Negotiating Term Sheets & Valuations in Venture Capital Deals: Specific Negotiation Strategies, Roles & Motivations For Every VC Deal Participant (CD-ROM)

~ Alex Wilmerding (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The goal of this Video Leadership Seminar is to provide you with specific strategies for negotiating term sheets and valuations. The DVD is viewable on any computer and features 90 minutes of live video with Alex Wilmerding from Boston Capital Ventures, sharing his best practices on structuring deals, key points to negotiate, roles and motivations of each member of the deal and much more. Upon completion of the video, you will have a solid grasp of how and what to negotiation with each person involved in a venture capital deal (VCs, CEO, CFO, Other Investors, Board Members), as well as the most important points to negotiate, where the flexibility is in these points, and the nuances of how to go about actually negotiating them. The Video Leadership Seminar presents information and strategies unavailable in any other book, video or report on term sheets and valuations. In this seminar, you will learn answers to questions such as the following:

What is the right way to go about negotiating terms in a venture capital deal?
What are the different types of negotiation strategies that most venture capitalists use - and how do you negotiate with each of these types of people?
What leverage do the investors/VCs have in negotiations? What about the management team? What can they take advantage of and how should they do it?
How do most negotiations go in a venture capital deal? How does the process work?
What are the items investors/VCs will just not negotiate? Is there any room to get around these? What other concessions can be made to get around these points?
How much should a CEO/management team negotiate on valuations?
What items should the management team absolutely make sure they have in their favor? What market conditions affect this?
What impact do multiple investors have on the negotiation strategy of the management team? If there are multiple interested parties, how can they use this to their advantage?
What are the roles and motivations of each of the key players in a venture capital deal and what is the best negotiation strategy for each (VC, CEO, CFO, Other Investors, Board Members)?

Product Details

• CD-ROM: 1 pages
• Publisher: ReedLogic; dvd edition (May 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597010987
• ISBN-13: 978-1597010986
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,170,494 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Red flags, January 18, 2008

By	Mack90 (USA) - See all my reviews

The production values of this video (from ReedLogic Executive Seminars) are abysmal by today's standards. It appears to be the result of transferring an old analog video tape to DVD with minimal editing and has a grainy, digitized appearance. The setting is what appears to be the corner of a small conference room where the presenter, Alex Wilmerding of Boston Capital Partners (a man in his early 40's casually dressed in an open-collar, button down blue shirt), sits and is flanked by two mostly empty bookcases. He appears to be responding to a series of unspoken questions by an off-camera producer whose voice does, unexpectedly, break through twice near the middle and end of the video. The presenter himself is clearly not practiced in public speaking or well-rehearsed, as his answers are frequently interrupted by pauses and "huhs" and the delivery is emotionally flat and monotonous. The whole thing is poorly scripted and very repetitive.

Regarding the content and organization of this "seminar," it is a series of 18 sections preceded by a short introduction. The sections are:

1 Term Sheets
2 The Wording of the Term Sheet
3 The Management Team
4 Red Flags in the Term Sheet for the Entrepreneur
5 Red Flags in the Term Sheet for the Investor
6 Valuation
7 The Role of the Term Sheet
8 Negotiation Strategy for Investors
9 Negotiation Strategy for the Management Team
10 Important Sections of the Term Sheet for Investors
11 Important Sections of the Term Sheet for Entrepreneurs
12 Where Executives Get Confused
13 Strategy for Establishing Valuations
14 Factors in Establishing Valuation
15 Financial Tools/Ratios
16 Case Study: "NewCo"
17 Key Players and their Motivation
18 Advice for the Management Team

Looks good, no?

There is no navigable menu or table of contents here. The only way you can navigate to any of the sections is by using your fast forward, pause and reverse controls like on an old-fashioned VCR. This video is only a little over an hour long meaning each of the sections is very short and consequently superficial. And did I mention that they're very repetitive?

I found the actual content to be modestly informative but strange because the intended audience is advertised to be "C-level executives" (CEO, CFO, etc.) yet the presentation is clearly for "beginners." That being so, the content is lacking for this audience as well since a number of VC jargon terms (e.g. "pre-money," "post-money," various kinds of ownership dilutions) are not defined. The main take-home message is self-promoting and seems to be that VCs are important because they "protect the downside while maximizing the chance for high [10x] multiples of return" (in exchange for 30-40% ownership of your company). What a surprise. Rather than being a good investment, I view the 99 bucks I paid for this video as a "sunk cost."

Perhaps Mr. Wilmerding's various books on these subjects (and similar ReedLogic products) are more substantive and better produced and one might be tempted to give them another chance. But, as George W. Bush has advised: "There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Resource, May 17, 2006

By	Jeffrey Goldstein "Jeffrey - VC" (Palo Alto, CA) - See all my reviews

This is a really great resource on venture capital deals. Viewed it on my computer, which I prefer a lot more than to reading hundreds of pages in a book. The DVD is great and features 100 minutes live with the VC, Alex Wilmerding. Highly recommend this product....