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A review by rinnyssance
Venture Deals by Brad Feld
3.0
As someone coming across this book and the accompanying course with no prior knowledge of venture funding, I expected that this book were a good primer. Especially when describing the key players in VC funding and breaking down the term sheet. However, I guess my confusion starts when I consider that there weren't enough real-world examples for me to work with. Or perhaps I am looking for something to be there that simply doesn't exist when it comes to VC deals. Whatever the case is, I left the book with more questions than answers. This usually isn't a bad thing, because the questions would have never existed in my mind if it weren't for the author and his VC team's course. However, the framing of this book as a "smart" book for people who want to be "smarter" than those with more experience, I felt a little robbed of my time.
For starters, I think I would have liked to learn more about equity vs debt financing. It would have also been nice if they further explained how the term sheet and financing structure should be modeled to both benefits the investors and the entrepreneurs. As someone who wants to start VC in the future, these things are important for me to clearly understand. The course and exercises didn't help with this either. So instead, I suppose, I'll take a full entrepreneurship course and a class or two on contract law. There also should have been a full chapter on how to create an investment model that would be fair to all parties involved. Alas, there was not.
There's something unsettling about a book that promises clarity and "being smarter" than your lawyer or the VC leaving you hanging like this. That makes you feel dumber having read it in an unfulfilling and uninspiring way. The authors didn't do what they could to make the book useful. This book has a lot of positive reviews, and I assume it's from people who faithfully read their blogs and have more context than me. That being said, perhaps I'm not their target demographic. I'll have to read better books and take better courses in order to understand what the hell is going on. However, I do appreciate the information I was given nonetheless. Anyway, three stars.
For starters, I think I would have liked to learn more about equity vs debt financing. It would have also been nice if they further explained how the term sheet and financing structure should be modeled to both benefits the investors and the entrepreneurs. As someone who wants to start VC in the future, these things are important for me to clearly understand. The course and exercises didn't help with this either. So instead, I suppose, I'll take a full entrepreneurship course and a class or two on contract law. There also should have been a full chapter on how to create an investment model that would be fair to all parties involved. Alas, there was not.
There's something unsettling about a book that promises clarity and "being smarter" than your lawyer or the VC leaving you hanging like this. That makes you feel dumber having read it in an unfulfilling and uninspiring way. The authors didn't do what they could to make the book useful. This book has a lot of positive reviews, and I assume it's from people who faithfully read their blogs and have more context than me. That being said, perhaps I'm not their target demographic. I'll have to read better books and take better courses in order to understand what the hell is going on. However, I do appreciate the information I was given nonetheless. Anyway, three stars.