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nextNY Video: Hiring for Startups – Part 1
Allen - May 21st, 2008
Last night the nextNY group held a “tips for startup hiring” event which was attended by about 75 folks. The conversation was lively throughout and I was able to capture nearly the entire 90 minute session on video. Some of the topics covered include:
- general hiring tips
- should you use an attorney?
- how to find an attorney
- how to find the best developer
- what to look for in a developer
- where to find talent
- do referrals work?
- assignment of inventions form – apparently this is critical
- compensation – equity, bonus, etc.
- how to fire team members and partners
- how do you find a partner
- what type of equity arrangements work best for partners
- ways to incorporate – this is actually an excellent discussion in part 1 of the video at about the 8:00 mark – discussion of asset lifetime with Delicious and capital gains treatment
- where to incorporate – delaware is best they say
Here’s part 1 — check out part 2, part 3 and part 4 – enjoy!
Great videos, but the bit of advice to use the Nolo Books for the first 7 years of your business or just get some advice from your lawyer friends was terrible advice.
There are so many errors that can be made in the beginning of your business that can have long-lasting effect and can end up costing you much more than running things by your own personal lawyer in advance.
If you don’t have a personal lawyer, find one. It used to be that having a personal lawyer on call meant high hourly fees or a big monthly retainer, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Find a Personal Family Lawyer (if there is one in your community) and ask to get on his or her business plan membership program (you can pay as little as $99 or $149/mo. to have access to your own lawyer to review things for you) and then run everything by him or her.
The good advice I heard was to take a draft of an agreement to your lawyer and have him or her work from your draft rather than starting from scratch. Very smart. The more you can provide your lawyer in advance, the less it will cost you.
But, don’t skimp on legal advice. It’s too important. Yes, I’m a lawyer. But, I’m also an entrepeneur and I made this mistake in my own business and thought I could do all my own legal work, accounting work, etc.
That cost me a lot of money when I ended up getting audited by the IRS and didn’t have good records and sued by an employee and had not set things up correctly. I kicked myself for not investing in the professional services I needed to help me make smart decisions.
Alexis