The 4th of July and the Entrepreneurial Spirit: Lessons from the Fireworks Stand

I recently crossed the border from Minnesota into South Dakota and didn’t need a road sign to know it. Every year, small-town sidewalks, empty parking lots, and even highway roadside corners transform into temporary centers of commerce – the fireworks stands. They seem to appear overnight: simple structures selling sparklers, rockets, and Roman candles, but behind them is a surprisingly familiar story to anyone in business.

The Fourth of July is more than a celebration of independence.

Shark Tank Deals That Fell Apart: The Importance of Due Diligence After the Handshake

Longtime entreVIEW readers will know that my colleague and fellow author, Dan Tenenbaum, has been an avid fan of “Shark Tank” since at least 2014 when he wrote this post. Fans of the show have seen it dozens (or even hundreds) of times: the entrepreneur and the shark shake hands and agree to a deal on national television. Deal done, right…not even close. 

Reportedly, roughly 40-50% of Shark Tank deals made on camera never actually close. A 2016 Forbes analysis found that 73% of deals from the show’s first seven seasons either fell apart or were renegotiated after filming—only 27% closed on the original terms. 

The Risks of AI Notetaking

While we heard it here first from our very own Dan Tenenbaum (Keep that Bot Out of Your Boardroom), the New York Times’ recent article, “All Those A.I. Note Takers? They’re Making Lawyers Very Nervous,” underscores—and sharpens—a number of risks that companies should be thinking about before inviting AI notetakers into board meetings, strategy sessions, and everyday corporate discussions.

Described as a “ticking time bomb,” AI notetakers create a near-verbatim, searchable, and durable record of every utterance, off-hand remark, inside joke, and speculative comment made in a meeting. In the abstract, that may sound like good governance. In the context of litigation or regulatory inquiry, it can be deeply problematic.

Congratulations on forming a company!

You’re creative enough to have an idea that can be brought into commerce and disciplined enough to do the work to get here. You have likely defined your concept, conducted market analysis, created a business plan, and formed a company to both establish a liability shield and help you build value in the enterprise.

So…now what? I’m asked this question often by entrepreneurs, and my answer is simple: use your BRAIN.

Corporate Formalities: A Necessary Long Game

A common pitfall of many entrepreneurs and startups is a failure to adhere to even minimal corporate “formalities” or good governance practices that can contribute to their long-term upside (positively or negatively). Corporate formalities entail things like entity formation, taking minutes at meetings, keeping reasonably detailed and up-to-date records, and the like. 

For entrepreneurs, the most important place to start is choosing the appropriate type of business entity and filing the necessary documents to legally form that entity with the appropriate state authority.

Artificial Intelligence and Your Business: What Founders Should Know Before Making Representations and Warranties

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just a buzzword; instead, it’s a practical business tool that companies of all sizes are integrating into operations, products, and services. From automating routine tasks to generating insights from data, AI is transforming how entrepreneurs build and scale their businesses. But with great opportunity comes important legal and strategic considerations, especially when it comes to what founders say about AI in contracts, pitches, and marketing. I have already seen representatives and warranties regarding the usage of AI in real-life contracts in my practice! I guess the world really evolves FAST (I still remember the time when I used a flip phone and dictionary)!

Purple Rain and Prince as Entrepreneur

Last night, I had the privilege to attend Opening Night of the world premiere of the Broadway Bound musical, “Purple Rain” at the Historic State Theatre in Minneapolis. You can see from the photo that I even “glammed up” my outfit a bit for the premiere and post-show party at First Avenue! I guess being the current Board Chair of Hennepin Arts made me want to fully embrace the opportunity!

A little background. Frequent readers of entreVIEW all know I am a musical theatre enthusiast. I’ve posted about musicals more than a dozen times over the year…even including this post back in 2012 about a musical that I have written. You may not know that I am also a huge Prince enthusiast!  Of course, as someone who grew up in the Twin Cities and witnessed the rise of the Purple One to superstardom, I would have been in the minority if I hadn’t been. The original “Purple Rain” movie was an iconic moment. I saw it opening night (and another time or two) and the album (yes, it was vinyl) and cassette (what else would one have listened to in your car?) were pretty much on repeat throughout the second half of 1984.

