Name: Venture deals
ISBN: 9781118443613

Venture deals

"An engaging guide to excelling in today's venture capital arenaBeginning in 2005, Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson, managing directors at Foundry Group, wrote a long series of blog posts describing all the parts of a typical venture capital Term Sheet: a document which outlines key financial and other terms of a proposed investment. Since this time, they've seen the series used as the basis for a number of college courses, and have been thanked by thousands of people who have used the information to gain a better understanding of the venture capital field.Drawn from the past work Feld and Mendelson have written about in their blog and augmented with newer material, Venture Capital Financings puts this discipline in perspective and lays out the strategies that allow entrepreneurs to excel in their start-up companies. Page by page, this book discusses all facets of the venture capital fundraising process. Along the way, Feld and Mendelson touch on everything from how valuations are set to what externalities venture capitalists face that factor into entrepreneurs' businesses.

What Hacker News says

bradheAug 2025

You should read Venture Deals! Great book by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson that's really comprehensive in this.

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SonOfLilitMay 2025

I'm halfway through Feld and Mendelson's Venture Deals and earlier this year worked through Ittelson's Financial Statements.

Having cofounded a startup that raised investor money before, I can state confidently that both are going to make me better at what I do next time I start something.

Of course, they're not books about "what to do", just "how people do the basics". Which is harder because there's less ambiguity to hide behind. Sometimes my eyes glaze and I need to put them down and wait for a time when I have more energy.

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danjlAug 2024

Before you didn't understand how to build a company. You learned poorly, the difficult way - yourself - rather than easily from others who have done it before. Read The Lean Startup, The Mom Test, Venture Deals, and Traction.

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elamjeDec 2023

Hey Andrew!

Thanks for sharing all the resources and giving me guidance a few years ago. Still very thankful for a few of your posts and pointing me to read Venture Deals, all made me a much better CTO and founder. Hope your current journey is going great!

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andrewstuartOct 2023

I'm listening to the audiobook of "Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist "

https://www.amazon.com.au/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capit...

It's worth listening to if you want to understand this stuff better.

Having just listened to this book, I would guess that this sale has not been a great outcome for the founder and employees.

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pixelmonkeyOct 2023

Pragmatically, read "Venture Deals" and "Founder vs Investor" before you start your company. Then hire a reputable law firm and imagine you're an employee rather than a founder, and setup the initial structure in an employee friendly way. When raising your first round, have some non-negotiables that carry the structure forward. You can DM me on Twitter/X if you want more specifics based on my experience.

Successful startup companies can and should compensate employees well with both cash and stock. It's only incompetence and greed that endangers this outcome. VC expectations are a red herring, only bad VCs are so short-sighted as to deprive a founder of one of the major tools of team-building (truly valuable company equity).

As a founder, there are forces you have to fight against from first principles using your moral compass via a thoughtful fundraising strategy, but it can be done.

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