Term Sheet Lessons and Book Hunts
Last night I attended the Venture Capital SIG of SD Forum. I was really looking forward to it since it was canceled from the previous month. The topic was “Term Sheet Negotiations -Do’s and Don’ts“, which is always a hot topic in Silicon Valley.
The people on the panel were top notch and represented all sides of the term sheet transaction. It had a VC who was formerly an entrepreneur, David Rolf of VantagePoint. Mixed in with a banker and a lawyer was Lawrence Coburn, an entrepreneur that had just closed Series A funding for his startup, RateitAll.com.
I had prepared before I arrived. I had read some books on term sheet fundamentals. It allowed me to follow the basic language even if it did take me a couple of seconds to translate “2 for a pre-money 8″ into English. I really felt vindicated on my extra credit homework when I overheard two people in the audience talking about good books on term sheets. I could proudly say that I was reading both of the books being recommended at that moment.
This high point was, of course, balanced by a low point.In an earlier post I had mentioned that Sean Murphy of SKMurphy had suggested the book “The Four Steps to the Epiphany“. Before the SIG, I drove to Barnes and Noble since I could not find the book in the local libraries. Imagine my surprise when Barnes and Noble’s computers had no record of this book. It was so unbelievable to me that I called a local library and had the librarian give me the author’s name, Steven Blank. Even that additional info was no help. In frustration, I called Borders while I was still at the Barnes and Noble. They had no record of the book either.
I tried the librarian again. She tried to find the book at another library. Turns out that there are only 17 libraries in the ENTIRE United States that have this book. Only 3 of them are in California. ARGHHHHH!
The hunt goes on.
Tags: SD Forum, term sheets, venture capital