A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JUNE 25, 2020

The board diversity problem is a symptom of a much broader problem around lack of diversity in founders that get funded and lack of diversity in VC firms. Most startup boards are made up of a few founders and a few VCs. No wonder you have no diversity on the board. 1/ When a startup board is created, there should be two independent seats on it. 2/ VCs should accept observer seats instead of board seats when they invest in companies. But boards are important.

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Paul G. Silva

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

The great folks at Slidebean took the Lean Validation Board and gave it an update. Whereas the Business Model Canvas or the Lean Canvas map out your entire business model, this tool focuses only on the most critical things right now.

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INBIA

OCTOBER 10, 2020

The post InBIA Board of Directors Welcomes New Directors appeared first on InBIA. Blog Featured InBIA News InBIA News Member News Board of Directors entrepreneurs Executive Committee InBIA innovation

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This is going to be BIG.

JULY 25, 2022

Typically, investors don’t take a board seat until you raise your first equity round—which means that it could be *years* before you have a real board meeting: A year of nights/weekends work researching, prototyping, and fundraising.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

APRIL 22, 2021

Last June, I wrote about board diversity and suggested some things we are doing and that you can do to diversity your board. In the ten months that have passed since I wrote that I am pleased to say that we have seen a noticeable increase in board diversity in our portfolio.

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TechCrunch

JULY 29, 2022

10 tips for running effective board meetings. A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece on TechCrunch about how to run a successful board meeting. Since then, I’ve been asked one question over and over: What does a good board update actually look like? Yousuf Khan. Contributor.

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GAN

JANUARY 14, 2020

For most companies, that means having a board of directors. A board can be great in the right circumstances, but a board can also wield a ton of power over a CEO because they’re often investors who have capital in your company, which usually conveys them some tangible rights to it (like the ability to fire the CEO, to impact budgets, to change the overall direction of the company, etc.). This is where I believe an advisory board is critical for every startup.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

Bolster came out of stealth and into a beta period today and is opening up its marketplace to companies that want to access fractional talent and to executives who want to work at high growth companies in interim, fractional, advisory, or board roles. I have had the great pleasure of working with Matt Blumberg and the senior leadership team of USV’s former portfolio company Return Path (which was sold in 2019) for much of the last twenty years.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

When you set up a board it is often initially a combination of the founders and the early investors. This post sets out how I believe founders (and investors) should think about independent board members having worked with many of them for the past 20 years. Founders on the other hand recognize that over time they are likely not to have complete control of the board of directors of the company they founded. The board is where large equity investors get their representation.

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 27, 2023

Chroma , a startup working to build a new type of audiovisual entertainment specifically for mobile devices, is now adding a Twitter co-founder to its board. As a board member, Stone expects to be meeting with the startup several times per month, in addition to the actual board meetings.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JULY 16, 2020

I’ve been asked this question a bunch in the last few weeks in response to my post about more diversity on Boards. A Company should have a Board the day it is formed. The Board should contain one Founder (or possibly two) and at least two independent Directors. I know that many founders want to control their Boards for as long as possible. My answer to this question is simple.

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TechCrunch

AUGUST 4, 2021

What’s the board’s role in an early-stage startup? Startup founders frequently ask me about the role of a board of directors. A board can be a crucial asset in an early-stage startup. What is a board of directors, anyway? What exactly can a board help you do?

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The Seraf Compass

FEBRUARY 18, 2021

As a director on an early stage company board, how do you deliver on your main responsibility as a board member - maximizing shareholder value? And, what do you do to make sure the CEO is doing her job in increasing the value of your investment in the company?

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 10, 2021

For pharmaceutical companies, especially medical affairs, the important lesson from this sad and sordid affair is as simple as it is powerful: Your advisory board matters — a lot. Those five words characterize Theranos’ board. Lessons learned for advisory boards. Ariel Katz.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

One of the things that founders have the most angst about is whom they should have on their board and at what stage of the business. This is smart because amazing board members can be transformative with important advice and access and can also help attract other great board members (and team members). Bad board members can make business very unpleasant. Do you need a board when you first start you company? If you get a smart person on the board?—?just

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TechCrunch

AUGUST 31, 2022

Two weeks ago, longtime venture capitalist Chris Olsen, a general partner and cofounder of Drive Capital in Columbus, Ohio, settled into his seat for a portfolio company’s board meeting. ” Why are startup board meetings happening less and less?

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TechCrunch

JUNE 23, 2021

For many companies in the United States, a board of directors is a fact of doing business. The board’s goal is to ensure the best is done for the company and its shareholders. While many entrepreneurs see board meetings as a chore, they can be a powerful tool if used well.

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TechCrunch

JUNE 7, 2021

Boards are facing pressure to be strategic and thoughtful on how to evolve in the rapidly iterating world of technology, and a CTO is uniquely positioned to address specific challenges. There are now more reasons than ever to consider adding a CTO to your board. Abby Kearns.

