Starting a company as a foreigner is the American dream in action—but making it a reality requires navigating legal, financial, and immigration complexities. From selecting the right business entity to securing visas and raising capital, every decision impacts your startup's success.
Choosing the right co-founder is one of the most crucial decisions for a startup’s success. These questions will help facilitate honest discussions and set the foundation for a strong working relationship.
Raising capital is a balancing act: you need enough funding to grow, but you also need to protect your ownership so you don’t find yourself squeezed out of your own company. Many founders raise money without fully understanding dilution, only to realize too late that they’ve given away too much too soon.
One of the most critical decisions a startup founder makes is how to allocate equity among employees, consultants, and advisors. Equity compensation is a powerful tool for attracting top talent, aligning incentives, and ensuring long-term commitment.
This guide will walk you through the essential elements your pitch deck must include to effectively communicate your startup’s value proposition, market opportunity, and growth potential. By focusing on these key components, you’ll be better positioned to secure the funding and support needed to propel your startup forward.
This post dives into what happened to Jobs from a legal and governance perspective and offers actionable lessons to help founders avoid a similar fate.
A client recently obtained a 409A valuation to issue equity to a new co-founder. The valuation for their pre-revenue startup, which had raised less than $400k, came in much higher than the nominal value they had expected.
Issuing founder stock or options at the wrong price can lead to massive tax liabilities and IRS scrutiny. A 409A valuation helps ensure compliance, minimizes legal risks, and keeps investors confident. Learn why it matters and when you need one to safeguard your startup's future.
When it comes to raising venture funding, startups have several popular instruments at their disposal: SAFEs, convertible notes, and NVCA documents for priced equity rounds. In this post, we’ll dive deep into SAFEs.
When structuring equity compensation, companies often consider granting stock or offering stock options, each with unique implications on ownership, taxation, and financial risk.
A startup founder hired a developer without a contract. When the developer claimed IP ownership and sued, investors fled, and the startup collapsed. Learn how to protect your venture with proper consulting agreements.
In the startup world, founder separations are more common than you might think. We've seen outcomes that range from amicable to deeply contentious, each offering valuable insights into how timely and strategic legal actions can significantly shape the course of these situations. Here are five scenarios inspired by real-life cases (with details altered for privacy) and the lessons they teach about navigating founder separations.
The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) now mandates US companies to submit Beneficial Ownership Information Reports (BOIRs) of the company’s “beneficial owners” and related company information. The goal is noble and important: enhancing transparency to combat financial crimes. Yet, many founders are still unaware of this requirement, let alone the specifics. Here is what you should know about the BOIR in just 5 minutes.
The 83(b) election is a crucial consideration for many startup founders and employees who receive stock subject to vesting. But what about non-US taxpayers? Let's explore this complex issue.
One of the critical elements of compensating early-stage employees and founders is to understand Section 83(b) of the tax code on founders’ shares (aka restricted stock)
