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Nda Non Disclosure Agreement Hero 65add8230e22c1d34aef85cbadfc48484e6ae1225a6c262e9d77f4c2658cd70e

No, I will not sign your non-disclosure agreement.

Entrepreneurs are often surprised when investors refuse to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) or confidentiality agreement when offered an opportunity to read the entrepreneurs’ new business plans.  After all, every new startup features secret ideas, partnerships, intellectual property and/or technology. Why won’t investors sign NDAs?  Investors are pitched for funding by as many as 5,000 startup companies per […]
Bill Payne
Bill Payne , Angel Investor , Frontier Angel Fund
6 Feb 2012
What Founders Should Consider Early Exit Offer 601e498501579f6bfb2b1c25ae3ca66095ba6d7760710e7efe27246998f9eed7

Here is Why You Need a Good Startup Exit Strategy

If you startup is your dream, why would you want to think about an exit? It’s going to be so successful and so much fun that you don’t need to think about what comes after. Wrong. There are two very real and practical reasons why you need to plan an exit: Outside investors want to . […]
Martin Zwilling
Martin Zwilling , Founder and CEO , Startup Professionals
6 Feb 2012
Startup Vesting Protects Companies Hero 9916dae55ace30ea8c3162836361e2639e5a3414e2b3903c06f7af2e8676fc18

Rookie Cookies: Owning the Batter But Not the Chips

I’ve gotten on my soapbox before about the importance of forming a business entity as soon as there’s a new product or business worth protecting.  The most common messes encountered in my startup law practice involve founding teams that somehow never got the formation done right, including the contributions and assignments of intellectual property to the new company and the related […]
Antone Johnson
Antone Johnson , Founding Principal , Bottom Line Law Group
2 Feb 2012
Why We Built Gust Launch Hero 5848057ecc4f9b6d1fe0e0fec4f034a6516d4cb8653df7f3b8b8f061a65190d1

The Summary is Dead. Long Live the Short Video

First, I admit it: sometimes I exaggerate for effect. And I just did, with my title here. In truth, you still need those summaries. By the time you’re here on Gust.com you’ve probably figured out that the relationship between business plans and short summaries is something like between movie and movie trailer. Investors don’t read the […]
Tim Berry
Tim Berry , Founder , Palo Alto Software
1 Feb 2012
Successful Startup Founders Invest In Their Own Ventures 0742d64fd6a698c3cfa409e71c3cc4e5620a7e7299f434f1380bb4cde9bc488a (1)

Follow-on Funding: A Dilemma for Angel Investors

In 2007, Professor Rob Wiltbank reported in Returns to Angel Investors in Groups that angel investors made follow-on investment in about 30% of their invested companies. It was surprising for me to learn that follow-on investments correlated with lower returns, that is, angels that made follow-on angel investments saw returns of 1.4X their investment, while those that did […]
Bill Payne
Bill Payne , Angel Investor , Frontier Angel Fund
31 Jan 2012
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