Board Meetings for VC backed company #entrepreneurship

A friend of mine who is running a very cool company recently raised venture capital (Full disclosure, I'm an investor, and a very enthusiastic one at that). He asked me how my board meetings are structured and what we normally discuss.

Of course I couldn't share confidential materials provided to my board members, but I was happy to share a standard agenda. Bear in mind, this is a pretty good template for a Series A/B venture backed company. Probably overkill for a board with no outside members, and probably very light for a later stage company.  I post it here for the benefit of other founders, and of course feedback is appreciated.

• Administration & Approvals
• Approve minutes from the last meeting, option grants, other approvals, housekeeping matters
• Strategy
• General CEO update kinda stuff, what's on your mind, what can your board help with
• Product & Metrics
• Overview/discussion of product, roadmap, metrics/KPIs
• Sales, Marketing & BD
• Partner/customer funnel and revenue analysis if applicable
• HR & Operations
• Discussion of org chart, open reqs, any requests of board members to help close a new hire
• Finances
• Option pool balance, cash balance, cash flow/burn, financial plan, revenue/profit projections
• Legal Matters
• Any outstanding issues: patents, trademarks, housekeeping, etc

My board meetings are 90 minutes and about 10-12 slides max. You should try to get as much feedback, advice and insight out of your board as you give them in materials to review/ponder.

Yep. That's Dr. King in Chicago, shooting a trick shot with local civil rights leader Al Raby standing by. According to this blog post, King was a bad ass pool player -- he took up the game in college and won the respect of local gang members by schooling them at it.

A Solid Vegan Breakfast

Yummy!

1. 1/2 cup of Granola or Ezekial (sprouted whole grains) or 1 cup cooked Oatmeal (1/2 cup raw)

2. 1 cup Berries (blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, etc.)

3. 1/2 tablespoon of ground flaxseeds or chia seeds

4. 1 cup of soy milk or hemp milk (almond milk is good, but doesn't have as much protein)

#occupy

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My TEDx Talk about Physical Media and Home Entertainment