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Show HN: U.S. Legal Concepts for Founders – Online Handbook

handbook.clerky.com

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Re: Show HN: U.S. Legal Concepts for Founders – Online Handbook

#2

Post by swampthing »

Hi everyone! I'm one of the cofounders of Clerky :)

We've gotten a ton of questions from founders over the years - this handbook is what we always wished existed, so that we could point people to it. There are already a lot of great blog posts by attorneys out there, but we thought it was also important to have something that (1) helps founders build a solid foundation of knowledge rather than piecemeal, (2) covers the terminology and practices used across startup law firms (thanks to our incredible editorial board), as opposed to one attorney or one firm, and (3) is kept up-to-date as laws or market practices change.

We're very excited to be finally sharing this with the community - please let us know what you think!

A few notes:

* This is very much aimed at startups of the type that might apply for YC one day, seek angel or VC money, etc. Obviously there are many other kinds of businesses, but it's really hard to write something that is broadly applicable, unfortunately. My apologies in advance to founders of other types of businesses.

* The content that we have has been thoroughly vetted, by more top-tier startup attorneys than you can shake a stick at. That said, the scope of the handbook in terms of topics covered should be considered a first cut, as should the presentation. We have many articles on the todo list, and also have some ideas for how to better present some of the more complex concepts.

Finally, feel free to use this thread as an opportunity to ask any general questions you might have about legal issues for startups - my cofounder Chris and I (we're both startup attorneys) will do our best to answer. Some of our editorial board might pop in from time to time too!

Re: Show HN: U.S. Legal Concepts for Founders – Online Handbook

#3

Post by matthewmcg »

This is great--I like the style and the level of detail. My inner pedant also appreciates "Sometimes mistakenly referred to as a CIIAA Agreement."

One minor suggestion: you have foreign qualification on the "Process" page but you might create a separate topic area reviewing when and why this is required. It's something that an early stage company can easily overlook. Ditto for local business licensing.

Re: Show HN: U.S. Legal Concepts for Founders – Online Handbook

#4

Post by swampthing »

matthewmcg wrote: post #3

This is great--I like the style and the level of detail. My inner pedant also appreciates "Sometimes mistakenly referred to as a CIIA A Agreement." One minor suggestion: you have foreign qualification on the "Process" page but you might create a separate topic area reviewing when and why this is required. It's something that an early stage company can easily overlook. Ditto for local business licensing.

Thanks! This was definitely a labor of love :) Those are great suggestions - I'll put them on the todo list.

Re: Show HN: U.S. Legal Concepts for Founders – Online Handbook

#5

Post by arikr »

swampthing wrote: post #2

Hi everyone! I'm one of the cofounders of Clerky :) We've gotten a ton of questions from founders over the years - this handbook is what we always wished existed, so that we could point people to it. There are already a lot of great blog posts by attorneys out there, but we thought it was also important to have something that (1) helps founders build a solid foundation of knowledge rather than piecemeal, (2) covers t…

Amazing. Thank you for doing this. I hope comprehensive useful content as marketing continues to become more popular.

Question: When is the earliest a founder can think about super-voting shares, a la Facebook/Alphabet? What's the process here?

Re: Show HN: U.S. Legal Concepts for Founders – Online Handbook

#6

Post by mrkurt »

This is awesome. For anyone who's starting a company, Clerky is by far the best way to do all the legal legwork. I've used a number of companies to try to save time (including Stripe Atlas, which is kind of a disaster) and wish I'd just done everything through Clerky.

Re: Show HN: U.S. Legal Concepts for Founders – Online Handbook

#7

Post by swampthing »

arikr wrote: post #5
swampthing wrote: post #2

Hi everyone! I'm one of the cofounders of Clerky :) We've gotten a ton of questions from founders over the years - this handbook is what we always wished existed, so that we could point people to it. There are already a lot of great blog posts by attorneys out there, but we thought it was also important to have something that (1) helps founders build a solid foundation of knowledge rather than piecemeal, (2) covers t…

Amazing. Thank you for doing this. I hope comprehensive useful content as marketing continues to become more popular. Question: When is the earliest a founder can think about super-voting shares, a la Facebook/Alphabet? What's the process here?

Great question - there's nothing stopping you from doing it at incorporation. But it's pretty rare. Very few companies will have enough negotiating leverage to keep it when they raise money. So rather than complicate things from the start, I think the majority view amongst startup attorneys (there are differing opinions on this) is to go with the standard setup, then add in super-voting later on if the company is in a strong position.

Re: Show HN: U.S. Legal Concepts for Founders – Online Handbook

#9

Post by swampthing »

sinak wrote: post #8

This is really great. One feature request: it'd be great to be able to view the whole handbook as a one page document (e.g. I want to save it to Instapaper to read later) or as a complete PDF.

Great idea - we gave PDFs to the editors for reviewing purposes (because it's easier to mark those up than a webpage), but we'll see what we can do to get that in shape for public consumption.
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