Legal Services for Startups & Savvy Businesses in Colorado
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 […]
[This is a parody inspired by Robert Pirsig’s wonderful classic, from the perspective of a man that’s seen a lot of startups come and go, some succeeding and some failing. For the real thing, please go to Amazon and purchase Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.] I can see on my iPhone, without taking […]
The number one reason that most startups never succeed is that they fail to recognize that the basic laws of business physics also apply to them. Whether as a startup or mature business, sooner or later you have to do a few basic things: You have to get clients or customers, you have to make […]
Kickstarter alone has led to almost 3 billion dollars of funding to nearly 120,000 projects. Crowdsourcing has become a viable alternative to traditional funding sources, whether the focus is launching a specific project or building a business. The success stories of crowdsourced funding are as varied as the projects funded. However, the lessons from failed […]
1) Working with the Wrong Kind of Investors There’s a saying in the startup world: “the first money that goes in determines how much money, if any money at all, comes in after.” Regular startup investors are an incestuous lot, and they’re usually a pretty sophisticated group, too. If you look at the resumes of superstar […]
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 […]
What makes a startup? Businesses have been starting up for centuries, but the term “startup” gained traction with the dot-com boom and bust. Companies that were nothing became million dollar entities within a year and then just as quickly plummeted back to earth. Pets.com is the most noted example. Conceived in 1998, the company raised […]
Would Apple by any other name be just another computer company? Would Relational Software wield the same clout as Oracle does today? Would the Musk Model S be as powerful, efficient, and sexy as the Tesla Model S? Powerful and efficient, yes. Sexy, maybe not. The name of your company is the first thing anything knows about you. If […]
The bottom line measures performance using conventional fiscal metrics. But, a business is more than revenues minus expenses. Companies impact community and the environment in many different and often immeasurable ways. The “double bottom line” attempts to account for these externalities. But because the social impact of a company is so hard to measure, the double bottom line […]
Denver Startup Week (DSW) is big. It is the largest free entrepreneurial event in the world. Sponsored by JP Morgan Chase, DSW’s success has inspired Chase to create other Startup Weeks in cities like Seattle, Detroit, Tampa Bay, and Dallas. Indeed, the success of Startup Week parallels that of a startup. It is young, only […]