Startup Boards: Getting the Most Out of Your Board of Directors

An essential guide to understanding the dynamics of a startup's board of directors

Let’s face it, as founders and entrepreneurs, you have a lot on your plate—getting to your minimum viable product, developing customer interaction, hiring team members, and managing the accounts/books. Sooner or later, you have a board of directors, three to five (or even seven) Type A personalities who seek your attention, and at times will tell you what to do. While you might be hesitant to form a board, establishing an objective outside group is essential for startups, especially to keep you on track, call you out when you flail, and in some cases, save you from yourself.

In Startup Boards, Brad Feld—a Boulder, Colorado, based entrepreneur turned venture capitalist—shares his experience in this area by talking about the importance of having the right board members on your team and how to manage them well. Along the way, he shares valuable insights on various aspects of the board, including how they can support you, help you understand your startup's milestones and get to them faster, and hold you accountable.

• Details the process of choosing board members, including interviewing many people, checking references, and remembering that there should be no fear in rejecting a wrong fit
• Explores the importance of running great meetings, mixing social time with business time, and much more
• Recommends being a board member yourself at some other organization so you see the other side of the equation

Engaging and informative, Startup Boards is a practical guide to one of the most important pieces of the startup puzzle.

Praise for Startup Boards

"In addition to walking you through, in great detail, how a board functions, Brad has adopted many of the Lean Startup approaches to building, operating, and managing your board in a way that resembles continuous deployments. Any practitioner of Lean Startup would do well to use this approach to building their board."
Eric Ries, author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup

"I′ve had the opportunity to serve on a range of boards for companies at various stages in their lifecycle so I know firsthand that building an effective board, and leveraging it wisely, is both a challenge and an opportunity. This new Brad Feld book will help you get it right."
Steve Case, Chairman and CEO, Revolution; cofounder, AOL

"I′ve been fortunate enough to sit on a few startup boards with Brad. His ′less is more′ approach to board meetings keeps the process efficient and focused on strategy. If you have any role on a board of directors, stop messing with PowerPoint and read this book right now. I guarantee that you′ll get far more satisfaction from your future interactions."
David Cohen, CEO, Techstars

"Having sat on multiple boards with Brad and his partners at Foundry Group as well as currently being the CEO of GetSatisfaction, I greatly appreciate the power of an effective board for a fast–growing startup. This book shows you the way."
Wendy Lea, CEO, GetSatisfaction

"An excellent board can dramatically help an entrepreneur while a lousy board can sink a company. This book can help you learn how to be on the right side of that equation."
Craig Dauchy, Partner and Head of Venture Capital Group, Cooley LLP

"Having been involved early on the Zynga board with Brad, we both experienced a radically new board approach while scaling up a company at an unprecedented pace. While there is a time and place for traditional board governance, an active, involved, and engaged board is required for any startup. Learn how to do it right in this book."
J. Sanford (Sandy) Miller, General Partner, Institutional Venture Partners

"Brad is a powerful force in the universe and his board–level membership was a booster rocket that helped us grow so fast. This book will help make CEOs more effective at dealing with the personalities that can be on a board, and I would consider it required reading for any board member so they can amplify their impact."
Bre Pettis, CEO, MakerBot

"While board meetings should be helpful to entrepreneurs, many find them to be worthless and tedious. This book creates a framework for developing a high–functioning board that is a real asset to a company′s success."
Jason Mendelson, Managing Director, Foundry Group