it at the time I read this book, that there was a online course through Techstars that I am now enrolled in currently. The course really cements the knowledge and assess the early stage choices and their implications of later stage funding.

Few books have provided me some much knowledge in one source. I highly recommend both the book and the course.

United States on Oct 28, 2017

Leon Grin: This is a great technical book, and it’s very helpful for entrepreneurs.

I wish I had read it before taking VC money some years ago. This book is more like a practical guide and resource.

Venture Deals is not going to directly help you answer the question whether or not you should take venture capital. But it’s going to help you a lot if you decide to use venture capital to fund your company.

VCs’ obsession in getting preferred terms and stock in early stage financing annoys me tremendously. A company in its early stage needs partners that are willing to experiment a lot to build a great business model. And partners need to be onboard on equal terms, sharing the same risks and goals. You can’t time your success in an early stage venture, and it doesn’t sound good to me to rush into “scale mode” before finding a profitable product / market fit.

Early-stage startup returns are binary — they either become failures or big successes with little in between that’s meaningful to investors. That’s why I don’t understand sophisticated early stage investors so worried about terms that put the entrepreneur in a very uncomfortable position. In...

United States on Oct 02, 2017

Chris: No replacement for proper legal advice, despite what the dust jacket says. A great primer on how venture deals get structured, so definitely worth reading if you are just starting out. Far from meeting the claims on the front cover, this may get you to a point of having an intelligent conversation with your lawyer, but don't think VCs aren't 2 steps ahead of you. Engage a great lawyer, AND read this book.

Canada on Sep 26, 2017

Riderwave: Technical, but fully justifiable as the subject demands details and precision. Some very valuable ideas about negotiations and ton of small insights and tips about deal making. I give it 5 stars for sure, but I would have to say that the next level would be to create 2 different books. One for entrepreneurs and the other one for Investors e.c. The reason is that this book feels like it tries to please both sides, but I guess in most cases Entrepreneurs would need to focus more on the deal making part and less on the technical side of it. This is something that was mentioned couple of times in the book as "Strategy to steer away the focus of the important parts of the deal".

Thank you Brad and Jason! I know I will come back to this book many times.

United Kingdom on Jun 13, 2017