When I socialize my idea, how do I determine which parts need to remain confidential?

Do you have a high-potential idea for starting a major new company? Would having additional capital make the difference between winning big and going home? If the answer is yes, raising a Seed Round might be for you. Read this A-Z guide on how to raise a Seed Round, from the inception of your idea to closing the round.
Preparing for your first pitch meeting? Here are a few questions you will get often, and how best to answer.
Raising a Seed Round? Then this may be your first time approaching a VC.
To avoid wasting your precious time and energy, invest 10-20 hours of research to create a list of targets who lead seed stage investments in your city.
Narrow it down rigorously before you ask for introductions, and be cautious about accepting well-meaning but unfiltered introductions. Protect your own resilience in the future by screening every target carefully now.
When reaching out, referrals are critical. Consult your advisers and angels to figure out how you can get a warm referral.
Imagine you launch a great product and start to grow quickly. What happens next? Life gets TOUGHER, because you will attract hostile attention from the incumbents who are losing business, and at the same time, a host of fast followers emerge to steal a piece of your success. What stops someone else from eating your lunch? In other words, how do you protect your profits?
Serial CEO, Emily Green, shares tips to help you recruit, communicate with, and remain aligned with your board
The VC’s decision to invest comes down to four core elements: scope, chemistry, unicorn potential and financial match.
Innovation is hard, and not all startups succeed. Get your carve-out in writing.
Your pitch deck should be aligned with your audience. Here’s how you can do that, even over Zoom.
All of your hard work has paid off, you’ve received a term sheet! Now it’s time to manage the investors around the table to make sure you get the best deal possible.
Winners in the new world—as well as smaller startups or those leveraging existing relationships—will still close deals during this period. But be wary of investors who use this environment to propose term sheets full of red flags.
Writing a terrific pitch deck is hard, just like writing a hit song is hard. Don’t shoot for average. Seed was about whether you can get in the game. Series A is about showing how you can win the game, and why this is a game worth winning. Read on for tips on creating the perfect pitch deck.
If your company is ready for Series A, your biggest limiting factor will be finding investors. The greatest factor that can reduce the effort required to run the Series A process is to invest heavily in researching your targets well before you’re ready to raise. Read this article to learn how to create the perfect investor list.
So, you’ve raised your Seed. Congratulations! While it may seem like you’re swimming in cash now, if you’re building a venture scale business, at some point, likely within the next 12-18 months, you will need more money. Read this article for advice on creating a Series A budget.
80 page guides don’t scare you? Of course not! Follow this A-Z guide to help you raise your Series A seamlessly.
Raising seed was a grueling process, and you feel eager now to leave behind all thoughts of fundraising and finally get back to building your business. But, you know Series A is just around the corner. How can you successfully raise your Series A? Read these 10 steps, and apply their lessons.
When it comes to hiring, the are high — your company will succeed or fail by the team you build around you.
So you are ready to raise a Series A? Check out this quick overview to help navigate our How to Raise a Series A Guide.
With well-written contracts in place acting like a gate to guard your interactions with the outside world, you can finally rest content. You have set up all the elements needed to create an IP fortress, and your walls are growing every day. There’s just one topic left to cover – what to do if your castle is attacked?
Next it is time to venture outside the castle, but you don’t want to let your ideas walk right out the front gate! Learn how to hold technical or scientific discussions without sacrificing your ability to file and control patents, and find out how best to structure joint development agreements with allies.
Whenever you uncover a valuable invention, you have a system in place to identify, protect, and file on the right intellectual property. Each time you do, you will be building an additional outer wall to protect your core IP. Read about a comprehensive system for managing those processes in this section.
Now that you have a foundation cleared up, it’s time to build your fortress, and at the center of every fortress is the most protected area of all, the Keep. We better explain our castle analogy, and then tell you step by step how to get started.
In this section, we discuss how to evaluate a technology or science available to license, how to figure out if there is room to start a new company without getting sued by existing patentholders, and how to make a fair deal with a university or government lab licensing officer.
Tips for Entrepreneurs Coping with FIRRMA, CFIUS, and Export Control.
Pillar VC’s A to Z Guide on All Matters Intellectual Property for Start-Up CEOs.
This post explains why sometimes you should embrace layoffs as a difficult but necessary step, how you should implement a layoff, and what you can do to rebuild morale down the road.
Finding your way to product-market fit starts with getting close to customers, listening and learning.
Before investing in patents, all startups should take two simple, low-cost steps: briefly check freedom to operate and put the right legal documents place.
What is a Patent? What Are the Parts of a Patent Application? Why Are Patents Valuable? What Types of Inventions Can Be Patented? Russ Wilcox answers all of these questions and more in Part 1: A Primer on Patents.
After you launch your new company, you may be surprised at how swiftly big companies come knocking on your door. Is that an opportunity or a threat?
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