I just got the paperwork back from our lawyers making it official that Mowser is now Mowser Inc.! Russ and I have been hacking away on the site adding new features, fixing bugs, and getting publishers integrated. But we’ve also been batting around a few Big Ideas that extend out beyond content adaption and into the rest of the web. Russ and I have known each other forever (in Internet Time at least). I would have been happy to just run the site informally splitting up the revenue that it throws off. However for some of the other ideas a higher degree of formality was required, so we decided to make everything official.
It’s been a while since I’ve done this, and last time I was involved in the process but not driving it. Much different from this side of the fence. And yet another reason that I’m happy I’ve landed in Silicon Valley and been involved with the people I’ve had a chance to work with. There were literally dozens of people I was able to tap for advice and guidance. All of whom offered some of their time to share insights, explain stuff I didn’t understand, and correct me where I was wrong. Thanks for all the help and encouragement everyone! I’m really looking forward to sharing the progress over the next few months.
Congrats, guys. Go change the world!
You little Charles Kane you :-) What’s next?
/innocent smile
Congrats – been following (nay, lurking) you guys for a while.
Nice.
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Wow, congrats guys! That’s great news! :)
Good deal. Care to share any of that advice with us? I’m particularly interested in the incorporation part — what form you chose and why, why you chose Delaware, pitfalls to watch out for, etc.
I ended up finding a great set of stuff online. Part of it might be that I’ve been around the environment for a while now so I have enough background that this stuff makes sense, but I think there are some good ground-up sites in here as well. Here are some of the resources I found particularly useful:
http://www.startupcompanylawyer.com/2007/04/26/whats-on-this-site/
http://www.businesscreditcards.com/bootstrapper/the-100-daily-must-reads-for-entrepreneurs/
And I read through the stuff at venturehacks.com from post one on through and following up on all the links (not understanding all of it completely, but I at least understood more of what I didn’t yet know and how to ask about it).
Then I called a few friends who have been involved in startups as founders and asked them to fill me in on the stuff I didn’t understand. I also got involved with the folks that run an entrepreneurship program at a local law firm that all of my contacts spoke very highly of (I’m working with the folks at Carr & Ferrell (http://www.carrferrell.com/). They had existing forms and worksheets for incorporating, laying down all the questions that needed to be answered so that Russ and I could work through them.
Ultimately we ended up settling on C corp in Delaware. So why C corp and why Delaware? The C corp part because we expect the company to be profitable or close to it pretty soon in it’s operation. Even just the site as it is generates a pretty decent amount of advertising revenue. Other forms of corporation make more sense if you expect to be running at a loss for a while. And we went with corporation instead of LLC so that in case the worst happens both Russ and I are legally protected. It’s also just sets everything up appropriately so that if we need some venture money down the line we have the right structure for that.
And Delaware for two major reasons for me, the tax law in Delaware is much more flexible. Which probably won’t make much of a difference directly for me. But also because almost everyone I get advice from has run a Delaware corporation, they can give me concrete advice about what needs to be done when you’re incorporated there. They may or may not know how things work in California. So it just makes things easier for me personally in running the day to day business end.
Outstanding! Thanks.
Glad to know that the site was helpful.