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Startup Law and Fundraising for Entrepreneurs and Startup Advisors
"The best advice comes from relevant experience, and Paul Swegle demonstrates that he has a ton of it in Startup Law and Fundraising. A compendium of everything entrepreneurs, both newbies and veterans, need to know to take their startup from cradle to sale or IPO, the book provides not only detailed information on everything from company formation to IP protection and fundraising, but also includes dozens of real-life case studies that demonstrate why these topics are so critical to startup success."
-Geoff Entress, Managing Director of Pioneer Square Labs, former Venture Partner at Voyager Capital and Madrona Venture Group, angel investor in over 200 companies.
Entrepreneurship can be chaotic. Some chaos drives innovation. But legal chaos rocks many startups to their foundations, dashing dreams, jeopardizing jobs and investments, creating liabilities, and slowing innovation.
Paul Swegle wrote Startup Law and Fundraising for Entrepreneurs and Startup Advisors to help startups avoid these pitfalls, including the pitfall of struggling to grow a poorly funded business.
This is a practical book meant to help entrepreneurs and their advisors:
-build on a solid foundation,
-avoid costly legal and regulatory mistakes, and
-raise the money needed for stability, innovation, and operational success.
Startup Law and Fundraising is for everyone interested in business, business law, and startup fundraising. Its 550 pages cover an unmatched range of startup-focused concepts, tips, traps, strategies, and best practices. Fifty-one colorful startup case studies keep things interesting.
Legal, governance and regulatory hurdles are covered in the book's first ten chapters. But surviving those hurdles is no guarantee of success. Many startups simply run out of money. Others are bedeviled by ill-advised early funding rounds.
Startup Law and Fundraising devotes five chapters to creating and executing a fundraising plan around the principles of just-in-time finance and raising money from the right investors, in the right amounts, and on the right terms, whether from friends and family, angel investors, angel investing groups, seed funds, VCs, strategic investors, accelerators, or crowdfunding platforms.
The final chapters fittingly cover the final chapters of startup life - optimizing an "exit" with a successful IPO or sale, or, as happens about 80% of the time, managing through insolvency and winding up.
Startup Law and Fundraising provides the foundation for an entrepreneurial law and finance class at any level, including law school, MBA, undergraduate business, community college, or startup incubator.
Author Paul Swegle is a business attorney and adjunct law professor. He teaches entrepreneurial law and finance at Seattle University School of Law. Paul has served as general counsel to thirteen companies, counseled more than 100 others, and worked for the SEC and DOJ early in his career.
Paul is currently general counsel to several companies and advises a dozen other technology companies. He has completed $12+ billion of financings and M&A deals, including growing and selling startups to publicly-traded companies ING, Capital One, Nortek, and Abbott.
17 CHAPTERS: Legal and Regulatory Mistakes * Pre-Company Formation * Entity Selection and Formation * Structuring and Managing Key Relationships * IP - Protecting Rights and Avoiding Liabilities * Common Regulatory Mistakes * State and Federal Securities Laws * Startup Finance Overview * Seed and Pre-Seed Fundraising * Venture Capital Fundraising *Venture Capital Alternatives * The Exit * The Zone of Insolvency
-Geoff Entress, Managing Director of Pioneer Square Labs, former Venture Partner at Voyager Capital and Madrona Venture Group, angel investor in over 200 companies.
Entrepreneurship can be chaotic. Some chaos drives innovation. But legal chaos rocks many startups to their foundations, dashing dreams, jeopardizing jobs and investments, creating liabilities, and slowing innovation.
Paul Swegle wrote Startup Law and Fundraising for Entrepreneurs and Startup Advisors to help startups avoid these pitfalls, including the pitfall of struggling to grow a poorly funded business.
This is a practical book meant to help entrepreneurs and their advisors:
-build on a solid foundation,
-avoid costly legal and regulatory mistakes, and
-raise the money needed for stability, innovation, and operational success.
