Congrats to Threshold Counsel Clients Hatchify and Brandefy
We love seeing clients succeed here at Threshold! We were so excited to learn that two of our clients, Hatchify and Brandefy have both been accepted to national accelerator programs. In the startup world, that’s big news for growth and development! How we helped We...
Trademark Clearance: Brand Protection From the Start
The first and best brand protection comes from choosing wisely your new trademark wisely in the first place, with the help of a trademark clearance analysis. Before launching and building a new brand, it is very important to investigate whether the name, tagline, or...
Stock Option Pools for Startups
Congratulations -- you have a great idea and you’re making it happen. You’ve formed a company, found some desk space to do the work, and you’ve started hiring amazing people. These early hires are going to help you build a profitable enterprise. These hearty souls,...
Startup Equity – Dividing the Pie at the Start
You have a great team, a killer product under development, and enough brains to know that you need to form a company. You need a company bank account, an entity to own the intellectual property, and that insulation from personal liability that you've heard about. Now...
The Expert Startup Advice That is Usually Bunk
Startup founders often hear that they should "start with your exit in mind." It sounds like good startup advice, and a lot of the people doling out that advice are smart and experienced. But for most founders, the advice to "start with your exit in mind" is not...
Memo to Startup Investors – What They Will Want to Know
Is it time to bring some outside capital in to your startup? It is important to prepare explainers and disclosures for potential startup investors, so that you set everyone's expectations and protect yourself and the company from the possibility of disgruntled...
Taking Investors Into Your Startup – Necessary Documents
Why does it take so many pages of documentation and legalese to take these investment dollars? Startup clients often wonder why they need dozens of pages of explainers, disclaimers, projections, and regulatory references to take on cash from investors. The first...
Startup funding – What is convertible debt?
When we work with our startup clients, the topic of funding comes up often. "Do we try to raise money now? How do we know how much the company is worth? We are doing great things, but the revenue is slower and lower than we would like." For early-stage startup...
Virginia Startups and Investors – a Q4 To Do Item
If you are a Virginia startup, or an investor in one, here is something for your fourth quarter to-do list: File to become qualified as a small business whose investors can take advantage of the "Qualified Equity and Subordinated Debt Investments Tax Credit." Not...
Who Owns What You Paid For?
When you buy or sell web site or software project services to someone, what exactly is it that is changing hands? There will be images and functions on the buyer’s screen that weren’t there before. If both sides know what they are doing, the result will be valuable....
Advertise for Funding
It has been illegal for startups to publicly advertise the sale of partial ownership to investors. And while services like Angelist and FundRoom have opened up the marketplace in recent years, those platforms are still membership-based and not entirely open. After...
Protect This House! Brand Protection for All
Your actions over time build your brand. But it is crowded out there. Many brands over time will come into contact with others using similar names and logos, and who will win? Most often, the company that has taken the step of registering their trademark rights...
Addressing Deceptive Like-Gated Social Media Promotions
This is an old but instructive example of the need for care in communications when running a social media contest or campaign. It also shows the difficulty in tailoring the remedy to the problem. Two contact lens sellers charged each other with deceptive practices. ...
FINRA Guidance on Social Media Use
In addition to Securities and Exchange Commission guidance for its regulated practitioners and publicly traded companies, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (“FINRA”) issued Notice 11-39, its second providing guidance to its regulated members concerning...
SEC OK with Social Media for Investor Relations
The Securities Exchange Commission last month made official what investor relations professionals had known and practiced for some time now: SM is OK for IR if you remember Reg FD. Regulation FD, "fair disclosure," has existed since before the dawn of social media,...
NLRB Social Media guidance
Need some guidance in dealing with employees' use of social media in and about the workplace? In 2011 and 2012, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) got active in telling employers how to manage their employees' social media usage without violating employee...
Apple, iPads, and Trademark Rights in Colors
As part of its ongoing effort to tamp down intellectual property infringement overseas, Apple applied a few weeks ago for trademark protection for the visual appearance of its iPad, including the colors silver and black. The important thing to notice here is that the...
Thug Life: How Kim Dotcom’s New Venture Takes a Cue from Tupac and 50 Cent
Famous for his MegaUpload mega legal troubles, Kim Dotcom launched a new filesharing site yesterday, called simply "Mega." It launched on January 20, 2013, exactly one year after the New Zealand police stormed his New Zealand home. The new service offers a free 50...