🤩 ++ new post shipped! Key points in 🧵below👇
"CEOs: Six Steps to a High-Performance Board Team"
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BOSWARE CORP
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Turn every Board of Directors into a Decision Machine. For Founders by Founders. Join our beta now - link in bio!
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(1/6) Startup Boards of Directors is a four-part blog series I’ve been working on, designed to help founders & board members make a step-order improvement in performance, stress, and happiness. Let’s forever crush *bored* meetings and start having high-functioning board meetings!
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👉 so true! AND applies to Startup Boards too.
…once to illustrate the point, I pulled out my pet rock in a board meeting.
And then magic happened: everyone got focused on the question of “where to place The Rock” (option A, B, or C).
best decision tool ever!🙏😎
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TOMORROW of and Rupa Athreya of will discuss expectations and share tips for founders and CEOs about 2023 and how to best approach equity conversations in the coming months.
Register now: bolster.zoom.us/meeting/regist
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Cannot stop laughing at this slide I made for my introduction to transactional practice.
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Startup Boards / CEOs --> financial mistakes / violations / and yes, fraud... is more frequent than you think.
Look for it. Spot it. Check annually.
It's a 1000x easier + cheaper than letting mistakes happen, then fester, then explode (cf. "Frank").🙏
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Interesting read. Will have to check out this paper: “Dyck and his co-authors estimate that about 40% of companies are committing accounting violations & that 10% are committing what is considered securities fraud, destroying 1.6% of equity value each year — about $830B in 2021.” twitter.com/el72champs/sta…
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👇👇 the legendary Joe Grundfest on the governance pod.
++ to your Monday evening commute back to the living room from your home office 😎🤓
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E84 is out and it features Joe Grundfest from @StanfordLaw. We talk about the biggest #corpgov trends in 2022 and what's coming in 2023. Capital markets, AI, #crypto, #fraud, #ESG, climate change disclosures, shareholder activism & much more. 
boardroom-governance.com/episodes/joe-g
boardroom-governance.com/episodes/joe-g1
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Bolster Profile Tip: Making your bio as specific and as memorable as possible will help you stand out to companies looking for someone just like you. Highlight your unique knowledge, perspective, or experiences. There are many CXOs—what makes you different? #BolsterTalent
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👇👇👇Excellent series on Startup Boards by
Posts:
1. The Framework
2. The People
3. The Board Package
4. The Board Meeting
...share w/ the Founders in your life! 😍
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How much do founders pay themselves?
gathered some handy data so we could all find out...
sifted.eu/articles/found
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Join us for Navigating Choppy Waters: Equity Market Temperature Check, where we’ll discuss 2023 with VCs and Rupa Athreya. They’ll talk expectations, answer questions, and share how to improve your pitch to make equity conversations easier in the current environment.
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Excellent post. Have had so many board conversations of late.
And, don't forget to sign up for our session next week!
on.zoom.us/e/view/x5imhhS
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++ new post shipped! Key points in 
below
"CEOs: Six Steps to a High-Performance Board Team"
bosware.io/004-make-it-eaShow this thread
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++ given the baseline is "suck less", it's basically free competitive advantage for any Founders / companies who want it.
so the only question is: want Advantage?🤷♂️
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Given that the Board of Directors is a *team of people ultimately responsible for every corporation*
It the most under-resourced, under-supported, and under-optimized part of companies as we know it.
If we care about our companies, we should invest more in our Boards.
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Given that the Board of Directors is a *team of people ultimately responsible for every corporation*
It the most under-resourced, under-supported, and under-optimized part of companies as we know it.
If we care about our companies, we should invest more in our Boards.✊😍
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Given that the Board of Directors is a *team of people ultimately responsible for every corporation*
It the most under-resourced, under-supported, and under-optimized part of companies as we know it.
If we care about our companies, we should invest more in our Boards.✊😍
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A great point from 's "CEOs: Six Steps to a High-Performance Board Team."
Your board should be a competitive advantage, and independent directors can have major impact. Want to know more? We can help.
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4/ Relevant + Diverse Talents: 2/3 of startup boards have *zero* independent directors.
Huge missed opportunity! Also makes it dicey in down-rounds, pay-to-plays.
Task BOD members to provide 3 names each.
Or ping @BolsterTalent and ask for help.
Invest in your Board team.
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8/ Keep it simple & ship!
The ABC version:
A) Set the expectation the Board === Team, and should be a great one
B) Deal with the reality that this team is part-time and often distracted / all over the place
C) Keep making it better and enlisting others to do the same
✊🗽
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7/ Motivation for Improvement: the best boards will almost always reveal they do some form of Board assessment / 360 / review.
But almost no boards actually do this.
So keep it simple: just ask this question every chance you get:
"What's the #1 thing we can do better?" 🙏
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6/ Productive & Efficient Process: 80% of your Board effectiveness comes from what you do outside of The Meeting.
Aim for continuous and timely *flow* of information.
BUT make it easy for your (part-time) BOD members.