Startup Law and Fundraising is for everyone interested in business, business law, and startup fundraising. Its 550 pages cover an unmatched range of startup-focused concepts, tips, traps, strategies, and best practices. Fifty-one colorful startup case studies keep things interesting.
Legal, governance and regulatory hurdles are covered in the book's first ten chapters. But surviving those hurdles is no guarantee of success. Many startups simply run out of money. Others are bedeviled by ill-advised early funding rounds.
Startup Law and Fundraising devotes five chapters to creating and executing a fundraising plan around the principles of just-in-time finance and raising money from the right investors, in the right amounts, and on the right terms, whether from friends and family, angel investors, angel investing groups, seed funds, VCs, strategic investors, accelerators, or crowdfunding platforms.
The final chapters fittingly cover the final chapters of startup life - optimizing an "exit" with a successful IPO or sale, or, as happens about 80% of the time, managing through insolvency and winding up.
Startup Law and Fundraising provides the foundation for an entrepreneurial law and finance class at any level, including law school, MBA, undergraduate business, community college, or startup incubator.
Author Paul Swegle is a business attorney and adjunct law professor. He teaches entrepreneurial law and finance at Seattle University School of Law. Paul has served as general counsel to thirteen companies, counseled more than 100 others, and worked for the SEC and DOJ early in his career.
Paul is currently general counsel to several companies and advises a dozen other technology companies. He has completed $12+ billion of financings and M&A deals, including growing and selling startups to publicly-traded companies ING, Capital One, Nortek, and Abbott.
17 CHAPTERS: Legal and Regulatory Mistakes * Pre-Company Formation * Entity Selection and Formation * Structuring and Managing Key Relationships * IP - Protecting Rights and Avoiding Liabilities * Common Regulatory Mistakes * State and Federal Securities Laws * Startup Finance Overview * Seed and Pre-Seed Fundraising * Venture Capital Fundraising *Venture Capital Alternatives * The Exit * The Zone of Insolvency
580 pages, Paperback
Published July 23, 2020
40 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
Paul A. Swegle
2 booksPaul Swegle is a business attorney who lives with his family and is general counsel to several tech companies and advises a dozen others as outside counsel. He has served as general counsel to thirteen companies and has completed $12+ billion of financings and M&A deals, including growing and selling startups to public companies ING, Capital One, Nortek, and Abbott.
Paul is also an adjunct law professor and teaches entrepreneurial law and finance at Seattle University School of Law. He was a lawyer for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice early in his career.
Paul's first book, "Contract Drafting and Negotiation for Entrepreneurs and Business Professionals," shares what he's learned working on thousands of agreements across varied industries for over 20 years. It's all about avoiding common contract pitfalls and maximizing commercial relationships. It's also a frequent Amazon bestseller in business law. Law schools and business programs across the country use it, as do law firms and in-house law, procurement, and sales departments.
Paul's second book, "Startup Law and Fundraising for Entrepreneurs and Startup Advisors," was published on July 23, 2020, and is about helping entrepreneurs do three things: (i) build their companies on a solid foundation, (ii) avoid costly and distracting legal and regulatory mistakes, and (iii) raise the money they need to succeed.Everyone interested in startups and small businesses will find Startup Law and Fundraising invaluable. But it is also designed to provide a turnkey entrepreneurial law and finance class at any level, including law school, MBA, undergraduate business, community college, or startup accelerator.
Paul's third book, "Careers in the Law," will be published in late 2021. It profiles more than 200 areas of law, plus many non-law alternatives for law degree holders. As a busy practicing attorney and leader in the legal profession, Paul interacts daily with attorneys working in many different areas of the law. He has mentored and advised hundreds of law students and attorneys. At all times, his several companies have engagements in place with 20+ law firms across the country and globally. As a bar leader, Paul has a front-row perspective on the impacts of technology and other forces on the legal profession.
