How to select your company's lawyer

(Editor’s note: Caine Moss is a corporate and securities partner at Goodwin Procter LLP. He submitted this column to VentureBeat.)

Selecting legal counsel for your new venture is one of the first decisions you’ll have to make as a startup entrepreneur – and it’s one you shouldn’t take lightly. While corporate counsel typically doesn’t have a lot of complex work early on, there’s a good chance you will be with that person or firm throughout … Continue Reading

Five compensation-related mistakes startups make (and should avoid)

(Editor’s note: Caine Moss is a corporate and securities partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. He submitted this column to VentureBeat.)

In our startup practice, we see a number of common mistakes entrepreneurs make as they establish and grow their companies.  Not surprisingly, many of these are made in the course of compensating employees and other service providers, which is a key area of activity early in a company’s life cycle.

Compensation-related pitfalls can … Continue Reading

Seed is the new Series A for VCs

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that VCs have, over the past few quarters, been reluctant to put term sheets down on new investments. Most venture folks have instead been preoccupied with tending to their portfolio companies, either ensuring that their most promising companies have enough capital and resources to weather the downturn, or trying to sell off the others.

The statistics bear this out. U.S. venture-backed companies raised $9.28 billion in the … Continue Reading