Know your financial structure. In our last post, we covered a number of factors that affect the founder’s ultimate ownership percentage. In this section, we have a bit more detail. What you need to know up front that the venture capital investment process has become highly standardized. In many ways this is a good thing. It helps both parties know exactly where they are in a deal. Many founders, however, may find themselves uncomfortable with some of the fairly typical deal terms.

If you’re serious about raising venture capital, you must be prepared to accept virtually all of these terms, if you expect to close. In the process, it’s crucial that you be honest with yourself. If you really cannot get comfortable with the standard terms, you would be better off bootstrapping your company. Otherwise, talking to VCs — let alone getting into extended negotiations with them over terms that are pretty much nonnegotiable — is a waste of your time and theirs.

So here are some of the biggies.