West African entrepreneur news

July 7, 2011 · 0 comments

Hot off the presses:

Idea Scout is a new source of information about entrepreneurs, innovation, and doing business right in West Africa, including Ghana and Nigeria. They are going to launch a new information site with exclusive content and lots of value-added opportunities.

Sign up here for launch notification.

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Personal: Rick’s first fundraiser finishes on 4/9

April 8, 2011 · 0 comments

Here’s a short link to one of my other blogs, Watch Rick Train. I’m raising money all year for Reed Academy, starting with the Tough Mudder in Pennsylvania tomorrow and finishing with Ironman Florida in November. My goal is $140,000. This is the start.

Thanks for your support; I’ll post updates at the WRT blog.

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Five-minute general counsel: What is your share of a joint venture?

21 March 2011

“Joint venture” is a sloppy term used to describe a number of different business operations. The important thing to remember is that it is too vague to be meaningful legally. A project that is called a joint venture might legitimately be structured like any of these: a brand new entity with shared ownership a subsidiary [...]

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Five-minute general counsel: What’s in a seed round termsheet?

1 February 2011

Here’s a common set of angel-investor questions regarding a standard seed round term sheet for a tech company: Why are the shares divided into preferred and common? Why does the preferred stock have a limited “1x” return? What will happen with liquidation preferences in future rounds? What will happen with dividends? Does the preferred stock [...]

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Five-minute general counsel: Why legal advice is always custom

30 January 2011

I recently came across a LinkedIn question asking about entity selection for a social enterprise. The generic question for a generic business is what people often conceive of as an “easy question” with a simple answer. Here’s my answer: Laura, the question you ask is only properly answered in light of more important questions. I’ve [...]

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Five-minute general counsel: how to structure a board meeting

22 November 2010

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures wrote about his board meeting and ugly travel schedule some time ago. It’s refreshing to hear him talk about being excited to go to board meetings. I’ve sat in too many where a VC (even a monster big-name guy) ended up talking about the format of financials being presented [...]

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Great lawyers don’t sell forms

17 November 2010

Here’s a LinkedIn question about LLC operating agreements. The poster wonders whether the operating agreement he received from the entity formation company is a little “generic” and asks the forum for specific advice about what should be included. The answers point to some provisions that should be included (division of gains and losses, breakup/buyout/dissolution schemes, [...]

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Happy Veterans’ Day

11 November 2010

Today is a day I treat much like Memorial Day, with the difference that I’m not uncomfortable about receiving greetings today. (Memorial Day is for fallen servicemembers; I’m not in that category nor have I been in harm’s way. Many others have; think of them today.

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Five-minute general counsel: what nonprofits want

15 October 2010

Nancy Lublin’s column in Fast Company is always interesting, even moreso when I disagree with her. A column from February, “We Really Need to Talk,” (oddly renamed on the web as “Foundations’ Four Biggest Faux Pas”) is a little list of four points she’d make to foundations. To me, they boil down to versions of [...]

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Five-minute general counsel: can a nonprofit change mission?

15 October 2010

This LinkedIn question asked about mission drift for non-profits. There are a couple different layers of answer, depending on what’s going on and who’s asking. First, the fundamental concern: will the change of mission jeopardize nonprofit status (and that typically means jeopardize 501(c)(3) status, which means deductibility of donations by donors)? The answer depends on [...]

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