Silicon Valley Startup Incubation And Acceleration

Startup Fundamentals 1: Start Right, Avoid Common Mistakes & Pitfalls

Thu, Feb 19 · 5:00 PM PST

Snell & Wilmer Palo Alto Office, 5 Palo Alto Square, Suite 650, Palo Alto, CA, US

REGISTER ON EVENTBRITE HERE!

Unlock Your Startup’s Potential: Join Our Essential Workshop!
Are you an entrepreneur ready to transform your vision into a successful, fundable startup? Access Silicon Valley invites you to join us for an invaluable 3-hour workshop designed to equip you with the legal and business tools and insights necessary to build a fundable and scalable startup and thrive in the startup ecosystem!

This is the first of three workshops in the Access Silicon Valley Startup Fundamental Series for startup founders, startup executives, entrepreneurs, innovators, and developers. While advantageous to attend all 3 workshops, this is stand-alone content.

Thank you to our event sponsor, Snell & Wilmer.

Why You Can't Miss This Workshop:

• This first session in our Startup Fundamentals series will guide you through critical aspects of launching a startup, helping you avoid common pitfalls that can hinder your success.
• Learn from Roger Rappoport, a former entrepreneur, founder of Access Silicon Valley, a partner at Snell & Wilmer and co-leader of its Emerging Growth and Venture Capital practice group. With his extensive experience, Roger will share actionable strategies tailored for aspiring entrepreneurs.

What You’ll Learn:
Navigating the startup landscape can be overwhelming, but this workshop will break down complex topics into manageable steps. Here’s some of what we’ll cover:

• Company Formation: Choosing the right entity type for your startup.
• Building Your Team: Strategies for hiring and compensating the right people.
• Equity Splits: Fairly distributing equity among co-founders and early employees.
• Fundamental Concepts Relating To: Vesting, repurchase rights and rights of first refusal, determining if and when it is appropriate to obtain proxies from co-founders/early employees.
• Fundraising Fundamentals: Understanding how much equity to offer investors and determining your startup’s valuation.
• Cap Table Strategies: Creating and maintaining an appropriate capitalization table.
• Intellectual Property: Ensuring all IP belongs to your company and developing a robust IP strategy.

Why Avoiding Pitfalls Matters:
Navigating these challenges successfully can mean the difference between a thriving startup and an uphill battle. Learn how to:

• Make your startup attractive to investors.
• Choose the right sources and types of capital.
• Maintain control of your company.
• Maximize your upside on exit.

Don’t let common pitfalls derail your startup journey. Join us to gain the insights you need for success! Transform your startup vision into reality—start right and avoid the pitfalls!

Materials:
A comprehensive 50-page digital workbook with an actionable step-by-step guide will be distributed to all registered event attendees on the day of the event.

Agenda:
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Dinner and networking
6:00 PM - 6:15 PM - Speaker and sponsor introductions
6:15 PM - 7:30 PM - Startup workshop Part A
7:30 PM - 7:45 PM - Intermission
7:45 PM - 8:45 PM - Startup workshop Part B
8:45 PM - 9:00 PM - Q & A

Seating is extremely limited, so reserve your seat now.

About the Speaker:
Snell & Wilmer Partner Roger Rappoport, Co-Leader of the Emerging Growth and Venture Capital Practice Group, is a seasoned advisor to startups and emerging growth companies and the investors who finance them, guiding clients from inception through exit. With over two decades of experience in the startup ecosystem, Roger focuses on venture capital and angel investor financings, including convertible notes, SAFEs, and other debt financings. His knowledge extends to mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, distribution, development, manufacturing, and licensing transactions, as well as executive compensation and the establishment of equity incentive plans.

Roger is a frequent speaker and panelist on topics and issues related to the development and implementation of a company's formation and funding strategy.

Before attending law school, he was the founder of a technology company with $10 million in revenue.

Roger is very connected with investors in Silicon Valley and beyond and is an active angel investor. As an attorney, he has been involved in hundreds of transactions such as merger and acquisition transactions, private equity and venture capital financing transactions, and complex restructuring transactions.

Questions? Email Alex Levine at alevine@swlaw.com.

Up Next
Part 2: Developing a Funding Strategy | Thursday, March 19
Part 3: Understanding the "Terms" in Term Sheets | Thursday, April 16

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Toastmasters Career Session

Tue, Feb 24 · 6:00 PM PST

·

Online

Online

Career Professionals, Entrepreneurs and Job Seekers:
Career Sessions: Tuesdays 6:00-7:30 PM Pacific Time
Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/98937546543
-Improve Communications and Presentation Skills to Colleagues, Stakeholders and Management.
-Become "Interview-Ready" by responding to practice Interview questions with constructive feedback from the attendees in a safe and non-judgmental environment.