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

My parents are in the middle of winding down their farm operation in Northern Iowa. The idea was simple: sell the land; retire and walk off into the sunset. But as they began the process, so too came layers of complication. The deal involved land that had been in the family for decades, the estate of my grandmother, multiple siblings (nine total, to be exact), and complex tax treatment. It was to say the least – complicated.  

At some point in the process, they realized they needed help—not because they lacked capability, but because there’s no clear-cut blueprint for navigating situations like this. You can only go so far on your own before the complexity outpaces what you can manage without professional help.

Joy: The Musical: An Entrepreneurial Story

People who know me, even just a little bit, know that I’m a passionate fan and supporter of musical theatre. Truth is that my wife and I (two lawyers with a spreadsheet) have seen just under 800 unique musicals together in our adult lives. 

Even if you don’t know me but have been a regular reader of entreVIEW (are there any regular readers?), you’d also know this because I have frequently written about musical theatre for this blog, including my very first real post on this blog over 14 years ago, which was about the Spider-Man Musical. I’ve also written about other musicals, including "Finding Neverland," "Ernest Shackleton Loves Me," "Matilda," and couple of favorites, "Here Lies Love," and, of course "Hamilton." In case that isn’t enough to show my passion for musicals I’ve also written about the musical I wrote, "Pickle-Chiffon Pie: The Musical," which has now been produced three times!  

Mentorship in Motion: Reflections from a Summer with Our Summer Associates

This summer, I’ve had the privilege of working more closely with the Lathrop GPM class of summer associates as one of the work coordinators. Having experienced a summer program disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic firsthand, I’ve especially appreciated the chance to help this talented group navigate what is, in some ways, a two-month job interview—all while also exploring career paths, learning about different legal practices, locating the printers and bathrooms, and hopefully enjoying a bit of the beautiful Twin Cities summer in between.

Maybe it’s a bit of nostalgic projection for an experience I didn’t fully get to enjoy, but I genuinely hope our summer associates walk away feeling supported during this unique and formative stage of their legal journey. To me, that’s the essence of mentorship.

Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition

When the vast majority of people hear the word “entrepreneur” they think of a person that had an idea and set off to build a company from scratch. Building something from nothing is daunting to many people and the fear of failure and the unknown represent a large barrier that prevents many would be entrepreneurs from taking the leap into owning their own businesses. One option for those would be entrepreneurs that are a bit more risk adverse is to take the route of entrepreneurship through acquisition. Entrepreneurship through acquisition is, in its simplest form, just buying a business that is already operating.

Downtown Kansas City: a Downtown’s Comeback

If you’re from the Kansas City area, you know downtown Kansas City as a bustling area full of thriving businesses, events, and citizens who both work and live within Downtown. And if you are in your late 20s like me, that is the only version of Downtown that you know. It hasn’t always been like this, however, and the revitalization of downtown Kansas City is a success story brought to fruition by the hard work and excellent foresight of City and civic leaders within the Kansas City metro area.

Open AI Raises Record Capital

Venture capital is an industry fed by ambition and optimism. There is no better example than Open AI’s recent investment round which raised a record $6.6 billion, while also reportedly turning down billions in potential oversubscriptions.

To provide some context, $150 billion is approximately what the entire U.S. venture capital industry had under management in 1999 to fuel the internet bubble. Just ten years ago, the states of New York, Texas and Florida raised about $6.5 billion—combined.

The Tragic Fall of the Tupperware Brand

Most children of my generation are quite familiar with searching through a cabinet filled with plastic Tupperware containers and lids to find the right match for packing up leftovers. The ubiquity of the Tupperware container defined the experiences of generations of families from the post-World War II era through the Seventies and Eighties and up through the turn of the Century. Spurred to tremendous popularity by a revolutionary marketing strategy that introduced easy-to-use and often unusually colorful products aimed to keep foods and drinks fashionably fresh, Tupperware containers seemed to be in every household in America. Unfortunately, the Tupperware Brand, once it lost its market leader status, was unable to keep up in the modern-day, post-pandemic market. It recently filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware.