Paul is also an adjunct law professor and teaches entrepreneurial law and finance at Seattle University School of Law. He was a lawyer for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice early in his career.
Paul's first book, "Contract Drafting and Negotiation for Entrepreneurs and Business Professionals," shares what he's learned working on thousands of agreements across varied industries for over 20 years. It's all about avoiding common contract pitfalls and maximizing commercial relationships. It's also a frequent Amazon bestseller in business law. Law schools and business programs across the country use it, as do law firms and in-house law, procurement, and sales departments.
Paul's second book, "Startup Law and Fundraising for Entrepreneurs and Startup Advisors," was published on July 23, 2020, and is about helping entrepreneurs do three things: (i) build their companies on a solid foundation, (ii) avoid costly and distracting legal and regulatory mistakes, and (iii) raise the money they need to succeed.Everyone interested in startups and small businesses will find Startup Law and Fundraising invaluable. But it is also designed to provide a turnkey entrepreneurial law and finance class at any level, including law school, MBA, undergraduate business, community college, or startup accelerator.
Paul's third book, "Careers in the Law," will be published in late 2021. It profiles more than 200 areas of law, plus many non-law alternatives for law degree holders. As a busy practicing attorney and leader in the legal profession, Paul interacts daily with attorneys working in many different areas of the law. He has mentored and advised hundreds of law students and attorneys. At all times, his several companies have engagements in place with 20+ law firms across the country and globally. As a bar leader, Paul has a front-row perspective on the impacts of technology and other forces on the legal profession.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 12, 2020
As a startup founder, raising funds for your business can be incredibly challenging. There’s a ton of information to absorb and fundraising trends are always evolving. Oftentimes, your otherwise great lawyer is only familiar with the intricacies of financing a business at a high-level which can put you in a less than ideal position in the future.
Startup Law and Fundraising is the book a founder needs by their side going through the fundraising process. You can read it cover to cover to familiarize yourself with financing a business from bootstrapping through IPO or use it as a reference for the specific stage of funding you are working on.
Right now, I’m raising additional funds for my startup to finance a pivot as a result of COVID. As a founder, it’s an easy trap to focus on the funding round right in front of you. This can cause big headaches down the road when you are working on a future round of financing because it’s easy to turn off investors with complex or non-traditional funding mechanisms.
Paul Swegle reminds us to practice KISS: “keep it simple stupid” when funding our startups. And his book walks us through in detail how to do it!
Startup Law and Fundraising is the book a founder needs by their side going through the fundraising process. You can read it cover to cover to familiarize yourself with financing a business from bootstrapping through IPO or use it as a reference for the specific stage of funding you are working on.
Right now, I’m raising additional funds for my startup to finance a pivot as a result of COVID. As a founder, it’s an easy trap to focus on the funding round right in front of you. This can cause big headaches down the road when you are working on a future round of financing because it’s easy to turn off investors with complex or non-traditional funding mechanisms.
Paul Swegle reminds us to practice KISS: “keep it simple stupid” when funding our startups. And his book walks us through in detail how to do it!
February 17, 2025
I strongly recommend this compelling insight into the various legal and practical aspects of a start-up's life cycle! Little had I suspected before finding this incredible book what I was about to discover - truly a masterpiece. It is based not only on a profound understanding of the legal system, but also on the unique experience of a legal practitioner, who understands the business side of the start-up phenomenon. Definitely worth your while!
November 28, 2020
As a first time entrepreneur, it's hard to assess all of my knowledge gaps - "I don't know what I don't know". This book has a comprehensive overview of the largest and most common pitfalls using case studies and anecdotes in a way that is relatable and easy to understand. It also has chapters which allow the reader to go further in depth into any particular area of interest. This structure is valuable because it allows the reader to pick and choose which areas they want further context in beyond the overview in the beginning. I feel like I have vicariously learned through the mistakes of others from the anonymous case studies. I will definitely be keeping these lessons in mind as I embark on my journey!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews