Venture Deals
By
Brad Feld; Jason Mendelson
ISBN: 9781119594828
Date read: 2025-11-25
How strongly I recommend it: 9/10
The definitive guide to venture capital deals from the perspective of experienced VCs. Demystifies term sheets, valuations, and the fundraising process for entrepreneurs. Essential for anyone raising venture capital or wanting to understand how VC works.
Go to the Amazon page for details and reviews.
MY NOTES
✅ Make sure you get your lawyer right. One wrong lawyer can turn “raising money” into “bleeding time.”
✅ When raising a round, the goal is term sheets. Everything you do is in service of creating multiple term sheets.
✅ “You MUST have the attitude that you will succeed.”
If doubt is your default setting, your pitch will leak it.
✅ Don’t give a funding range. Pick a number. Better a smaller, clean goal than a bigger, fuzzy one.
✅ If you were starting out and it would take six months to go to market with a team of eight people, you can quickly estimate it would take about $100,000 a month for six months. Give yourself some time cushion, say a year, and raise $1 million since it will take time to hire people and ramp up spending