Last night, I was a guest of the Silicon Flatirons to present a "crash course" on venture capital.  Basically, it was a no holds barred town hall-type conversation where I led off with a brief presentation and then opened it up to the 200 or so attendees to ask questions.  I encouraged the audience to ask anything they wanted about venture capital, getting funded and "secrets" of the VC ecosystem.

The event was videotaped and hopefully soon, I’ll be able to post it on this blog.  Until then, here was the presentation that I gave. 

I enjoyed immensely hanging out with a lot of smart people interested in venture capital.  Thanks to all who attended.

Big news today- TechStars is coming to Boston!  As announced by TechCrunchs, TechStars is expanding outside of Boulder to include Boston. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the program, TechStars is a mentorship-driven entrepreneurship program.  In fact, I’ve been one of the mentors for the past two years.  The first company that I mentored, Socialthing! was successfully acquired by AOL.  My second summer, I mentored Ingnighter and App-X, one that raised a successful angel round and the other, being in revenue, not needing to raise money. 

The program has been very successful with 12 of the 20 companies that have been through the program being angel or venture backed. Two more left the program profitable.  Two companies, including the aforementioned Socialthing! have been acquired.

The investors and mentors in TechStars Boston are local entrepreneurs and investors.  The program in Boston is being run by Shawn Broderick, an established Boston-based entrepreneur. 

Applications are open NOW through March 21st. Apply now!

My partner Brad is going to be hosting a party in Seattle on the 25th of February hanging out  with the entrepreneur and venture capital crowd.  If you’ve ever wanted to meet him and happen to be around, stop on by.  Here are the details.

So, I’m not your lawyer, but…

I’ve seen many presentations over the past day or so that have been missing some crucial legal boilerplate.

Copyright:   Any time you give a PowerPoint/Keynote, etc. presentation the footer should read “(C) 200X ‘Company Name’ Proprietary and Confidential” where X is the year that you are claiming protection.

It’s technically true that you don’t have to have a copyright notice to claim protection of the IP that you created under U.S. law.  The problem is without putting people on notice, you may lose your ability to say they’ve purposely infringed.  Also, the year is crucial because without the notice, you may end up getting into a fight about “who created something first” if someone is trying to steal your ideas and thoughts.  It takes two seconds to put a notice and may save you many headaches later.  If you think about all of the cases that one hears of Company X stealing Company Y’s idea, my bet is that there is a lot of legal discovery on presentations, because that’s what most people start with when building a company – the idea, not the actual execution.

Trademark:  If you have a name / logo and want to protect it, you must include “TM” in superscript after your mark, or your are not protecting it.  If you’ve registered with the PTO, you can utilize the (R) superscript, but otherwise, you must use “TM”.

Boring post, I’m sorry, but after three days of seeing many presentations not conform to these rules, I thought that I should mention.

Ever since Brad and I created our term sheet series, we’ve been regularly asked "okay, so what do some model documents look like?"

Well, today, our friends at Techstars posted their model forms of seed financing documents.

Techstars worked with Brad, myself and very closely with Cooley Godward Kronish, LLP (and specifically Mike Platt) to put together a set of “Model Seed Funding Documents” that anyone can use.

There are five primary documents in the set:

• Term Sheet
• Articles of Incorporation
• Bylaws
• Subscription Agreement
• Election Consent

Of course, these are just example documents so all legal disclaimers about usage apply (e.g. “do with them what you want, but we take no responsibility for your actions.”)  That said, I think these are a great starting point for anyone doing an early stage financing.

For those of you in the Boulder/Denver area, I’m giving a 1.5 hour “crash course” lecture on the VC industry.

The program is February 24th at 5:15 at the CU law school.  You can find more information here.

The topics will include everything from what makes VCs tick, who are our bosses, what are things that you can do to improve your chances of receiving funding and things that many VCs don’t want to talk about.  No question is off limits and I hope that it will be a very interactive forum.

Hope to see you there.

I’m a pizza aficionado.  I love all styles and all types, but rarely do I find perfection. 

I can happily say that I’ve found thin crust perfection at Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles, CA. 

Super Chefs Nancy Silverton, Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich have created an awesome pie with crisp, but not burnt crusts, a sauce that stands up and compliments any topping and homemade ingredients and options that taste unlike any that I’ve had before.  It’s a joy to get to the crust part as it’s simply the tastiest crust that I’ve ever had. 

I think the mark of a great pizza place is if they can execute the traditional margherita pizza.  They nail it with buffalo mozzarella with fresh tomatoes and basil.  Our second pie was a meat lover’s pizza – Tomato, mozzarella, sausage, salami, bacon & guanciale.  Wow.  That was a lot of meat, but I’ve never had housemade sausage and guanciale at the same time. 

It was so good that for dessert, we doubled down and had another meat lovers.  (In full disclosure, Ryan, whom I was dining with, was willing to get a different pizza for dessert, but I needed more meat).

Not to be left out was an incredible interpretation of the caprese salad that had roasted tomatoes that were still on the vine over a great burrata cheese and bread.  Yum.

So if you are a pizzaholic, you must try Mozza. You will not be disappointed. 

*****  If you want a few more recommendations *****

InHonorable mention goes to Zachary’s in Berkeley, CA and it’s offshoot Little Star Pizza in San Francisco if you are looking for traditional Chicago Deep Dish.  A16 and Pizzeria Delfina, both in San Francisco, also serve up great thin crust pizza

If you haven’t heard, the Beastie Boys have remastered Paul’s Boutique and launched on the Topspin platform. 

According to the band, Paul’s Boutique now "actually does have enough bass to shatter your one frozen testicle."

While I can’t vouch for that claim specifically, I can say there is more bass. 

I think the creative and website flow are awesome on this release.  The "turn me up" knob on the left of the website is a control that I haven’t seen before and is really, really cool.

Go check out the website and let me know what you think.  And don’t forget to buy the new release. 

Especially those whose paychecks come from our tax dollars?  The ones who are spending our tax dollars?

Ugh.

It wasn’t enough that our Treasury Secretary and our potential Health and Human Services head didn’t pay their taxes, but today, Obama’s candidate for the newly created “Chief Performance Office” clearly didn’t perform and pay her taxes.

Yeah, I know some of these are issues are small dollar and some are foot faults, but as a guy who takes his tax paying seriously, it certainly irks me that those imposing these taxes on us can’t / won’t get is right.

I wonder what percentage of politicians are in tax compliance?  I fear many less that I would have hoped.

*** Just broke after I posted this that Daschle is out as well.  Another one undone by non-payment of taxes.  Embarassing.  ***

I took the quiz and I am a Porsche 911.  That’s alright.  I can live with that.  I’d prefer being a Ferrari, but I think the fact that I work every day precludes me from being the venerable Italian brand. Here was my summary:

You have a classic style, but you’re up-to-date with the latest technology. You’re ambitious, competitive, and you love to win. Performance, precision, and prestige – you’re one of the elite,and you know it.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.