Startup and growth-stage founders and CEOs.
Effective board governance is a necessary element in building shareholder value.
For a startup that is pre-revenue or just entering the market with its first commercial product, a board of three usually works just fine.
That board might best be structured with a seat each for:
We could cover an entire post that looks at what makes an ideal director. For now, I’ll just suggest that the qualities you should seek include:
This should also be someone with whom you have a good rapport and mutual respect and trust.
After initial commercialization and as your company starts to scale, I recommend increasing the board size to five. Ideally, you’ll recruit two additional independent directors so you have a solid and well-weighted board that is majority-controlled by independents.
It does not serve a company to have a board dominated by management or investors. Independent directors provide for objectivity, independent of any bias or vested interests.