Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series
The Best Practices Series brings to UC Berkeley and the Haas School the best practitioners from the Berkeley and Silicon Valley community to speak about the practical aspects of entrepreneurial activity. The series is timed to match the academic year and also the business plan competition season, particularly the Berkeley Business Plan Competition and the Global Social Venture Competition.
Entrepreneurs from the Berkeley campus and the community in general are encouraged to come to each of the sessions.
The 2008-2009 season of the Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series has ended. Please check back in August for information on the 2009-2010 season.
Complete schedule for 2008-2009
(all sessions 6:30-8:30 pm):
10/13/08 |
Opportunity Recognition & BPlan/GSVC Launch
|
Stanley Auditorium, 105 |
10/28/08 |
IP and Legal Issues
|
Stanley Auditorium, 106 |
11/18/08 |
Internet Marketing & Business Strategies
|
Stanley Auditorium, 105 |
12/1/08 |
Social Ventures
|
Wells Fargo Room |
12/8/08 |
How to Write a Business Plan / Pitching
|
Cheit Hall, C230 |
2/17/09 |
Financial Modeling & Management (more info)
|
Andersen Auditorium |
3/3/09 |
Business Models / Pitching
|
Wells Fargo Room |
4/1/09 |
Incorporation and Compensation (more info)
|
Wells Fargo Room |
4/20/09 |
Financing (more info)
|
Wells Fargo Room |
Each session will start with light refreshments and networking.
Sign up to receive email notifications of events here.
Program Details
Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series:
Incorporation & Compensation
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
6:30-8:30pm
Wells Fargo Room- Haas School of Business
Avoid the incorporation and formation pitfalls and landmines waiting for founders looking to grow the next Cisco, Genentech or Apple:
- What simple paragraph in your consulting agreements can substantially reduce the risk that all of your intellectual property will "walk out the door"?.
- How to avoid significant tax surprises with your vested stock.
- Why deferring salaries on your financial statements while building sweat equity is frequently a very bad idea.
- How many stock options should I issue to my CTO?
- Why you should know that 401(A) is not a household cleaner.
- What will angel investors and VCs expect from my initial incorporation structure?
These start-up incorporation/formation topics and many more will be reviewed and discussed.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
Rob Dellenbach is a partner with Reed Smith LLP and co-chair of their clean tech practice. His practice focuses on high-growth companies, their financing and their strategic, complex and cross-border transactions. Over the course of his 20-year career, Rob has led teams that have advised clients on hundreds of venture capital and private equity financings, mergers, acquisitions, public offerings and strategic intellectual property transactions aggregating several billion dollars in value. Rob serves as general counsel and trusted advisor to many of his clients. He’s particularly skilled in business planning and has written and advised on many of his clients’ business plans, private placement memorandums and prospectuses. Rob devotes many hours to pro bono representation and promotion of diversity in entrepreneurship and in the legal community. Among other activities, Rob supports the Climate Protection Campaign, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and our carbon footprint.
Craig Tanner is a partner in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley offices of Reed Smith LLP. Craig represents clients, domestically and internationally, in equity compensation, executive compensation, employment, and data privacy. He focuses his practice on the needs of multinational companies with substantial work forces around the world. In his compensation practice, Craig works with clients in designing, offering, and implementing international equity-based compensation programs, including stock options, stock purchase rights, restricted stock, restricted stock units, phantom stock, and stock appreciation rights, as well as salary and cash bonus programs. With regard to these compensation programs, he advises clients on the tax, securities, employment, currency exchange, data privacy, and communications issues that the companies encounter when offering the programs to employees, directors, and consultants throughout the world. Craig also advises clients on U.S. and cross-border equity compensation issues arising in mergers and acquisitions.
The Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series is held in conjunction with the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition and the Global Social Venture Competition. The Best Practices Series invites experts from Berkeley and the Silicon Valley to speak about practical aspects of entrepreneurship. Each session begins with pizza and networking at 6:30pm, followed by the session at 7:00pm. The event is free and no registration is required. For more information, visit the Best Practices website or contact the Lester Center at 510-642-4255 or lester@haas.berkeley.edu.
Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series:
Financing
Monday, April 20, 2009
6:30-8:30pm
Wells Fargo Room- Haas School of Business
Sponsored by:
Please join us for the capstone session in the Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series. You will learn what investors look for in deals, teams, pitches and business plans, and how to negotiate your deal after you have generated interest. The panel offers diverse perspectives ranging from traditional venture capital investing, to angel investing, to strategic corporate venture investing, and the panelists’ experiences span a number of industries including IT, electronics, healthcare and clean technology. The workshop will include Q&A, so come with the questions you've been waiting to ask an investor.
