Financial Advisor Practice Transition Series // Read the rest of the series → Ameriprise is unusual among the big firms. It runs two very different financial advisor channels at once. One is an employee channel: W-2 financial advisors, firm-owned client relationships....
AI-powered meeting tools are quickly becoming part of everyday business operations. Many companies now use meeting assistants that automatically record conversations, generate transcripts, summarize discussions, and identify follow-up tasks. Sometimes...
Financial Advisor Practice Transition Series // Read the rest of the series → Before valuation, before buyers, before timing, there is a more basic question to consider before a financial adviser can sell their practice. And a surprising number of financial advisors...
For many companies, board minutes are treated as little more than administrative housekeeping. Meetings happen, resolutions are approved, and someone is tasked with documenting the outcome before the file is saved away and largely forgotten. But Delaware courts...
Financial Advisor Practice Transition Series // Read the rest of the series → Sooner or later, most financial advisors end up on one side of a practice sale. You might be buying a retiring colleague’s book, planning your own exit, or merging with someone whose...
Private equity firms are increasingly focused on artificial intelligence as a value creation tool. For many investors, the opportunity is not necessarily finding businesses built around AI. Instead, it is identifying companies that can become more efficient, scalable,...
A priced round is a meaningful step. It is the moment the company sets a valuation, the moment all of your outstanding SAFEs and notes convert, and the moment your governance, reporting, and capital structure become formally institutional. Founders who arrive at a...
Founders raising a pre-seed round in 2026 effectively have two common off-the-shelf options: a SAFE or a convertible note. Both are designed to delay the valuation question until a priced round, both convert into preferred stock at that round, and both are widely...
Convertible notes were the standard early-stage financing instrument before the SAFE existed. They remain common in the Midwest with angel investors and in bridge rounds between priced equity financings. Founders should understand how the four economic levers in a...
In 2018, Y Combinator replaced its original pre-money SAFE with a post-money SAFE. Most founders never noticed. The change was a meaningful shift in how dilution flows through the cap table. If you are raising on SAFEs in 2026, you almost certainly are using...
The Simple Agreement for Future Equity, or “SAFE,” has become the dominant instrument for early-stage capital raises in the United States. Y Combinator introduced it in 2013 as an alternative to convertible notes, and most pre-seed investors today expect to see one....
Why Reduction in Force Cases Carry Legal Risk With the recent spate of corporate downsizing, it is an opportune time to revisit the risks inherent in an improperly conceived and/or executed reduction-in-force (RIF). Even when an employer has a legitimate...
There's a moment in almost every early-stage financing when the conversation shifts from excitement to diligence. Investors who were enthusiastic about your business start asking for documents — and what you hand over either builds confidence or raises questions. ...
Vesting is one of those concepts that startup founders encounter early — in conversations with lawyers, in term sheets, in advice from investors — but that isn’t always explained clearly. The mechanics are straightforward once you understand them, and the reasons...
When you form a corporation, you're not just creating a legal entity — you're building a structure that will govern how your company makes decisions, issues equity, and interacts with investors for years to come. The governance documents that establish that...
