# 068: Partnership & Funding Legal Considerations for Product Startups

- Show: [Product Startup](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/product-startup)
- Published: 2021-03-23
- Length: 38m
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/product-startup/2021-03-23-068-partnership-funding-legal-considerations-for-product-startups
- Listen: https://productstartup.com/

## Summary

Brett Colvin, President of Goodlawyer, joins host Kevin Mako to discuss legal strategies for hardware startups, focusing on partnership agreements and financing rather than intellectual property. Colvin advises founders to use Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) as a baseline for protecting information when engaging stakeholders, while emphasizing that they do not confer market exclusivity. The conversation details the importance of leverage and expertise in vendor contracts, warning against long exclusivity terms without minimum order requirements, and outlines financing structures like bootstrapping, equity, debt, and convertible notes.

## Chapters

- [0:46](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/product-startup/2021-03-23-068-partnership-funding-legal-considerations-for-product-startups#t=46) Introduction: Brett Colvin and Goodlawyer's Mission
- [3:22](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/product-startup/2021-03-23-068-partnership-funding-legal-considerations-for-product-startups#t=202) When to Engage Legal Counsel and the Role of NDAs
- [8:31](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/product-startup/2021-03-23-068-partnership-funding-legal-considerations-for-product-startups#t=511) Vendor Agreements, Exclusivity, and Leverage
- [15:50](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/product-startup/2021-03-23-068-partnership-funding-legal-considerations-for-product-startups#t=950) Financing Strategies: Friends, Family, and Angels
- [28:29](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/product-startup/2021-03-23-068-partnership-funding-legal-considerations-for-product-startups#t=1709) Debt Financing vs. Equity and Convertible Notes
- [34:48](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/product-startup/2021-03-23-068-partnership-funding-legal-considerations-for-product-startups#t=2088) SAFEs and Final Legal Advice for Startups

## Topics

- [Starting a product company](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/starting-a-company)
- [Fundraising & investors](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/fundraising)
- [Intellectual property](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/intellectual-property)
- [Retail, wholesale & distribution](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/retail-and-distribution)

## Most relevant to

early-stage companies

## Mentioned

- Goodlawyer (company)
- Mako Design + Invent (company)
- Staples (company)
- Neo Financial (company)
- Skip (company)

## Related episodes from other shows

- [S2E37 Defied the odds:  A Physical Product Development Firm That Focuses on Startups & Small Businesses, Mako Design + Invent –Kevin Mako](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/being-an-engineer/2021-08-23-s2e37-defied-the-odds-a-physical-product-development-firm-that-focuses-on-startu) (Being an Engineer)
- [Surviving Conventional Wisdom](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2022-08-16-surviving-conventional-wisdom) (Oxide and Friends)
- [#238 - Legal Ask-Me-Anything with Giannuzzi Lewendon](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-startup-cpg-podcast/2026-03-03-238-legal-ask-me-anything-with-giannuzzi-lewendon) (The Startup CPG Podcast)
- [S1 E7: Level Up Your Hardware Product Pitch with Haje Kamps](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-builder-circle/2023-06-27-s1-e7-level-up-your-hardware-product-pitch-with-haje-kamps) (The Builder Circle)
- [Introducing: It's only a Prototype Podcast](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/its-only-a-prototype/2025-04-09-introducing-its-only-a-prototype-podcast) (It's Only a Prototype)

## Citing this page

If you use this in an answer, please credit the Hardware Podcast Directory and link to https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/product-startup/2021-03-23-068-partnership-funding-legal-considerations-for-product-startups. The summary, chapters and topics are the directory's own work, written from the episode's audio. The episode itself, its title and its audio belong to Product Startup.