Does your startup need a board of advisors?

StartupSOS
StartupSOS
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Published 2021-09-07
A startup advisor can provide some important advantages for your startup. We start with the advantages - and end with 3 common mistakes to avoid.

Advisors can help provide expertise (e.g. in areas such as industry knowledge or startup funding), CEO coaching, introductions (investor introductions as well as introductions to potential partners and customers), and they provide credibility to a startup.

A Board of Advisors has additional benefits over individual advisors in that a Board provides the opportunity for your advisors to interact with each other and potentially generate ideas that would not come out of a one-on-one advisory session. A Board of Advisors can also provide a certain amount of accountability, and preparing for a Board of Advisors meeting is a good opportunity for a founder to step back and assess the startup's overall situation, and that's a good exercise to go through occasionally.

To clarify an advisor's role, it's always a good idea to document an advisor relationship with a short advisor agreement (or Board of Advisors agreement) that outlines the advisor's commitment and their advisor stock compensation.
All Comments (10)
  • @johnkilalakamaru9294
    Hello Sir, Words alone can not express enough how appreciative your YouTube presentation has given me just the right kind information and knowledge in setting up my new company BoA. On point, precisely clear and very logically communicated in the best english words and language. Thank you very much and I am already looking forward to learning more from you.
  • @WeisM3
    Very insightful! Thank you.
  • @whocares8025
    Hello Mr. Morris! First of all I would like to thank you for your job here on YouTube. Those are incredible and useful pieces of advice. Thanks again. A few words about myself... I'm a founder and a director of two fertility nonprofits called Assisted Reproductive Technology Participants Support Center here in Russia and Ukraine. I'm also a founder of a startup called FamilityTech in a fertility field as well. The Silicon Valley type of startup. My question is... Could we invite as an adviser a whole organization such as a nonprofit organization (NGO)? I mean... there are hundreds of NGOs working in this area (our colleagues)... so I would like to ask some of them to be our advisers because they've been working on the same issues as we do. Or is there kind of different way of cooperating with them in this case? And I'm only talking about the Advisors for the startup's job. Thank you. Igor.
  • @Knowledge_Nuggies
    What's the difference between board of directors, advisory board and supervisory board... :(