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David Teten VC

JUNE 9, 2021

You can work as a consultant, an interim executive, a board member, a deal executive partnering to buy a company, an executive in residence, or as an entrepreneur in residence. . Board of Directors. Currently, many boards are also aggressively seeking to become more diverse, as 61.4%

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

JANUARY 7, 2019

Each January, I look forward to Artisan Creative’s first company-wide team meeting: The day we present our annual vision boards. For the past seven years, I’ve created a vision board, a process I’ve also introduced to my team. Creating my annual vision board.

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

He is also the co-author of Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors , and the author of Startup CEO , Startup CXO and the Startup CEO blog. Disengaged or dysfunctional boards aren’t just bad for CEOs and LPs; they’re bad for everyone.

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 20, 2022

Electrical engineers have been designing custom circuit boards on computers for years, but this approach simply moved the paper and pencil method to digital. They have created a new way of designing boards using code to describe what the board looks like.

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TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

Printed circuit boards ( PCB ), which perform essential functions in electronic devices, including displays and sensors, need a lot of energy to create. million for a platform that automates circuit board design.

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Gust

DECEMBER 3, 2011

And I don’t mean because they lend a credible name to an investor pitch: way too many entrepreneurs look at names on Advisory Board as just a way to expedite a raise. If that’s all you really expect of the Board, you’re cheating yourself as well as the investors before whom you dangled the names. Proper use of Advisory Boards begins with proper construction. But the real key to good results is that you have to keep the Board members engaged and educated.

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 22, 2021

Christine Tao and Lori Mazan , the brains behind Sounding Board , want to train any leader within an organization to be a better leader. But in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Sounding Board has seen demand for its platform grow even more.

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Gust

MAY 31, 2014

A company’s board of directors is technically elected by the company’s shareholders. So before a startup receives outside funding, the board is “elected” by—and usually consists of—the founders (although it may exist in name only.). This agreement includes, among other things, specific procedures for determining who gets to pick the members of the board. Invested Interests board of directors business entrepreneur founders startup

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Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

MARCH 22, 2021

The YLAI Alumni Advisory Board is excited to invite you to an upcoming virtual event entitled “ Challenging Gender Bias in Entrepreneurship “, presented in honor of YLAI4All and International Women’s Day.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 19, 2019

Startups that are backed by professional financial investors almost always have a Board of Directors that consists of some set of founders, investors and sometimes independent directors. While the management of a startup company deals with the day-to-day decision-making within the company (strategy, budgets, goals, tasks, compensation) ultimately the Board of Directors has the legal governing responsibilities for these things. Who Should be on Your Board?

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

MAY 28, 2020

The post 3 Tips for Getting Investors on Board With Your CSR Mission appeared first on Octane Blog – The official blog of the Entrepreneurs' Organization. Contributed by Kevin Xu , CEO of MEBO International and co-founder of the Human Heritage Project.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 4, 2022

First, the startup’s board — despite its long list of investors — consists of only the three co-founders who are stepping down and one independent director, Peter Ackerson, a general partner at Fin Capital who himself became a VC just three years ago. Welcome to The Interchange !

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

I’ve written a few posts about boards recently as part of a series on the subject. I admit that I haven’t yet read it but I’ve had numerous discussions with Brad over the years about board structure & conduct and consider him a mentor on the topic. When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. So our board meetings consisted of discussion about.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 12, 2010

I recently wrote an article on how to respond to board members between meetings. It seems to me this is the main problem with boards. So when I read my post it sounded to me more like a new philosophy for “The Agile Board,&# so I put that as my subtitle. This post is really about getting information to the board faster. What’s missing is changing the board-level plan based on the new info that board members are getting more quickly.

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TechCrunch

JUNE 30, 2021

He is a member of the boards of directors at SumoLogic and Generac Power Systems. It used to be a heavily traveled two-way street in corporate America: CEOs joined other companies’ boards to broaden their experiences, expand their influence, or simply because it felt good. BJ Jenkins.

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Gust

JULY 15, 2012

I recommend that every early-stage startup find three Advisory Board members. Besides laying out the benefits, your advisory board invitation letter also might include: Your business plan executive summary. The Advisory Board’s objectives and focus. The Advisory Board is quite different from a board of directors, which is required of some private companies in many states. Once your company is past the startup stage, you do need a board of directors.

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Gust

JULY 12, 2012

A board seat in and of itself has no particular value, and is often something to be *avoided*, rather than sought out. The legal role of the board is to make strategic and corporate-level decisions, hire/fire the CEO, and represent all of the stockholders of the company. Indeed, being a member of the board of directors means that you have a legal, fiduciary responsibility to the other investors, and are required to put the stockholders interests ahead of your personal ones.

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Dream It

MAY 4, 2021

Board meetings can be very powerful events where founders get valuable feedback, ideas, and strategic direction. Oftentimes, founders dread board meetings and look at them as low ROI events. Their primary role is to confirm the board meeting agenda.

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The Seraf Compass

JUNE 1, 2022

Dealing with board minutes can be a bit of a chore, but they must be an important one given how much attention is paid to them. If we are going to be involved in startup boards, we need to get grounded in the basics.

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