

Y Combinator To Offer Standardized Angel Funding Legal Docs - danielrhodes
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/13/y-combinator-to-offer-standardized-angel-funding-legal-docs/

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dejb
"The documents were created with their law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich &
Rosati and are available ->HERE<-."

Is it just me or does the link on 'here' not actually work?

Actually I found a link somewhere else to one of the actual pages -
<http://www.ycombinator.com/seriesaa.html>

And the page now has a message saying

'Sorry, there's a glitch with the documents and we had to take them down. We
hope to have something back soon.'

I wonder if the glitch is technical or legal? My guess would be it's an IP
issue with one of the legal documents. I can't imagine why lawyers wouldn't
want this to go ahead.

~~~
cstejerean
Not sure that I like the sound of "We hope to have SOMETHING back soon."

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gaborcselle
This is really really useful. Thanks so much!

Jessica / Paul - do you have the source code of this as wall, not just the
byte code?

I'd love to have a summary of these terms, e.g. what rights the preferred
stock created in these documents has (anti-dilution, liquiditation preference,
double-dip, etc.).

~~~
gleb
Yes, corresponding term sheet would be very helpful.

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mattmaroon
We used a version of these (though had to edit them some) in our recent
funding round, and I can't even imagine how much money they saved us. They
are, if nothing else, a great starting point. Were I an angel, I'd use them
for sure.

~~~
ian
We did as well and they saved us a fair bit of cash - not to mention the
hassle of figuring out what vanilla terms should look like.

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sh1mmer
This is great! I can't say how positive a step this is.

It's really common for things like NDAs, etc to be provided by independent
organisations free of charge (e.g. the UK patent office provide one) but
moving this into other documents is a must.

I'd like to see a plain English description of each clause, possibly with
extra optional clauses, creative commons style.

I love the idea of pick'n'mix legal documents. As long as they are drawn up by
good lawyers it would make the law a much more accessible thing to regular
people/companies.

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davidw
PG has "made noises" about this for a while here. I'm glad to see this, as
it's really not rocket science, and as Matt says, "a great starting point".
Thanks also to the lawyer folks involved for getting it. This sort of thing
won't mean less work for good lawyers, it will mean more work doing real
stuff, and less twiddling around with boilerplate.

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skmurphy
This is a good strategy for YC: it "commoditizes the complements" (borrowing a
phrase from <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html> ) of
a deal, lowers the cost of an early stage financing round (giving more value
for their investment) and makes it easier for prospects to evaluate aspects of
the offer in advance.

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YuriNiyazov
Not to be pedantic or anything :) but there's a typo on seriesaa.html page:
"...many situations with without too many modifications." 'with' is
extraneous.

~~~
rms
email pg

~~~
YuriNiyazov
done

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zaveri
Thanks PG and YC!

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pxlpshr
Wow, pure awesome! This makes life so much easier for grass root startups and
young entrepreneurs.

Much <3

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jlogic77
Found this in the TC Comments.
[http://rapidshare.com/files/137276513/Documents_YCombinator....](http://rapidshare.com/files/137276513/Documents_YCombinator.zip.html)

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vaksel
Could you add scribd to it, so people can read them w/o downloading?

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crocus
This is exactly what the startup community needs. I am surprised no one has
done it before, actually.

I know several rich post-startup people who would probably be angel investors
if the process were more standardized. I bet the number of _potential_ angel
investors is 10 times larger than the number who jump through all the hoops to
actually do it. With that much more early stage investment to feed on, there
could be 10 times as many startups.

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vv
It'd be great if someone could back this out into a 1 or 2 page term sheet

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ctingom
I couldn't download them. Does anybody have them?

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apgwoz
Not to sound ungrateful (this is actually really awesome, not that I have use
for it right now), but why only ".doc"? In the spirit of openness, it'd be
great if they were also available in an open format such as the OpenDocument
Format.

~~~
pxlpshr
a hacker can't use Google Docs (ie: free) to open a .doc file and copy/paste?

:)

~~~
apgwoz
While Google Docs is free (as in beer), it is not free as in freedom. Some
people will not use software because of that.

I'm not so much a zealot and would consider using Google Docs, if I could be
sure my "sensitive" documents were only readable by myself. These documents,
in particular, I would think, lend themselves to being a bit more private than
your average college paper.

Also, Google Docs supports OpenDocument, at least according to WikiPedia
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenDocument_soft...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenDocument_software))

~~~
gabrielroth
"While Google Docs is free (as in beer), it is not free as in freedom. Some
people will not use software because of that."

The correct inference to make from that is "and those people will miss out on
certain opportunities as a result," not "so everyone else should bend over
backward to accomodate their self-imposed restrictions."

~~~
apgwoz
I think you miss the point of free software. The thing free software people
are trying to _avoid_ is restrictions. Lets remind ourselves of the 4 freedoms
the Free Software Definition states:

* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

~~~
gabrielroth
I'm familiar with the advantages of free software. But if you refuse to use
proprietary software, you are, by definition, imposing a restriction on
yourself.

I'd also suggest that, when someone makes valuable business documents
available to others (a fine example of 'free software'), and you decline to
use them because they're in a ubiquitous proprietary format, you are maybe
missing the free-software forest for the trees.

~~~
apgwoz
> and you decline to use them because they're in a ubiquitous proprietary
> format, you are maybe missing the free-software forest for the trees.

I didn't decline to use them. I suggested that it would be nice if these
documents were in a format that was more open. Perhaps something with a half-
life of 10 years.

I didn't mention it before, but I've noticed that in Office for Mac 2008(7?
whatever) the default file format is .docx. OOXML to my knowledge is now a
standard, so it seems as though Microsoft is _trying_ to play nice with
others. However, there's already another standard, OpenDocument.

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ALee
Just thinking about thesedocs coming out o a meeting with wilson sonsini, who
quoteda convert debt round of 300-500k to be around $15k in costs. Will have
to look closer, but excited to cut tha amount down.

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babul
Hopefully this will provide more transparency and uniformity to the process
and help all concerned get a better deal, especially startups who cannot
afford decent lawyers and hence often more vunerable.

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dshah
Just in time for the YC Demo Day tomorrow.

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mariorz
The article links to the ycombinator homepage, I see no legal docs there. Am I
missing something?

~~~
froo
You could do a Google search for them, I quickly tried "site:ycombinator.com
legal" and came up with the following:

<http://www.ycombinator.com/seriesaa.html>

I'm sure we can patiently wait, they're doing us a huge favour which I for
one, am very grateful for :)

~~~
mariorz
I agree, didn't intend for it to come off as a complaint, was more curious
than anything. Now I'm even more curious though.

~~~
froo
It's okay - I didn't think it came off as a complaint, I was just showing how
I found the relevant page.

I hope the last comment about being grateful didn't come off as arrogant, I
just think its fantastic when people release information like this as this is
valuable in its own right, but also a good starting point for people trying to
get a handle on the startup business.

Top work YC!

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stanley
Great stuff. I wish more legal documents were standardized and in the common
domain.

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gleb
Adding corresponding term sheet as part of this document set would be really
nice.

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akd
Where do we send these forms once we fill them out? How do we make it
"official"?

~~~
apgwoz
I believe these documents are useful for getting funding from venture
capitalists, not necessarily to incorporate. To make it official you'll need
to actually find funding. These documents are helpful in assisting the startup
in "securing" this funding from the legal side of things.

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auston
Hey man, where'd they go? Anyone got a copy they want to share?

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wd40
game. changing.

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elijahblue
No longer available? Tease.

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theklub
This is great, thanks!

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samataro
OOOOOOOOOOO YESSSSSSSSS

