How to run your first Board Meeting IMHO

Running a Board meeting...

This is a neat article on how to run a boardmeeting, if it is your first time..remember it is your meeting not the investors, though you have to satisfy there needs, but you have to get the most out of your board as well, make them work for there "kilo" of your flesh.

Over the past 15 years I’ve been to thousands of board meetings. Last week I had four; this week I have two. I’ve spent a lot of time – often during board meetings – thinking about how to make them better and more effective.

Yesterday, Fred Wilson (who was at the Return Path board meeting in Boulder with me) wrote a great post titled Face To Face Board Meetings. Fred and I have been on a number of boards of the years and I strongly agree with his post. To be effective, board meetings need to be (a) in person and (b) there is immense value in a board dinner the night before a board meeting (maybe not every meeting, but at least once a quarter).

While board meetings have a different tempo at different stages of the life of a company, I’ve developed the point of view that the vast majority of the board meeting should be “forward looking.” Ironically (and frustratingly), the general culture of many VC-based boards – especially larger ones – is “backward looking”.

What I mean by this is that most board meetings are 80% status updates, 10% strategy / issues, and 10% administration. I’m fine with the 10% administration, but the 80% / 10% split on status vs. strategy should be reversed. There are plenty of different ways to organize the “strategy” (I’m using “strategy” as shorthand for “forward looking discussion”) and strategy includes a blend of short, medium, and long term issues, as well as plenty of “tactical stuff” (for those that think “strategy” is too specific a word), but I imagine you get the idea.

My favorite board meetings have the following characteristics.

1. All board material goes out 48 hours in advance, including a detailed financial package and operating review of the business. This material includes any administrative stuff (draft 409a report, options grants, compensation stuff, audit stuff, prior board meeting minutes.) Everyone reads this in advance – if the materials go out 48 hours in advance there’s no excuse to have not read it.
2. There is a dinner the night before that is at least the board and the CEO. Sometimes it includes non-CEO founders; other times it includes various members of the leadership team. This is a casual dinner (e.g. not expensive or full of pomp and circumstance) – a chance for everyone to catch up with each other. If the board meeting is an afternoon meeting, sometimes you can pull off a lunch prior to the meeting that acts as a proxy for the dinner, or a dinner after, although I find the dinner after to be much less helpful.
3. The first 30 minutes of the meeting are administrative. Everyone settles down, you go through any formal board business, discuss it, and get it done. Often it takes five minutes (which gives you 25 minutes for the strategy stuff); sometimes it takes the full 30 minutes. I can’t think of a case where it has ever needed to take longer.
4. The CEO then puts up one slide summarizing prior period financial performance and asks if anyone has any questions about the board package. This discussion takes however long it takes.
5. The CEO then puts up one slide with the issues he’d like to discuss. These are bullet points that are crisp yet detailed enough to know what the issue is. This is then the bulk of the meeting.

Some CEOs are capable of running a 2+ hour discussion off of one slide (I love these guys). Others need slides to prompt them through the setup for each topic (which is fine). Either way, the setup for each topic should be brief (five minutes at most) and the bulk of the activity should be a discussion. The CEO and management team is looking for board feedback, input, advice, and guidance. Ultimately, the CEO has to synthesize this and decide what he wants to do, but by engaging the board in an active discussion, the team will generally get useful input as well as discover where there might be additional domain expertise around the table on the particular issue.

I’ve found that the more time that is spent on #5, the more impactful the meeting is. Obviously, it’s difficult for people on the phone to engage as effectively, which draws them into physically attending the meeting, or not participating.

By Brad Feld , Brad had grown Feld Technologies into one of Boston’s leading software consulting firms prior to the acquisition. He also directed the diversification into software consulting at AmeriData, a $1.5 billion publicly-traded company which was acquired by GE Capital in 1995.

Focus is one off your most powerful keys when starting up

Startups: Think Big and Focus Small

It’s great to dream big, but your startup needs a laser focus in the beginning to get market and investor attention. Google did it with search engines, Apple did it with a personal computer, and even Wal-Mart did it through low prices. A business plan I saw last week to combine all the good features of several popular social networks on one site will not do it.

Trying to do everything at once probably means that none of the items will be done well. Plus it’s almost impossible to craft a message that will make your offering stand out in the minds of customers. I can’t think of a company that launched to superstardom with a broad focus. Can you?

Here are the common sense reasons why a laser focus is more likely to lead to startup business success:

• Time to market is critical. It takes too much time to build processes and products to capitalize on a broad strategy. Meantime, small competitors will appear and seize your business opportunities and steal your targeted customers.
  


• Keep infrastructure costs low. Every business needs some basic equipment and infrastructure, and ongoing development costs. Attempting to roll out the big dream internationally all at once costs lots of money. Getting more money is hard, but not as hard as building the big infrastructure and getting it right the first time.
  


• Need to be nimble. Every successful startup I know has had to “dodge and weave” quickly as they learn what their customers really want, and what really works in product design and marketing. Bloated products and the grand unifying “theory of everything” won’t allow you to adapt quickly to market changes and mistakes made.
  


• Proving market leadership. Success requires market leadership in your product area, and it’s easy to see that pushing more products and services dilutes your focus and attention. Market leadership isn’t a one-time thing, it means continuous innovation, or you will be left behind.
  


• Maintaining quality is key. The more you try to do in parallel, the harder it is to maintain quality. Remember the old maxim that “you only get one chance to make a great first impression.” Customers are fickle, and good quality and good customer service is hard, even with a focused product.
  


• Personal bandwidth is limited. When things become too messy and complex, and even you are not sure of priorities, people get disillusioned, tired, lose motivation, and tend to give up easily. A laser focus is easier to communicate, easier to manage, and more likely to get done quickly and well.

As with everything, there are two sides to every coin. When applied appropriately, focus will result in rewards exceeding your expectations. Conversely, focusing on the wrong things will result in a downward business spiral. Focus on exploiting strengths and achieving success rather than resolving weaknesses and avoiding problems. Don’t get burned by focusing on the wrong thing.

Remember that most people can confidently and competently accomplish one thing at a time, and most customers are only looking for one thing at a time. After you saturate the market with your focused offering, then you will have the time and resources to broaden your offering.

Don’t give up your grand vision, since nobody wants to buy a “one trick pony”, but also don’t try to be the “one-stop shop” for all on day one.

Marty Zwilling
CEO & Founder of Startup Professionals, Inc.; Managing Partner of Southwest Software Ventures & and Consulting; Advisory Board Member for RelGuard, Re:Think, MiraLinx, BoomerJobs, Procure Networks, Twin Cypress Group, and Healthcents