An interesting idea. In my experience it’s investors, not founders, who are often the source of complexity in startup agreements. I’ve found that angel investors or investors without a huge amount of experience with common practice in the YC/SV world struggle with concepts like SAFEs and convertible notes — even if they’re otherwise sophisticated investors. And those types of investors are often the only ones ready to bet money on very early stage startups.
All that’s to say: don’t neglect the educational aspect of what you’re selling. Make it easy for founders to explain how your documents works, and make it easy for investors to trust the documents you’ve prepared.
This is a great feedback! I have never considered this aspect before. I think it makes sense to start some kind of blog on the website to explain legal matters in plain words, which startups can share with investors.
Another point to this is that we focus mainly on contracts, which startups use in their operational activity. I think this part is underserved most severely.
We have SAFE, because it is commonly requested by founders, but I think that Clerky does better job on corporate for now, since they have Board Consent+SAFE+signing+storage.
I would be significantly interested in something to help explain legal terms as someone with little experience with business, finance, or law. I'm interested to see how this turns out!
All that’s to say: don’t neglect the educational aspect of what you’re selling. Make it easy for founders to explain how your documents works, and make it easy for investors to trust the documents you’ve prepared.