So Many Things To Do; So Little Funding To Do It

The start of a new business is a pivotal time for any entrepreneur. Unless you happen to be a serial entrepreneur who has played this game before, you are likely overwhelmed with your to-do list and rarely feel like you have a good sense of whether you are making the right strategic choices for your fledgling company. Many first-time entrepreneurs are laser-focused on the product or service they are hoping to bring to the masses, but with that laser focus they may overlook some important considerations, like having the proper legal protections in place.

Even those entrepreneurs who have thought through legal considerations as part of their business planning process often try to get by with the bare minimum in the early days. Let’s be honest, the term “legal” often conjures thoughts of grey clouds in an entrepreneur’s otherwise sunny and optimistic vision for their new company. One of the key drivers of a start-up not putting in place all the legal protections that will help it to be successful as it continues to grow is a lack of funding to obtain expert advice. With minimal available resources, most entrepreneurs prefer to focus their initial dollars on getting their product or service to market.

Michael Lewis, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (W. W. Norton & Company, 2010)

As summer begins to wind down, and as we begin to anticipate less of the happy and carefree and more of the autumnal nose-to-the-grindstone vibe, may I suggest a beach read that has enough substance to satisfy even the most focused entrepreneurial reader?

You may know this author from some of his other books, including The Blind Side and Moneyball, also movies. You may know this story from the movie of the same name. If you don’t, skip the movie. The book is far more enlightening and entertaining.

Lessons from the Roadside: Embracing Failure in Entrepreneurship

I identify as an entrepreneur - more accurately, a failed entrepreneur - but an entrepreneur, nonetheless. My personal experiences have taught me that failure is not a destination, it’s that strange, potentially intimidating rest stop you may be forced to visit during your entrepreneurial journey through the start-up desert, inching toward the oasis on the other side. Failure is that detour that makes you go “huh…” once its finally in your rearview mirror. In my younger years, I have had the opportunity to stop off at three of these less-than-ideal roadside attractions, each teaching me something new.

Recognizing Athletic Innovation at the Olympics

In just about a month’s time, the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, also known as the 2024 Summer Olympics, will begin in Paris, France. From July 26th through August 11th, about 10,500 athletes from 206 different countries will compete for medals in 329 events over 32 sports. The Olympics have been of great interest to me since my early childhood, grabbing my attention every four years growing up and now every two years (ever since the Winter Olympics shifted in 1994 to offset the Summer and Winter Games every two years).

Full disclosure, I own a complete set of videotapes of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics that I forced my dad to record for me while I was away working at summer camp, so my love for the Olympics, like a lot of other interests of mine, could easily be labeled an obsession. For me, every event is appointment viewing, from the crowning of the Fastest Man Alive in the 100 Meter Sprint, to the repechage races in the Lightweight Women’s Doubles Sculls, to the Preliminary Round Handball match between Hungary and Denmark (set your calendar for August 2nd).

“MoviePass, MovieCrash,” an Interesting Exploration of the Entrepreneurial Roller Coaster

Stuck with a rainy Sunday afternoon this past weekend, I found myself landing on the just released HBO documentary “MoviePass, MovieCrash.” I didn’t really know much about the story in advance of my viewing, although I did recall a company that had launched a moviegoing subscription service about a decade ago. Maybe it’s my interest in the entrepreneurial experience, honed by a few decades of helping entrepreneurs build companies, but I found the movie quite interesting. Spoiler alert—if you want to watch the film (which I think it is worth your time), don’t read any further!

Holiday Receiving and Giving

The end of the year is always a hectic time for everyone, with many holidays around the world. It is also usually a big time for retail businesses.

This year, retailers have settled the long debate on when the holiday season begins—the earlier the better, as reflected in the surge in Black Friday deals. According to the traditional explanation for Thanksgiving-linked Black Friday sales, retailers—after an entire year of operating at a loss (“in the red”)—supposedly begin to earn a profit (“move into the black”) on the day after Thanksgiving, mainly because shoppers begin to spend heavily on discounted merchandise.