Essential Law for Entrepreneurs in Innovation-Driven Startups and Growth Companies

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A vast majority of companies encounter substantial and often unexpected legal costs when
starting a new venture. Whether you are an innovation driven entrepreneur or an
entrepreneurial executive launching a new venture within a large organization, Essential Law for
Entrepreneurs will help you navigate the key challenges when starting, financing, and selling new
ventures. This program will engage entrepreneurs and executives from across the globe in an
interactive virtual classroom where participants will enter into live discussions about starting new
ventures in the global context. and debate legal issues with the instructor. There will also be
guest appearances from experienced investors and experts in the venture and angel investor
world.

An innovation-driven startupone designed to commercialize a new technology or a business
model enabled by a new technologyfaces distinctive law-sensitive challenges that are critical to
its success, whether in a fledgling new company or in an entrepreneurial new business founded
within an established corporation. As an innovative leader, it is essential that you understand at
a high level how the law shapes these risks and opportunities. With a deeper appreciation of
these issues, you will bring better judgment and more effective leadership to the founding and
growth of these exceptionally dynamic ventures. In this unique program that leverages decades
of insights and experience from MIT, you will learn how to answer questions such as the
following:

In innovation-driven startups, there is often a team of entrepreneurs, rather than a single founder. The
timeline for growth of the business is not linearthere is often a substantial period of no revenues and
investment followed, hopefully, by extraordinary growth. This also creates a need for investors, and in
particular investors who share the founders appetite for risk. In this environment of radically shifting
risks and opportunities, how can you protect your interests with an appropriate legal framework
for ownership, compensation, incentives, responsibilities, commitment and control?
If you are a global company expanding into the U.S., what are the legal considerations that will
impact how you set up your business?
When the value of a venture is based upon an innovation, intellectual property (IP) rights are often key
to growing that value. How do legal considerations shape an effective IP strategy? How can IP
rights be acquired? How can IP be protected from threats such as the departure of key employees?
Some innovation-driven startups have as their goal growth into a fully mature enterprise. But often the
goal is to develop a product or service to the point where its value is clear enough to attract a buyer for
the entire venture. Negotiations with prospective buyers are typically very asymmetricwith the new
venture sitting across the table from counterparty with far more resources and experience. This is also
often true in negotiations with prospective investors. What tools does the law provide to protect the
entrepreneur?
As the innovation-driven startup matures, taking on investors and shifting its business focus beyond
enabling the innovation, pressures are generated for shifts in governance and management. The board,
which at the outset is typically just the founders, takes on new members, more formal functions, and a
more complex set of legal responsibilities and liabilities. Founder-CEOs are often replaced even as a
venture achieves early success (and sometimes precisely because of that success). What do key
stakeholders need to understand about how the legal framework of the venture channels these
changes?
Such ventures have an acute need for savvy legal advice and representation, but lawyers are expensive
and resources are often very limited. How does the startup obtain and finance the legal services
that it needs?
An innovation-driven startup is a high risk/high reward venture, and even those that are ultimately
successful may suffer periods of financial distress. Financial distress creates major legal risks for a
business entity and its managers. What legal pitfalls must be avoided during times of financial
distress, or during a winding down of the venture?