The Comfort Calls Story: Organizing the Legal Structure for Your Startup

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The Solari Report 2012-03-15

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Audio

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Transcript of The Comfort Calls Solari Report PDF

Audio Chapters

1. Introduction & Theme – 0:00   – Theme: Adventures in Righteousness.

Subscribers, have lunch with Catherine:

  • in Austin, Texas – Saturday, March 24 @ 12:30pCT
  • in San Jose, California – Saturday, April 14 @ 2pmPT

You may bring one guest. RSVP to communicate@wordpressdevurl.com with the following information:

  • Luncheon you wish to attend
  • Date of the luncheon
  • Names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of those attending

Find more details at the Subscriber Luncheons with Catherine webpage.

2. Money & Markets – 02:42   – Corporate taxes due today; tax collections to run the government; S&P closed above 1400; Dow closed 13252, 7th straight day of gains; fundamentals… who’s the buyer? Questions about Fukushima; companies moving out of Tokyo. Pump on at Apple; what’s behind some of these stories; Apple centralizing things; environmental fundamentals… EU workouts tricky; Greek… Greg Smith dissing Goldman Sachs; largest CDs payout in history; dis-information… e-mail on big bank resignations; dinar scheme; should I make money on genocide and huge promo video about Ugandan bad guy; see Real News post in blog. …

3. Ask Catherine – 8:16   — Aunt with $70,000 in Edward Jones, very little income, Social Security, what should I do? Will we be dealing tonight with setting up a company in a non-US jurisdiction? No. …

4. Solari Hero – 10:50  Jim Norman, author of The Oil Card, and previous Solari Report guest. …

5. Interview & Movie – 12:35   – Introduction to tonight’s Solari Report; we will be talking about: Creating a living system. See Resources and links in this blog post; guests are Debbie Landers, entrepreneur who started the Comfort Calls business; her websites are: www.comfortcalls.com and www.bouquetofwords.com; attorney Carolyn Betts on creating the legal structure; and Paul Ferguson, investor, on start up business from the investor’s viewpoint.

* Make sure to check out the Resource Links discussed during this Solari Report in the Links section in this blog post.

The movie this week is actually a TV show: “Shark Tank”… where entrepreneurs pitch their new business to investors.

Special for Solari Report Subscribers: Go to A Bouquet of Words website, enter the word ‘Solari’ at checkout …

7. Up Next & Closing – 1:52:16   – Mar 22, an Overview of Local Financing Vehicles with Tom Greco; Mar 29, a special Solari Report, Catherine and Jon Rappoport on Let’s Go to the Movies; Apr 5, Joe Mysak of Bloombergs Briefs on Municipal Markets. …

Charts for Money & Markets Segment

Gas Priced in Gold One Year

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Gas Priced in Gold Five Years

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Gas Priced in Silver One Year

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Gas Priced in Silver Five Years

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Links

Term Sheet for Recent Start Up Advised by Catherine using the Solari A/B Share Stock Model

Solari Report: Startup Financing for the Rest of Us

Accredited Investor Net Worth Standard

Form D

SEC Small Business Q&A

Form SB-1, a Q&A format registration statement available for small businesses with registering < $10MM in securities and that have not raised > $10MM in any 12-month period

State Securities Regulatory Agency Directory

Sample of a Form of Member-Managed Limited Liability Company Operating Agreement

Independent Media Sustainability: A Review of Existing Media Capital Structures

Form of Independent Contractor Agreement (from a form book)

SEC Information on Rule 504 Exemption and Sample of State Securities Registration Exemption Language (Tennessee)

Free Corporate Bylaws by State

Rule 504 of Regulation D

List of Possible Documents for Private Offering

Study on Financial Returns of Angel Investors

Solari Audio Seminar: Building Real Wealth

An Introduction to Solari Circles

Nuts & Bolts of Organizing a Solari Circle

Solari Report: Family Wealth

“Crowdfunding- Capitalization For Start-Ups and Growing Businesses” (a proposed funding mechanism that has not been adopted by Congress)

Crowdfunding: Raising Money from Strangers

By Catherine Austin Fitts

Nearly every week, I have a subscriber or client tell me that they, a family member or someone they may help finance is starting a new business. Almost all of them are uncertain about how to create a legal structure for their business, one that reflects an effective governance and capital structure that can energize an enterprise from startup to successful operations.

My goal this week is to make that task easier for you and yours.

First, we will be speaking with entrepreneur Debbie Landers, from Hohenwald, Tennessee. Debbie started her career as a nurse, then founded a school at her husband’s church, then the Tennessee Association of Non- Public Academic Schools, not to mention starting a restaurant, leading the Financial Permaculture conference and serving as the President of the local Chamber of Commerce for several years.

Debbie had an idea for a very special company called Comfort Calls. However, this opportunity required setting up a legal structure and issuing and selling stock. So the Solari team helped Debbie design a legal structure for Comfort Calls, which she launched last year.

I will talk with Debbie about her evolution from having an idea to creating a board of directors, incorporating her company and issuing stock – what were the hard questions and how did she sort them out? What were her challenges in implementing her choices and how did she get them done?

Debbie and I will be joined by:

  • My attorney Carolyn Betts to discuss some of the critical legal issues that the Comfort Calls story demonstrates and which many start ups face; and
  • Entrepreneur and private investor Paul Ferguson to discuss the important issues that an angel investor or venture capitalist looks at when making a decision to invest in a start up or early stage company. Paul is also the Treasurer of the First Ever Solari Circle – a small investment club that Paul, Carolyn and I founded with seven other people in 2005.

 

Check the private blog after the show for a generic term sheet for a company legal and capital model using the Solari A/B Share model, checklists and a variety of links to compliment our discussion and to help get you going!

I will start with Money & Markets and Ask Catherine. For Let’s Go to the Movies, I recommend you check out a few episodes from the TV Series Shark Tank. ( Wiki on Shark Tank) Post your questions in the comments section for this blog post.

Talk to you Thursday!

If you have comments, thoughts or questions that you would like me to address, please post by Thursday.

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