Basically just use Bosware.io 🤩
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5/ Shared Commitment to Success: if you don't have the Will to Fight, you've already lost.
But you don't really know until chips are down; then it's too late.
Esp. w "remote" mtgs, make time for in-person bonding.
>> Q2 IRL + customer ride-alongs w/ Board 🥰
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4/ Relevant + Diverse Talents: 2/3 of startup boards have *zero* independent directors.
Huge missed opportunity! Also makes it dicey in down-rounds, pay-to-plays.
Task BOD members to provide 3 names each.
Or ping and ask for help.
Invest in your Board team.✊
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3/ Board Alignment: Startup Boards are *rarely* in alignment and this is often overlooked.
but it's the source of most decision making problems / frictions / dysfunctions.
>> fix: write it down. make it the cover page on every deck, every monthly update.
Will do wonders.🙏
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2/ Master these 6 things (in whatever way works) && you're a Top 1% Startup Board:
1. Alignment on objective/purpose
2. Relevant & diverse talents
3. Clear roles & responsibilities
4. Shared commitment to team success
5. Productive process for working
6. Motivation to improve
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1/ Founder/CEOs: if you want a high-value Board of Directors (and you should), you need to approach as a **team sport.**
Almost every experienced Board Member (both Founders and VCs) agree on this.
They also agree it rarely (ie almost never) happens.🤦♀️
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Board member responsibility function:
BMR = 1/r
...where r = stack-rank order of each board member's commitment to the company's success.
might agree :)
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@larstvede on startup boards:
"You start off with a small board, because then everyone feels like they have responsibility.
If you're 9, everyone assumes someone else takes responsibility.
If you're 3, you really feel that you have to take responsibility."
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Although there is no one-size-fits-all recommendation, founders and startups who build their boards forward from product-market fit — instead of backward from IPO — will be set up to clarify their company's critical challenges and find the right advisors.
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++ Attn: founders + VCs!
Excellent Collection here on startup boards!
great practical + tactical tips -- well worth the read >>>
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(1/6) Startup Boards of Directors is a four-part blog series I’ve been working on, designed to help founders & board members make a step-order improvement in performance, stress, and happiness. Let’s forever crush *bored* meetings and start having high-functioning board meetings!
Show this thread
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👋Startup Board people --> great post from on Board Meetings.
as nicole notes, "once you’ve done the [prep] well, the meeting is the easy part."
...so *Read the other posts first* 🤩
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(5/6) Finally, in Part 4, we’ll explore how to run your board meeting for maximum output of strategy, discussion, and constructive debates. nearlynicole.com/2023/01/13/nav
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New The Startup CEO blog post: How To Engage With The CMO startupceo.com/2023/01/how-to (Post 4 of 4 in the series on
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The secret to great Board meetings is 20% meeting prep + 80% everything you do in between.
This is hard b/c Startup Boards by default live in email.
It's 100x easier once you give your Board a nice home (bosware.io)!
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Replying to @atShruti
yes to this @atShruti!
++ great Meetings happen when you have *great process & workflow* during the ~360 days of the year you're not meeting :)
We built @boswarecorp to make this effortless for Founders.
You can get started today: bosware.io 
++ (bosware.io) to run your Board of Directors and treat it like a first-class team 💪😎
++ for hiring great independent directors (2/3 startups still have *none*) and fractional execs🤝
++ postresql for literally everything else 🤓
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🚨new hero vid just dropped !
Future of startup boards right here folks. Get your board game on✊🤩
👉👉👉
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Question for FOUNDERS & VCs!
Having a Board of Directors for a Startup is...
- Priority from Day 127.3%
- Deal with it at Series A18.2%
- Nice to Have; Not Urgent18.2%
- Boards are for Public Co36.4%
11 votesFinal results
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Since we now know FTX had a Board...
When & Where were the Board meetings?
What were the topics discussed & decisions made?
Where are the records / minutes?
Kind of hard to claim ignorance when one of the Directors is a Securities Regulator...
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Did you know FTX actually DID have a Board of Directors?
1. SBF - FTX CEO
2. Jonathan Cheesman - FTX Head of Over-The-Counter and Institutional Sales
3. Arthur Thomas - Caribbean Securities Regulator & Lawyer from Antigua
Here's what we know about them:
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Just the latest example of what poor Company governance can lead to. They'll be plenty more.
Forming & managing a Board of Directors is not something that magically happens after Series A.
As says, effective boards don't happen by accident.
TRY BOSWARE TODAY!
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Did you know FTX actually DID have a Board of Directors?
1. SBF - FTX CEO
2. Jonathan Cheesman - FTX Head of Over-The-Counter and Institutional Sales
3. Arthur Thomas - Caribbean Securities Regulator & Lawyer from Antigua
Here's what we know about them:
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You can read the unrolled version of this thread here:
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There are many questions to be answered with respect to Governance, or the lack thereof, at FTX.
Don't be like FTX. Board Governance is paramount for top performers and avoided by fraudsters.
And top performers use Bosware - Try it today!
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