Common ground. In a successful venture capital transaction, the founders and the venture capitalists find common ground so they can work together to build a successful enterprise — listening to the other side, determining what is important to each stakeholder, and balancing the competing economic interests to find mutual success. We see this time and again in our venture capital / emerging companies ecosystem, with the result of creating many successful enterprises. Activity in our world of emerging companies remains robust, in large part by the ability of the various stakeholders to find common ground. As legal counsel, one of our primary jobs is to help facilitate this finding of common ground and to solve problems, not create problems. Imagine a world where we all focused on finding common ground!
We bring this up because we lead this edition with a terrific article about negotiating a letter of intent from the seller's perspective. Negotiating and signing a letter of intent (LOI) is a key inflection point in the process of selling a business. Buyers and sellers both want the LOI to ensure a base level of understanding on certain key terms such as price, the structure of the deal, exclusivity, and confidentiality. We think this article is a good starting point for understanding how to go about selling your business.
Our second article is about a common problem regarding Delaware franchise taxes. Everyone told you to incorporate in Delaware. Podcast hosts, industry blogs, your cofounder, your lawyer, your college roommate, your dogwalker — they all said that when it comes to incorporating your startup, Delaware is the place to be. However, one day you may find yourself staring at a notice saying that your company owes tens of thousands of dollars in state franchise taxes, and you're ready to reach for the panic button. Don't worry, you're not alone. Every year, countless new business owners receive notices from Delaware informing them of an upcoming franchise tax payment that seems impossibly huge. Luckily there is an easy solution available, and we are here to solve that problem for you.
Our Client Spotlight is on a cool new company called Coworker.ai. This company has created an AI "teammate" for an enterprise that can perform complex work at the level of an experienced colleague!
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