standardized seed financing docs for canucks

Some of my loyal readers may recall one of my posts earlier this year about the development of standardized seed financing docs in the US, where there were, at the time, about four different sets of docs which had been developed. It pointed to a more detailed article by Brad Feld. In any event, I had asked the question whether anyone was aware of a similar initiative in Canada but didn’t hear from anyone. Was actually going to try doing it myself, but free work that you give away sometimes goes quickly to the back burner (or rather off the stove altogether) when things get busy. Least that’s my excuse.

In any event, I was very happy to hear that someone in Canada has in fact undertaken this initiative. The folks at MaRS here in Toronto, and in particular Mark Zimmerman, have apparently developed a nice set of Canadianized templates, including a term sheet (.doc) a subscription agreement (.doc), articles of amendment (.doc) and a shareholders’ agreement (.doc), with a founder’s agreement and employment agreement in the work. They already have a template independent contractor agreement (.doc).

I haven’t had a chance to look at them, but if you happen to need a set of seed round docs, and you’re here in the great white north, I’d encourage you to check them out. The folks at MaRS deserve a pat on the back for taking the initiative.

Tip o’ the fedora to Jonathan Polak for bringing this to my attention.

Top Ten Twenty Lies

Yes, this is a bit old, but quite good. I was wandering around and found these two articles on Guy Kawasaki’s website, about The Top Ten Lies of Venture Capitalists and The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs. Great, great reading. One small snippet from each. On the VC side:

“This is a vanilla term sheet.” There is no such thing as a vanilla term sheet. Do you think corporate finance attorneys are paid $400/hour to push out vanilla term sheets? If entrepreneurs insist on using a flavor of ice cream to describe term sheets, the only flavor that works is Rocky Road. This is why they need their own $400/hour attorney too–as opposed to Uncle Joe the divorce lawyer.

and one on the Entrepreneur side:

“Oracle is too big/dumb/slow to be a threat.” Larry Ellison has his own jet. He can keep the San Jose Airport open for his late night landings. His boat is so big that it can barely get under the Golden Gate Bridge. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs are flying on Southwest out of Oakland and stealing the free peanuts. There’s a reason why Larry is where he is, and entrepreneurs are where they are, and it’s not that he’s big, dumb, and slow. Competing with Oracle, Microsoft, and other large companies is a very difficult task. Entrepreneurs who utter this lie look at best naive. You think it’s bravado, but venture capitalists think it’s stupidity.

Great stuff.