

Ask HN: A book on Silicon Valley model of startup company formation - frr149

I&#x27;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?
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mindcrime
[http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-
Capitalis...](http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-
Capitalist/dp/1118443616/)

[http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-VC-Game-Venture-Start-
up/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-VC-Game-Venture-Start-
up/dp/1591843251/ref=pd_sim_b_20?ie=UTF8&refRID=09JV43Y2YAWN4SARB7QT)

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Startup-Game-Partnership-
Entrepren...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Startup-Game-Partnership-
Entrepreneurs/dp/023010486X/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=19WX0QW9RZ6FFKJ3P8B2)

[http://www.amazon.com/Term-Sheets-Valuations-Intricacies-
Big...](http://www.amazon.com/Term-Sheets-Valuations-Intricacies-
Bigwig/dp/1587620685/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=19WX0QW9RZ6FFKJ3P8B2)

[http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Capitalists-Work-Billion-
Dolla...](http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Capitalists-Work-Billion-Dollar-
Successes/dp/1430238372/ref=pd_sim_b_15?ie=UTF8&refRID=19WX0QW9RZ6FFKJ3P8B2)

[http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Venture-Capital-Serious-
Entrep...](http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Venture-Capital-Serious-
Entrepreneur/dp/0071496025/ref=pd_sim_b_17?ie=UTF8&refRID=19WX0QW9RZ6FFKJ3P8B2)

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Start-Time-Tested-Battle-
Harde...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Start-Time-Tested-Battle-
Hardened/dp/1591840562/ref=pd_sim_b_21?ie=UTF8&refRID=19WX0QW9RZ6FFKJ3P8B2)

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/](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/))
and does Brad Feld ([http://www.feld.com/wp/](http://www.feld.com/wp/)). Note
that Brad Feld is the author of one of the above books.

------
ASquare
Paul Graham himself wrote a great essay on this which should answer most if
not all of your questions:
[http://paulgraham.com/startupfunding.html](http://paulgraham.com/startupfunding.html)

