Venture Deals

Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist

By: Jason Mendelson, Brad Feld

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

As each new generation of entrepreneurs emerges, there is a renewed interest in how venture capital deals come together. Yet there really is no definitive guide to venture capital deals. Nobody understands this better than authors Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson. For more than seventeen years, they've been involved in hundreds of venture capital financings, and now, with Venture Deals, they share their experiences in this field with you.

Inspired by a series of blog posts - created by the authors after a particularly challenging deal - this reliable resource demystifies the venture capital financing process and helps you gain a practical perspective of this dynamic discipline.

Whether you're an experienced or aspiring entrepreneur, venture capitalist, or lawyer who partakes in these particular types of deals, you can benefit from the insights found throughout this book. Engaging and informative, Venture Deals skillfully outlines the essential elements of the venture capital term sheet - from terms related to economics to terms related to control. Feld and Mendelson strive to give a balanced view of the particular terms along with the strategies to getting to a fair deal. In addition to examining the nuts and bolts of the term sheet, Venture Deals also introduces you to the various participants in the process, discusses how fundraising works, reveals how VC firms operate, and describes how to apply different negotiating tactics to your deals. You'll also gain valuable insights into several common legal issues most startups face and, as a bonus, discover what a typical letter of intent to acquire your company looks like.

©2011 Jason Mendelson, Brad Feld (P)2011 Gildan Media Corp

Great tactics & tools summary w/ strat ending

Love the flow, preps you for the 2nd half with the tactics, tools & whys you'll need, then BAM lays out strategic scenarios assuming you're armed with the right tools. This is great work for prep, communication, and a functional message to help the industry move forward. You can tell these authors want to build better ecosystems with intelligent sophisticated leadership. 5 ef'n Stars!

informative but a little boring

very informative, but a lot of technical things instead of having more real life examples..
but overall a good book.

Very technical

Although I have no clue how correct everything is, I found it very useful. It is very technical and will need to get the hard copy and a pen for the next time I take a plunge.

Starting a new company? Listen to this book!

this book does an incredible job at demystifying the world of venture capital. It provides a rare insight into how Venture capitalists think, make business decisions, and make money.

Should probably buy the physical book

It's a great book, and the audio is solid. But considering there are quite a few numbers tossed around, this book is probably better off read.

Very Nice Introduction to Venture Capital

What made the experience of listening to Venture Deals the most enjoyable?

Laid out the venture capital industry quite well and the book was organized in a logical fashion to give sufficient detail for anyone to gain a basic understanding of the common terminology, industry dynamics, and details of how venture capital works. Most of all, I felt like I was getting relatively honest information from the authors. As would expect, the authors did pitch their VC firm periodically throughout the book as they are active venture capitalists, but this was done on a very limited basis and I kind of liked to hear how a venture capital firm marketed themselves and what they thought they specifically brought to the table.

After reading this book I would definitely consider Foundry Group for raising VC capital. Nice Job guys!

Who was your favorite character and why?

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Which character – as performed by Sean Pratt – was your favorite?

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Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

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Any additional comments?

The previous questions appear more for a novel, this was not an emotionally engaging book (nor was I expecting it be, nor did I want it to be). Overall quite happy with this audiobook.

Narrator win!

This could have been really boring info, but the author and narrator performed in a way that helps the listener learn a lot and have context for a frequently complex situation. Thanks so much!

If you're interested in venture deals -

Well, that must be why you're looking at this book.
I was put off for a while by the dorky cover, until I read recommendations in a couple of other places. Don't judge the cover. These guys aren't weird shady business development guru types, they're interesting leaders in startup/early stage financing.
That said, this book is of course not interesting at all unless you're an aspirational/real startup or a venture capitalist. In which case it's still not very interesting, but seems very useful. At least to have an idea what you're in for. And they do try to make it as interesting as possible.

Wisdom from 2 guys in the know

This is one of the most readable books on venture capital that I've read. It goes into the qualitative and quantitative factors at play and also gives you the entrepreneur's view point along with the investor's viewpoint. It pinpoints the gotchas you need to watch out for as well as the stuff that frequently causes needless angst and makes your lawyers rich. Highly recommend it!

Fantastic

Great read and great info, conveyed in an easy to understand manner, but at the same time very thorough. Highly recommended!