I thought about this yesterday, asking myself when I need a board and how to put them together. I was studying some business materials that prompted these thoughts. This video is timely. Thank you for putting me through.
Great video. After many years doing this, I espoused the 1, 3, 5 rule for the board. Me alone to start with - leave the tech genii to do their stuff. Big angel or seed round, go to three, one friendly seed or angel, and one mutually-approved industry adviser. So far, so good. When the A Round arrives, you have some leverage when growing the board to five. The two new investors should respect the two incumbents plus me, after all that's why they invested. By the time you get to Series B, if you get there at all, control is well and truly lost and you're dancing on thin ice. That's when you should already have a good M/A exit plan in place.
Thanks for the idea. The great thing about advisory boards is there are no rules. They can be completely informal. If you find someone that you want to bring on as an advisor, then just do it. If you want to have meetings with your advisors as a group, you can do that too.
Thank you for another great video! What would be the difference between having advisory board vs. simply having advisors - in case they are not big names to show off with?
Thanks for the kind words, Gilad. Great question. There really isn't a difference, it's just what you call your advisors. The big mistake is the one you pointed out: big names to show off will do you minimal good. I'd much rather have advisors that help me than big names that do nothing.
