Category Archives: Uncategorized

Stock option plan administration requires regular attention to compliance obligations. Events to Watch Out For There is work to do when: the board of directors approves stock option grants (or stock awards), which can occur either at regularly scheduled board meetings or at any time at special board meetings or actions by unanimous written consent;Continue reading “Stock Option Plan Administration: A Guide”

It is well known that a company has to withhold income and employment taxes from an employee exercising nonqualified stock options. What About Former Employees? What is less well known is, what do you do if this person has left the employment of the company? What if they left employment years ago and are notContinue reading “Nonqualified Stock Options: Tax Withholding on Former Employees”

By Nikki Piplani and Joe Wallin If you are a startup company founder, one of the first questions you will have will be about sharing equity with your early hires. Once you start asking, you will hear plenty of advice about this. You will hear— “Be generous”. You will also hear— “Worry about dilution”. The concernsContinue reading “How to Share Equity”

In startup land, aside from cash compensation, stock options are the most important part of employee compensation. (This is the case because once a startup is beyond the very early, initial startup phase, no other form of equity compensation–such as restricted stock or RSUs–works very well from a tax point of view for employees.) BecauseContinue reading “Incentive Stock Options: The Qualifications and Limitations”

If you are not familiar, last December the Congress and the President made permanent one of the most significant tax breaks probably ever made available to founders and investors in startups. They created something that they could have rightfully called, “Tax Free Startup Company Stock.” What am I talking about? Well, last December the CongressContinue reading “Tax Free Startup Company Stock”

By Ashley Long If you are a startup company, your brand (your trademarks) may be one of your most important items of intellectual property. Protecting your brand through one or more federally registered trademarks is usually a really smart move. For not very much money, you can obtain federal rights allowing you to stop subsequentContinue reading “Trademarks: When To File Outside the U.S.”

By Dennis Kasimov and Joe Wallin In the early days of a startup, it is common for founders to not pay themselves any cash compensation. This approach is sometimes also applied to other service providers, who receive just stock option compensation. Despite the prevalence of this practice in the early days, as things progress itContinue reading “Startup Compensation: Founders, Don’t Forget to Pay Yourselves (and Others)”

If you are thinking about starting an early stage tech company, one of the first things you will have to figure out is what type of legal entity to form. Fortunately, there are only a few choices available to you. Your choices are basically only 1 of the following 3 possibilities: an LLC taxed as aContinue reading “Tax Free Founder Stock”

Ashley Stewart (@ashannstew) recently wrote a great piece in the Puget Sound Business Journal on Washington State equity crowdfunding titled “Crowdfailure: Not a single company has been able to use Washington’s 2-year-old crowdfunding law.” She also wrote an accompanying blog post. Washington State Equity Crowdfunding The article tells the story of a company frustrated atContinue reading “Washington State Equity Crowdfunding News”

If you are investing in early stage companies, there are certain deal terms you want. Most you probably know already: if it’s a round of convertible notes, you want a discount and a cap; if it’s a priced round, you want a liquidation preference. Etc. But there is a new thing you need to addContinue reading “Secondary Sales and An Investor Covenant You Don’t Want To Miss”