General
November 14, 2018 | by Kieran McCarthy | Financing, General, Startups
If you were getting a divorce, would you ask your soon-to-be-ex-spouse for a divorce lawyer referral? No, you wouldn’t, because that would be so obviously stupid that no rational person would ever consider such an idea. Your soon-to-be-ex-spouse would be the last person you would want to help you in that scenario. Then why would […]
Tags: hiring a startup lawyer, investors, Raising Capital
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September 20, 2018 | by Kieran McCarthy | Founders, General
One of my biggest pet peeves with lawyers is when I hear the expression, “there’s a risk here.” In life, there’s always a risk. There’s a risk to waking up in the morning and getting out of bed. There’s a risk to walking your dog on the street. There’s a risk to NOT getting out […]
Tags: founders, risk assessment, Superforecasting
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March 11, 2016 | by Kieran McCarthy | General, Incorporation, LLC, Startups
When you’re a startup lawyer, part of your job is to serve as a document merchant. It’s part of the job, but it’s probably my least favorite part of the job. I love learning from startups. I love working with startups. Working with growing startups to make them better — that’s just what we do. Providing high-quality documents […]
Tags: business formation, founders, hiring a startup lawyer, Raising Capital
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September 19, 2015 | by Kieran McCarthy | General, Startup News, Startups
What is the secret to a successful startup? That is a question with many answers. Via Techcrunch, this article offers three lessons learned from working with the Kogi BBQ company, a pioneer in the food truck industry. The main takeaway? Creating a culture that your employees and customers embrace. Speaking of culture, this piece from the New York Times […]
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July 18, 2015 | by Kieran McCarthy | General
We all want readers. We all want traffic. We all want money and fame and recognition and notoriety and to give a TED talk where we wear a sport coat on a stage in front of wealthy luminaries and talk about our own personal narratives and why they matter. And so we all have blogs. […]
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July 17, 2015 | by Kieran McCarthy | General, Startups
This is a question I try to ask all startups that hire me at the very beginning. And while some startups know right away why they’re doing what they’re doing, a few struggle to answer. Having seen hundreds of startups in their birthing stages, I think the answer to this question drives the answers to […]
Tags: Angels, business formation, founders, venture capital
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August 27, 2014 | by Kieran McCarthy | General, Startups
I’ve been reading a lot about startups and authenticity lately. Like mindfulness, it seems to be one of the new buzzwords of the startup universe. Marc Andreessen is obsessed with it. Mark Suster wrote a popular blog post about it recently. Nassim Taleb likes to refer to some purported intellectuals as charlatans, which I suppose is a […]
Tags: authenticity
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