[toss1]

"THE DEAL'S NOT DONE UNTIL THE CHECK CLEARS."

This bit of advice has served me quite well over the years. At a celebration party for a new investment in a company I'd previously co-founded but was only a stockholder at the time, the CFO excitedly told me that I was 'worth millions', and asked 'how did it feel?'. I told him that "I'll tell you when we get an exit" and changed nothing about my life. Good thing, because while the check had cleared on that investment, the exit several years later wound up with the stock amount value down in the five figures.

One guy I know had co-founded a company, was doing OK. I noticed some impressive new equipment that showed up on his website and we chatted about doing some projects together and how he's got a major deal coming in and had invested well into six figures. The next thing I knew, his company had vanished and he was working for a small shop several states over. They didn't get the project after all, and were immediately bankrupt.

Worse yet, was a story from an attny friend I'd worked with; he told me about a guy (client?) he knew who 'got' a VC investment, divorced his wife, bought a big new house, car, etc. .... and the deal fell through.... not sure what happened to that guy, but I'm sure it wasn't pretty.

Repeat: "The deal is not done until the check clears"...

[edit: typos, clarity]