Advisors & Boards - Part 2

Why do you have Advisors?

• They need to earn their keep
  What are they there for?
• Make expectations explicit
  I expect you to introduce me to customers - x for y months
  Review my financials
  How my competitors are doing
  Introduce me to VC during fundraising round etc.
• Give them options, and make sure you can fire them
  Don't give them shares
  Those options should vest over several years with a one-year cliff
  If you show up and you work, you will earn those options and I can fire you at anytime.
  If your options gets messy it gets harder to get acquired.
  They earn 1/48 or 1/24 of their options each month, but they don't get any until 6 months.
  Options are good incentives, give them a lot, give them options (not shares)

Manage your advisory board.
If they are there to just make you look nice...that's fine, tell them to write articles about you.

Investors are sociopaths

An investor, has their own investors...that they must report to or perform for.  So, they are always trying to figure out if you are a rock star or living dead.

They are investing in say 10 startups, and they know 9 are living dead and one is going to be rock star, but they don't know which one is the rock star.