• Career-focused speeches/presentations
• Weekly Interview Practice with instant feedback
• Guest Speakers, Career Coaches, Human Resource Professionals, Hiring Managers and other Subject Matter Experts

-Tips and Tricks on maximizing your job search
-Monthly Pitch Practice-How to and when to pitch during a job interview or management, investors or others (coming soon)

• Guests are always welcome (FREE)

If you want any more information about this club and/or
Toastmasters, please send me an e-mail to svetcareer@gmail.com
Guests welcome! Interview Practice open to all.

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Toastmasters Career Session

Tue, Mar 3 · 6:00 PM PST

·

Online

Online

Career Professionals, Entrepreneurs and Job Seekers:
Career Sessions: Tuesdays 6:00-7:30 PM Pacific Time
Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/98937546543
-Improve Communications and Presentation Skills to Colleagues, Stakeholders and Management.
-Become "Interview-Ready" by responding to practice Interview questions with constructive feedback from the attendees in a safe and non-judgmental environment.

• Career-focused speeches/presentations
• Weekly Interview Practice with instant feedback
• Guest Speakers, Career Coaches, Human Resource Professionals, Hiring Managers and other Subject Matter Experts

-Tips and Tricks on maximizing your job search
-Monthly Pitch Practice-How to and when to pitch during a job interview or management, investors or others (coming soon)

• Guests are always welcome (FREE)

If you want any more information about this club and/or
Toastmasters, please send me an e-mail to svetcareer@gmail.com
Guests welcome! Interview Practice open to all.

Foreign Investment/Hiring Foreign Nationals Could Kill Your Next Round or Exit

Thu, Mar 5 · 6:00 PM PST

Snell & Wilmer Palo Alto Office, 5 Palo Alto Square, Suite 650, Palo Alto, CA, US

SEATING IS LIMITED - REGISTER HERE

For many startups, foreign capital and global talent are essential to growth. But what most founders don’t realize is that one early decision - made long before your Series A or exit - can quietly poison your cap table, stall a deal, or dramatically reduce valuation years later. Accepting funds from a foreign investor (individual or fund), granting a board seat/observer rights or information rights, or hiring foreign national developers in the U.S. can trigger CFIUS review, export control violations, and national security concerns, often without any warning at the time. These issues rarely surface until a major financing, acquisition, or IPO, when they become expensive, time-consuming, and sometimes impossible to fix.

This must-attend workshop is designed specifically for startup founders and early-stage operators in tech, AI, biotech, fintech, robotics, and other innovation-driven sectors who want to grow globally without unknowingly creating deal-killing risk.

In this highly practical session, Snell & Wilmer attorneys Brett Johnson and Troy Galan will break down the regulatory landmines that routinely derail otherwise successful startups—and explain what founders need to do early to avoid them.

What we’ll cover

• Foreign Investment Pitfalls: How taking money from foreign individuals or funds can trigger scrutiny years later - and why “standard” early-stage terms can create unexpected national security issues.
• Export Controls - Even Before You Have Revenue: Why export control laws apply to early-stage startups, including software, AI models, data access, and technical know-how - and how founders unintentionally violate them.
• Foreign Nationals on Your U.S. Team: What founders must understand when hiring or working with foreign national engineers or developers in the U.S., including “deemed export” risks that many companies don’t discover until investors or acquirers raise red flags.
• Due Diligence Deal-Killers: What sophisticated investors and buyers are actually looking for and how failure to address these issues early can delay, restructure, or collapse a transaction entirely.

Why this workshop is critical
Most founders assume these issues can be “cleaned up later.” In reality, CFIUS and export control problems often cannot be fixed retroactively. By the time they surface, the damage may already be done - slowing a financing, forcing deal concessions, or killing an exit outright.
This workshop gives founders the foresight to design their company correctly from the start, rather than scrambling under pressure when stakes are highest.

What you’ll walk away with

• A clear understanding of how foreign investment and export controls intersect with startup growth
• A founder-friendly checklist to evaluate risks before taking foreign money or hiring foreign nationals (in the U.S. or abroad)
• Practical steps you can implement immediately to reduce regulatory and diligence risk
• A framework for asking the right questions early - before investors, acquirors, or regulators do

If your startup plans to raise capital, hire globally, or build technology with international reach, this workshop isn’t optional—it’s preventative medicine.

6:00-7:00PM | Dinner and Networking
7:00-8:30PM | Workshop and Q&A
8:30-9:00PM | Networking

SEATING IS LIMITED - REGISTER HERE