How can you possibly write so few emails? I counted 13,554 sent and that is just in Outlook- doesn't include my personal gmail account.

You are way ahead of me on blog posts though. I think I managed about 4 before I ran out of gas on blogging.

Thanks Evan. The question about who besides the named licensee and its employees can use software comes up for me all the time. This is useful.

The wind-down claims issue has never come up for me. In my experience the companies that have failed while convertible debt is still outstanding have not had enough assets to be worth creditors fighting over.

Something that HAS come up a bunch is the situation where the company is unable to raise the subsequent round that would trigger conversion. The Notes come due and the investors technically own the entire business but if they were to make a claim on it the founders would probably leave. There follows a long awkward period where no one knows what to do. Companies with good management and supportive investors manage to renegotiate some kind of conversion but it is challenging because everyone ends up negotiating the same valuation issue they wanted to avoid earlier but with more at stake for both sides.

My experience as a lawyer on early stage deals is that convertible notes don't usually cost less overall- they just spread the cost over 18-24 months instead of all at once.

A company that raises a Note round, then a Series A according to the "plan" probably would save money, but in my experience most end up extending Note terms, taking a second round of Note investment, converting at less than the Series A target, etc.

With numerous exceptions, I generally advise clients that for ~$250k or less, Notes will use less of the proceeds on legal fees and make for a cleaner cap table. Above that they should just bite the bullet and do equity.

Looking forward to those race summary pages. So much of bike racing is social - this would fit well with how lots of my Stravan friends use the service.

I frequently have to make the same mistake twice before I can understand the pattern well enough to avoid it in the future. Good learning!

This is very cool.

Without getting into details of the Boston event, I don't think this whole issue is that simple. Someone needs to pay for lunch. Open Angel Forum charges "featured service providers" a $1500 fee to attend. Since service providers pay for marketing by charging their clients, the presenting companies still end up paying the presenter fee. They just pay over time to the service providers who can charge high enough rates to afford the sponsor fee. Not every presenter will hire XYZ provider either, so in the end maybe 1 presenter will end up paying for everyone.

OTOH, at least the presenter gets some work product out of the deal so this is arguably still a step up from paying the event sponsor directly. Complicated value chain though.

I have different groups of friends on each service and use them differently, probably similar to @emily. I find myself thinking "is that more of a Facebook post or a tweet?"

Unlike @emily I have 3 groups of friends: Twitterers (the plugged-in crowd), FBers (people trying to understand this online/social stuff), and law partners (who fortunately will never see this comment). I email memos to them.

The Keiretsu Forum and other organizations have become so popular they *can* charge companies a lot to present, which doesn't mean they should. It is great to see folks trying to recalibrate.

I have one quibble with OAF's model, which is that the service providers who can afford the $1500 fee need to make that up through time billed to clients. I.e. the companies still pay the presenter fee- they just pay it over a longer period to their lawyers and accountants. No free lunch indeed.

And lest I come off as purely altruistic- I am an attorney who has worked with startup companies for my whole career. I keep expenses low so that I can keep my rates low, and consequently get priced out of events like the Open Angel Forum. That works for me.

I hope the OAF is a smashing success and spawns loads of great companies. You won’t find me there, though. I will be down the street meeting entrepreneurs over coffee.