Hacker News Reader

Comment by breck | Hacker News Reader

This is really great.

One question. I understand that the set of items in these documents is carefully chosen based on many years of experience and thousands of data points. A lawyer could probably take a look at this and understand it in 10 minutes.

But for a non lawyer, it seems like too much too soon. I have to figure most companies will need very few of these provisions.

Is there a way to structure this type of document so that the most important thing(s) only could be included, perhaps on one page?

And then structure it in such a way that every few months, or few years, you add a "plugin" for your particular company needs?

My problem with these types of documents is that for 2 guys in a garage they seem to be overkill, and it would be nicer if there were a simpler option that starts with a tiny core that you can then add on as you go.

View on HN

Thanks for the compliments on the docs, breck. I helped get these up on GitHub and I think the existing document that would come closest to what you're looking for is the term sheet. That's essentially a one page summary of the key terms that are laid out in the other documents.

Regarding the "plug in" process you mention, that's actually a good analogy for what happens between these docs, which are used in a seed round, and the larger set of docs that are used in a next round like a Series A. Believe it or not, these Series Seed docs are significantly stripped down from what Series A docs look like.

Not sure if that entirely answers your question or not, but let me know if there's anything I can help out with.

Thanks for the response Jason, and for the docs.

That does answer my question. I guess for me, I see these documents and I am overwhelmed. But that's just probably because it's so foreign to me.

I actually was going to say, is there anyway to make these documents more concise like underscore.js? Then I opened up underscore.js in Textmate, hit print, and realized it would be 30 pages printed.

I guess I didn't realize how much the perceived length of something depends on the background of the reader. For me, underscore.js is small and concise, for a non programmer it probably looks like a tome. When I saw the Seed docs to me it was a tome, but to you it's probably a quick read.

I do wish legal docs were smaller. But I also wish code were smaller. And I don't really have an answer to how to make that so!

This is what is done in the documentation of many financial 'over the counter' derivatives trades. There's a big book of definitions, which everyone signs up to (part of the process of creating an 'ISDA Master' with each dealer). And the documentation of each derivative trade amounts to a couple of pages that sets out the key terms (maturity date, rates, currencies, etc) using the main definition document as a source for the major terms, while overriding key distinctive points, as necessary.

After a while, if/when 'market convention' drifts such that everyone is overriding definitions in the same way, a new 'Definitions' document is created, and people start to work off that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com