Moderator:
George Willman is a technology attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati. He represents clients in the areas of technology transactions, intellectual property counseling, and patent prosecution. George works with both startups and mature companies in a variety of industries including software, hardware, semiconductors, communications, Internet, and clean technology. Representative transactions include licensing, development, service, distribution, manufacturing, long term purchase/supply, electronic commerce, joint venture, merger, acquisition, and spin-off agreements. Prior to his legal career, he worked as a telecommunications software engineer for IBM and Siemens. He holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, a B.S., Computer Systems Engineering, from Stanford University, and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business. George is a member of the Keiretsu Forum angel investor network.
Featured Panelists:
Nathaniel (Nate) Gallon is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati where he practices corporate and securities law. Nate represents technology companies throughout their growth cycle, from start-ups to large public companies. Among other aspects of his practice, Nate represents clients in venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, public and private offerings of securities, corporate governance, SEC disclosure and reporting, and Sarbanes-Oxley matters. Nate also counsels companies on day-to-day general corporate and legal matters. In addition to representing a number of venture-backed companies, Nate has represented a number of venture funds in connection with venture equity investments. His clients have included Cypress Semiconductor Corporation, Genentech, Inc., Greylock, KLA-Tencor Corporation, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, NetApp, Inc., Norwest Venture Partners, Quadrangle Group LLC, Quantum Corporation, Solectron, Varian, Inc., and Worldview Technology Partners. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. from Yale University.
Max Shapiro is an active angel investor. Shapiro has been a member of the Keiretsu Forum angel investor network since 2001 and is also a member of Silicom Ventures. He has invested in health care, wind power and Web 2.0 companies. Shapiro is the founder and CEO of PeopleConnect. A serial entrepreneur, his unique blend of experience, creativity and persistence has made it possible for many startups and established companies to add key members to their teams. He was the youngest talent scout in the history of the NBA, serving as Chief Scout for the Phoenix Suns. Shapiro owned and operated SportsWorld back in the ‘70s the largest operator of sports camps for children in the US. In the 80’s he created and ran baseball and basketball fantasy camps for adults. Partnering with some of the greatest names in sports to direct his camps- Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Pat Riley, Magic Johnson, John Wooden and many other sports luminaries. Shapiro brings a great deal of success in identifying talent, be it on a baseball field, basketball court or in the corporate environment. An industry leader, Shapiro is a well respected speaker on building startup teams. In July of 2008 he was a featured speaker in Tel Aviv Israel at the Silicom Ventures Technology Conference. The title of his talk was “How to Build A Great Startup Team.” PeopleConnect has helped many early stage high tech startups find employees willing to work for “Equity Only” until clients secure their next round of funding.
Sven Strohband is a partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures and brings engineering and operational experience to the MDV team and supports the partnership in sourcing and evaluating investments in the areas of software, systems and materials.
Prior to MDV, Sven spent three years at the Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) in Palo Alto where he was responsible for discovering new materials and electronics technologies for automotive applications. He was also the Stanford Racing team's lead engineer. The team developed a robot that successfully navigated132 miles of unknown terrain fully autonomously in the fastest time, winning the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge.
Sven has authored numerous papers on the simulation of materials systems and authored various patents for novel automotive electronics applications.
Sven received a doctorate and master's degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. He also earned a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University.
Eileen Tanghal was appointed director for Applied Ventures, the venture capital firm of Applied Materials, Inc., in July 2008, where she is responsible for identifying, recommending and managing venture capital investments.
Tanghal has a diverse background combining more then 10 years of experience with early stage venture capital-backed companies in the US and Europe, as an engineer, product manager, and venture capitalist. She previously served as an investment director in the London office of Kennet Partners, a private equity firm, where she led and co-led the firm's investment in fabless semiconductor companies Sequans Communications and STS, for which she served as a board director. Prior to this, Tanghal was an associate with Amadeus Capital Partners Limited from 2002 to 2005, where she led due diligence and deal execution activities for potential and existing portfolio companies and acted as an observer on the boards of fabless semiconductor company Artimi, Inc., fiber laser company SPI Lasers Plc, and flexible display company Plastic Logic Limited. From 1997 to 2000, she worked at PDF Solutions, Inc., where she was one of the first yield ramp engineers. She has also held various product and program management roles within AllAdvantage and Openwave Systems, Inc.
Tanghal holds a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from the London Business School.
