Ask HN: A book on Silicon Valley model of startup company formation
I'm a bit puzzled by the lingo (series A, seed, etc) used by investors. I want to have clear understanding of the whole process before I start contacting investors. Is there any book you can recommend?
3 comments
http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalis...
http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-VC-Game-Venture-Start-up/dp/...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Startup-Game-Partnership-Entrepren...
http://www.amazon.com/Term-Sheets-Valuations-Intricacies-Big...
http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Capitalists-Work-Billion-Dolla...
http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Venture-Capital-Serious-Entrep...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Start-Time-Tested-Battle-Harde...
I believe any one or more of those will get you going in the right direction. All of those I've either read, or have seen recommended highly enough by people I trust, that I feel comfortable recommending them. The Guy Kawasaki book is a good, basic introduction to starting a startup, although it's a little old now. I think most of it is still relevant though.
A lot of this stuff is probably on the 'net as well, but you may have to dig around for it a bit. Quora has a lot of good questions (and good answers) on VC / startup topics, so that might be worth a look. Also, a number of high profile VCs maintain blogs where they share a lot of useful information. Mark Suster comes to mind (http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/) and does Brad Feld (http://www.feld.com/wp/). Note that Brad Feld is the author of one of the above books.
http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-VC-Game-Venture-Start-up/dp/...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Startup-Game-Partnership-Entrepren...
http://www.amazon.com/Term-Sheets-Valuations-Intricacies-Big...
http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Capitalists-Work-Billion-Dolla...
http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Venture-Capital-Serious-Entrep...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Start-Time-Tested-Battle-Harde...
I believe any one or more of those will get you going in the right direction. All of those I've either read, or have seen recommended highly enough by people I trust, that I feel comfortable recommending them. The Guy Kawasaki book is a good, basic introduction to starting a startup, although it's a little old now. I think most of it is still relevant though.
A lot of this stuff is probably on the 'net as well, but you may have to dig around for it a bit. Quora has a lot of good questions (and good answers) on VC / startup topics, so that might be worth a look. Also, a number of high profile VCs maintain blogs where they share a lot of useful information. Mark Suster comes to mind (http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/) and does Brad Feld (http://www.feld.com/wp/). Note that Brad Feld is the author of one of the above books.
Paul Graham himself wrote a great essay on this which should answer most if not all of your questions:
http://paulgraham.com/startupfunding.html