Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist is the definitive guide to venture financings. This book is for anyone who wants the insider's guide to raising money, negotiating deals, and to know what really makes venture capitalists tick. Don't believe us? Check out these recommendations:

Feld and Mendelson pack a graduate level course into this energetic and accessible book. The authors. frank style and incisive insight make this a .must read. for high-growth company entrepreneurs, early stage investors, and graduate students. Start here if you want to understand venture capital deal structure and strategies. I enthusiastically recommend. - Brad Bernthal, CU Boulder, Associate Clinical Professor of Law - Technology Policy, Entrepreneurial Law Venture Deals is a must read for any entrepreneur contemplating or currently leading a venture-backed company. Brad and Jason are highly respected investors who shoot straight from the hip and tell it like it is, bringing a level of transparency to a process that is rarely well understood. Its like having a venture capitalist as a best friend who is looking out for your best interest and happy to answer all of your questions. - Emily Mendell, Vice President of Communications, National Venture Capital Association In my entrepreneurship class at Stanford, the number one topic is venture financing -- how it works and how (or even whether) to get it. There are no two better people to coach an entrepreneur through the venture process than Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson, and next to in-person guidance this book is the next best thing. I am planning to make this required reading for my class at Stanford. - Heidi Roizen, Fenwick and West Entrepreneurship Educator, Stanford University Technology Ventures Program My biggest nightmare is taking advantage of an entrepreneur without even realizing it. It happens because VCs are experts in financings and most entrepreneurs are not. Brad and Jason are out to fix that problem with Venture Deals. This book is long overdue and badly needed. - Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures A must-read book for entrepreneurs. Brad and Jason demystify the overly complex world of term sheets and M&A, cutting through the legalese and focusing on what really matters. That.s a good thing not just for entrepreneurs, but also for venture capitalists, angels and lawyers. Having an educated entrepreneur on the other side of the table means you spend your time negotiating the important issues and ultimately get to the right deal faster. - Greg Gottesman, Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group I would highly recommend .Venture Deals. to any entrepreneur, venture capitalist, student, or casual reader who wants to get the .true scoop. on how venture deals come together and what the venture capital landscape truly looks like. The authors are not only veterans of the industry, but are willing to share their unvarnished views of what venture is all about. The reader will not find the insights shared here anywhere else. And, perhaps best of all, the authors write in an easily readable, casual style that makes the book quite fun to read. - Craig Dauchy, Cooley LLP I've been reading and loving Brad Feld's blog for years. He's one of my favorite venture capitalists on the planet. I'm delighted Brad and Jason have written the definitive book for entrepreneurs seeking to learn about raising and going through the venture capital process. - Bijan Sabet, Spark Capital The adventure of starting and growing a company can exhilarating or excruciating.or both. Feld and Mendelson have done a masterful job of shedding light on what can either become one of the most helpful or dreadful experiences for entrepreneurs.accepting venture capital into their firm. This book takes the lid off the black box and helps entrepreneurs understand the economics and control provisions of working with a venture partner. - Lesa Mitchell, Vice President, Advancing Innovation, Kauffman Foundation

The 2009 New York Venture Summit is happening on June 17th at Digital Sandbox in New York City.  The summit will feature 50 early stage and emerging growth companies as presenters, interactive panel discussions and lots of networking.  The agenda looks strong as does the speaker list.  The cost for investors or entrepreneurs is only $395 if you register online now.

Yesterday, I wrote a short post on the type of conferences I like.  Dan Rua from Inflexion Partners in Florida just wrote a long summary of the 2007 Florida Venture Capital conference which is nice additional perspective on these types of conferences.

I’ve been slow answering your questions recently (Jason has been much more diligent, but then you’d expect that since he’s an ex-lawyer.)  My backlog is now 50 questions, but I’m not daunted by that at all – really.

Today’s question is “Which industry events are a must attend, if any?”  I generally dislike conferences, so I don’t have a particularly good answer to the “must attend” part.  However, the ones I do enjoy are the regional ones that mix VCs, entrepreneurs, and all the regional service providers, such as the Venture Capital in the Rockies event that starts this Tuesday night in Beaver Creek. 

These types of events typically mix some local thing (skiing), with a nice venue (the Ritz at Beaver Creek), with good keynote speakers (Greg Maffei – CEO of Liberty Media and Mark Heesen – President of the National Venture Capital Association), with great entrepreneurs and their up and coming companies.  The local service providers for the entrepreneurial community (e.g. legal, search, accounting, banks, PR) are out in force guaranteeing good swag and some great meals. 

If you want to get a feel for the entreprenerial activity in a particular region, conferences like Venture Capital in the Rockies are the ones to go to.  Virtually every region in the country that has meaningful entrepreneurial and venture capital activity has some variant of this.

One of the many (yes – many – wow – keep ‘em coming – we’ll answer them) questions we got in the last 24 hours was “which conferences do you recommend?”  We’ll have more on this in a separate post, but one that I noticed this morning as I read through the VC bloggers was from David Beisel at Masthead Venture Partners.  David is co-chairing this winter’s MIT Enterprise Forum conference in Boston – it’s titled “Brave New Web” and is focused on “how the web is dramatically changing the way that people and communities communicate, contribute, and collaborate.” If you are in the Boston area of February 7th (brrr), check it out.