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Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

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Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#111

Post by nocoiner »

nocoiner wrote: post #110

It feels to me like where this is going to fall down is first contact with any business term that isn’t neatly covered by one of the form agreements. Not to say that this can’t be great for ordinary course arrangements that neatly fit within one of the defined buckets, but I’d be pretty wary (as either a business or a legal advisor) of any impulse to fit even a minimally bespoke deal into one of these templates. Cont…

I just re-read the parent post, and was really struck by the reference to “documents filled with unstructured text.” I mean, that’s exactly what commercial contracting is - it doesn’t easily map to a simple schema outside very, very basic transactions. Fundraising and the SAFE is different because that transaction is really one of the simpler ones at the end of the day - $x for y% of the company based on a valuation cap of $z. Typically the issuer is a Delaware corp, so investors can rely on the fiduciary statutory and common law overlay.

But if it were structured as an investment in an LLC, or a debt financing, where all the rights are basically purely contractual, documenting that deal becomes much more difficult.

I’m not trying to put words in your mouth and saying that’s the problem you’re trying to solve, because I don’t think it is. But the reference to the SAFE is misleading because I think that’s one of the “easier” commercial transactions, and most legal documentation is complicated because the underlying deal is complicated.

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#112

Post by eldavido »

jakestein wrote: post #109
eldavido wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this. I'm a small real estate owner (alongside running a tech co). I spent about 90 minutes yesterday reviewing an agency agreement giving a brokerage the exclusive right to market one of my units (commercial) for lease. Even in such a "simple" contract, I demanded many changes. They wanted the exclusive right to represent us in case the building was sold - I took that out. They wanted a flat 5% comm…

It sounds like you're way more experienced than me with commercial real estate. I've done a handful of office leases, and I had a similar experience with tons of negotiation and arguing. It was a tremendous pain. On the other hand, I live in Pennsylvania, and I bought my house using the PA Standard Agreement for the Sale of Real Estate. https://www.parealtors.org/standard-forms/ I spoke to a local real estate attorne…

Honestly, good luck trying. Seriously. (Fellow founder here.)

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#115

Post by primeobsession »

I’ve been using CommonPaper since they first put up their concept and it’s all sorts of awesome. Awesome in principle and very convenient for my boutique security consulting business.

Absolute no brainer for us to use what they have built. It was instrumental in getting us off the ground.

Congrats team on YC and the launch.

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#116

Post by anrope »

This is a great market that nobody has run away with yet. If you find the right combination of features around contract lifecycle, it could be yours.

Common docs (clerky), redlining (ms word), esigning, tracking self serve contracts (ironclad), contract lifecycle management (pandadoc), employee onboarding (gusto).

There’s a lot of good criticism here about edge cases and getting buyin from large customers. But at the end of the day there are a ton of companies with zero game plan around their contracts process, plenty of room for a good product.

Curious how you’re thinking about dealing with ms word and ‘track changes’. Every lawyer wants to live there. Do you fight this or build your product to work word-first?

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#117

Post by moneywoes »

joshpadnick wrote: post #47

Your main pitch is on open source standardized contracts and that definitely resonates, but as a current Ironclad user where they’re our single-most expensive SaaS subscription, your contract lifecycle management system built for startups is what resonates for me. Do you plan on offering migration services from Ironclad? That would amount to importing our workflows and repository.

How much does iron clad cost, what's the 80-20 of its use for you?

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#118

Post by jakestein »

nocoiner wrote: post #110

It feels to me like where this is going to fall down is first contact with any business term that isn’t neatly covered by one of the form agreements. Not to say that this can’t be great for ordinary course arrangements that neatly fit within one of the defined buckets, but I’d be pretty wary (as either a business or a legal advisor) of any impulse to fit even a minimally bespoke deal into one of these templates. Cont…

There will definitely be deals where the standard agreements don't cover every term that is important to the parties involved. We have a few ways to address the kinds of nuances you're talking about.

The variables in the cover page are intended to handle the things that vary from deal to deal in most commercial software transactions. Those are basically the selectable boxes you referred to (or blanks to be filled in, etc).

For things not captured by those variables, there's a section on the bottom of the cover page called "Other changes to the standard terms." Users often choose an entry from the Language Library for that section, but they (or their attorneys) can write their own custom assignment language or whatever other specific term they need.

If there are a small number of edits in the "Other changes" section, it can be helpful to know that all of your agreements have their unusual elements in the same section. On the other hand, if a company or their attorney consistently needs to make a large number of edits in that section, it might be a sign that the standard contracts are not a fit for them.

When that does happen, we'd love to hear about it. That sort of thing is very helpful for us in thinking about what we can improve in future versions.

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#119

Post by jakestein »

anrope wrote: post #116

This is a great market that nobody has run away with yet. If you find the right combination of features around contract lifecycle, it could be yours. Common docs (clerky), redlining (ms word), esigning, tracking self serve contracts (ironclad), contract lifecycle management (pandadoc), employee onboarding (gusto). There’s a lot of good criticism here about edge cases and getting buyin from large customers. But at the…

You're totally right that lawyers want to live in Word. In the MVP version of the product, we tried to get everyone into the web app. Some people loved it, but we hit a brick wall whenever someone needed to go to Word.

We've since added native export to Word at every step in the contract lifecycle. One of our most requested features is the ability to easily re-import those Word files back into the same workflow after they've been edited, and we're working on a project right now to make that happen.

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#120

Post by jakestein »

primeobsession wrote: post #115

I’ve been using CommonPaper since they first put up their concept and it’s all sorts of awesome. Awesome in principle and very convenient for my boutique security consulting business. Absolute no brainer for us to use what they have built. It was instrumental in getting us off the ground. Congrats team on YC and the launch.

Thank you!
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