Comments on: 7 Legal Documents for Your Tech Startup

By: Apolinaras "Apollo" Sinkevicius

Apolinaras "Apollo" Sinkevicius — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:22:04 +0000

I have spent my entire career in startups and I can now say from my experience, that those who skip getting at least Bylaws and Shareholder Agreements done… well they end up in an absolute mess. You can have all hand-shake agreements you want, but memory fades, disagreements always happen, and unless it is on paper, it is worthless.

Scribd has drafts of documents, some incubators publish what they use. Good drafts are out there. Do a search, do your research, know the what the terms mean.

When you start making real money, you can go and get the docs cleaned up by an attorney. It will be cheaper too.

By: dave

dave — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:25:54 +0000

Many small companies need this advice. One thing to add would be that companies need to keep their minute books up to date. At least once a year minutes must be written. Can’t tell you how many small companies don’t do this, the one or two stockholders die, and things are a total mess.

By: Paul Kenjora

Paul Kenjora — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:00:17 +0000

How about a list of the documents themselves. Or at least a list of where to find them.

Bear in mind these are startups so cash is tight and lawyers are expensive.

By: Ryan Roberts

Ryan Roberts — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:00:00 +0000

Amol:

1. It doesn’t have to be termed an “employment letter” but some agreement should be made between co-founders who have day jobs. It’s all about protecting the IP.

2. This wouldn’t be termed an “employment letter” but it would be prudent to have a doc that defines the IC relationship (i.e. “IC pays all taxes”, IP is the company’s, etc.)

By: Amol

Amol — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:27:07 +0000

Just stumbled on your website. Wealth of information. Thanks! Subscribed.

Regarding #Employment Letter:
1. Is this document necessary if the founder has a full time day job apart from the startup?
2. Is it necessary between “contractors” and the startup if they contractors have a full time day job apart from the startup?

By: Bookmarks for November 5th 2008 through November 6th 2008

Bookmarks for November 5th 2008 through November 6th 2008 — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:00:33 +0000

[...] 7 Legal Documents for Startups – The Startup Lawyer has a nice lise of documents you need to put together when starting a company. [...]

By: Bradley Joyce

Bradley Joyce — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:10:46 +0000

Great post Ryan! Thanks for putting all the good stuff in one place!