ENTREPRELAW Getting Your Deals Done Right

Resources UseFul Websites

Useful Websites

Here is a selection of websites that we hope will be of value to our clients, and in particular to start-ups of all origins. We are not trying to be encyclopedic in our coverage: rather, we seek to draw your attention to sites that we hope will be of interest to you, including some that we particularly like as well as some of the better-known.

AcademicInfo: Founded in 1998, by Mike Madin, a librarian coordinator, AcademicInfo is an online education resource center with extensive subject guides and distance learning information. Their mission is to provide free, independent and accurate information and resources for prospective and current students (and other researchers). Updated daily.

Astecs: the website of this Association of Technology Entrepreneurs is full of useful information, including video clips of Silicon Valley experts offering free (and often very useful!) advice. Regular meetings cover the basic questions of tech. entrepreneurs, and the President's UK origins make the Association particularly sensitive to the needs of non-US start-ups. Ian Stock has participated in Astecs panels for entrepreneurs.

craigslist.org: Craig Newmark, the company's CEO, bootstrapped his company and didn't take a dime of venture capital. Now it's everywhere! This is a fabulous place to explore housing, services, jobs and dating in the San Francisco Bay Area which, as most of you know, includes Silicon Valley.

Doing Business: This World Bank site offers a fascinating if at times a little brief comparison of corporate formalities (as well as registering property, enforcing contracts, etc.) between countries all over the world. Other "Private Sector Resources" of the World Bank are linked.

Expert Witness: Hire an expert witness for forensic accounting, financial fraud investigation and litigation support.

Express Funding Group: Small Business Loans. Choose from an array of loan options for your small business.

Free Patents Online: The site allows free patent searching, free patent PDF downloading, allows you to set up competitive intelligence alerts, and more. It's a great resource for patent searching, R&D, and market research.

MentoNet: This network was founded to help European CEOs locate seasoned Board members and advisers in the US to help them break into or expand in US markets. Advisers cover all the fields that you would expect, and are defined by both function (product development, marketing, etc.) and industry familiarity. The advisers are now available to US CEOs as well. They are invited so as to maintain a certain level of quality assurance. Ian Stock is a MentoNet advisor.

SCORE: hundreds of experts make themselves available to answer your questions about just about any aspect of your small business. There are free (but limited) consultations on-line, and low cost seminars. You can find consultants on venture capital, technology transfers, M&A, . . . BUT, you need to be a US citizen or have a Green Card. http://www.svscore.org/ is the Silicon Valley office of SCORE.

Silicon Valley Bank: This is the commercial bank that seems to appear the most as a lender to start-up tech and life science companies and to tech and life science companies coming from abroad and setting up shop in Silicon Valley. If you are a tech or life science start-up, and if you are hoping for commercial lending to help finance your activities, you might want to talk to these guys.

TEN: The Enterprise Network of Silicon Valley is that rare breed in the US, a non-profit seeking to encourage entrepreneurship. It is an incubator where dozens of start-ups mingle with each other and a network of service providers and others. Unlike many for-profit incubators, it does not take one third to one half of the company's stock. It is a particular favorite of entrepreneurs from outside the US.

Tynax: Tynax gives entrepreneurs and their investors a reality check on what they are doing. No-one knows all of the different threads of technological innovation twisting and intertwining all over the world. But Tynax, a technology based internet search engine, gets as close as anyone. One of their web search experts can help you search for technologies similar to the one that you're excited about. EntrepreLaw has been retained by Tynax.

Venture Choice: "Headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, VentureChoice offers global deal sourcing, screening, and syndication services for an exclusive network of PE and VC investors who are looking for more and higher quality deals to (co-)invest in. VentureChoice service is enabled by innovative Internet technology to be more efficient, effective, and secure than traditional deal flow services providing investment choices otherwise unreachable".

That's their language: what they do in plain English is help entrepreneurs find investors and investors find entrepreneurs. "Your Global Deal Sourcing Partner."

WSJ Startup Resources: The Wall Street Journal, as intelligent as ever, takes its own particular look at start-ups, and offers its own particular brand of help. In addition to the interesting articles covering the range of entrepreneur concerns, there are partner website listings of business and franchise opportunities.