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MenuWhat are your tips for gaining advisory/board positions?
I am looking to share my startup, VC, and marketing/branding skills with other companies and executive staffs. What is a good way to get in front of those looking for advisors/board members, apart from those scammy-looking fee-based services?
Answers
Approach it as if you were applying for a position in an organization. You will want to find the right industry, the right management team, the right opening on the board [either governance or advisory], the right person to help you. Next create a statement that says why you on this board. Then sell it.
Thank you for your great question. As a professional you should be connecting with others through the different local opportunities that bring together the business and not-for-profit communities to which you are interested in sharing your skills and knowledge. Also, generally to serve in a governance capacity on a Board as a Board of Director or in an advisory role it is an application process with an organization. Once you establish yourself with a Board opportunity at the local level, then people become more aware of your ability to lead and your specific expertise. I'm a phone call away if you need to have a chat!
To get a position in the advisory board you need to understand the advisory boards and its economics inside out. At its simplest, advisory boards are groups of subject matter experts providing a company's leadership team with guidance on company vision, innovation, risk management, and profitability. A 2014 Canadian study by the Business Development Bank of Canada polled over 1,000 small and medium-sized enterprises to reveal that only 6% of SMEs have access to an advisory board, yet 80% indicated that they'd set up an advisory board again. Productivity was also 18% higher for those with advisory boards.
The company should always provide something—whether it be paying for meals, travels, an honorarium, or even offering equity at some juncture. Start-ups should pay $100 to $500 per meeting, host a meal, and cover any incidental costs. A global survey conducted by the Advisory Board Architects found that 15% of private company boards paid no compensation, 25% paid only cash, 43% only equity, and 17% paid cash and equity.
There is a specific objective and internal resources are not equipped to execute. A company with specific needs such as acquiring, selling the company, entering a new market, or raising capital can benefit from an advisory board. When a company showcases its advisors, it demonstrates that it is surrounding itself with key opinion leaders and that these leaders are invested in their success. The leadership team has skill gaps. The company plateaued or is in a rut. If a company feels too entrenched in each set of processes and product offerings, it could benefit from an advisory board's fresh insights.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
Related Questions
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Why am I being declined all the time (needing improvement of Value Proposition Articulation?)
It’s pretty simple, your offering has a lot of issues for what and how you’re targeting - you product, money, it’s a “commodity” so why you, your money, your firm? - The big boys (public) have tremendous relationships with big, known, credible capital sources. - They’re sophisticated so they know your capital has to be roughly at the same costs as the many trusted avenues they currently have for capital - I mentioned “trusted” a few times as it’s KEY. Does the firm you represent have a well known brand or known trust elements? - They are public companies and risk adverse so the likelihood of them entertaining a cold call or cold email from an unknown capital source is very low. Why? All things being similar they’re much better off taking and announcing capital from a trusted branded bank or firm. - Trust: with all the capital scams out there triggered, especially online, they are likely also reacting to scam risk first. Unless you have a trusted product (brand, people, story etc) and a way to get in front of prospects in a trusted way (conferences v email) i think the odds are really tough the bigger the company. Perhaps your product offering fit smaller or growth stage companies who have less options and aren’t public facing where Capital brand is so important. BBS
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What does a good advisor bring to the table for a startup?
A good advisor can help a startup in various ways. Here I describe what I do: I work quite a bit with pre-angel/pre-seed/pre-accelerator US-based tech startups (or sometimes even executives/scientists/technologists in corporate jobs toying with a startup idea that they'd consider leaving their jobs for), and have done this now for well over a decade while founding/growing my own companies. Most of these founders come to me from hearing about me from another founder, so I am assuming that founders are finding some value in their interactions with me. At this early-stage in the game, one of the key things I try to do is to separate founders' assumptions about various aspects of the business from facts that they have validated. Another thing founders find useful is examples/ideas of how other startups solved a similar business problem in a creative manner (my voracious reading helps a lot here.) Finally, I also try to take the devil's advocate position on key assertions that the founders make (e.g. why are they & their product uniquely suited to tackle this problem in face of competition) in order to point out counterarguments with the eventual goal of helping them strengthen their case. My engagements with founders tend to take the form of intense 30-75 minute brainstorming sessions (1-3 sessions), which typically provide them with enough food for thought to start executing on various fronts. A small percentage of these startups continue to make great progress over a period of 3-9 months and keep me in the loop via brief email updates. Those ones, I help by providing them critical feedback on their pitch decks (multiple iterations until I think that it is crisp and powerful) and then bring on the radars of my early-stage investor contacts (US-based).MB
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What is your best piece of advice for a first-time startup CEO?
Surround yourself with people who have done it before. Not consultants, not coaches, people who have walked the path you are embarking on. The good news is that the startup community is the most helpful business community of any industry, by miles. I'd be happy to do a call to help you figure out how and where to identify these supporters and champions. Good luck!TW
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Just wondering how a board advisor is compensated? Is this typically in a form of equity, compensation, or just mentorship?
I've had many "Advisors" over the years and I like to break them up into 2 groups. 1) Formal Advisors These are people who strategic insights into the business and would create value for the company by having them listed on our site, and have access to them in an ongoing way. I typically engage them well before anything formal to see if they would actually be helpful and that we both get along. Compensation is usually around 0.1% - 0.5% ... if the person is amazing and will also help with the fundraising process, then I would go as high as 1%. 2) Personal Advisors These are people who I turn to for specific advice around tactics and strategy on an infrequent basis (maybe once or twice a year). Things like SEO, Internationalization, etc ... I typically try to create value for them every time we chat, so that it's win/win and I don't compensate with equity. I've personally never paid for formal advice, although I do often via Clarity .. but that's different. The great thing about Clarity is I can avoid spending the time or equity to get similar quality advice in usually a faster time period, however both approaches (list above vs. using Clarity) are totally different affinities to the person and the company. Call if you need more.DM
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What are some good ways of finding mentors and advisors for you and your product?
Like anything to do with a startup, it's about proactive outreach. AngelList is a great way to research what people have done before. You want to optimize for relevant experience. AngelList however is very ineffective for making cold connections. Instead, I use LinkedIn and ensure to always write a personalized introduction with my connection request explaining why my company is something they would be interested in. After the connection is accepted, I then follow-up with a personalized email thanking them for accepting the request and then asking to buy them a coffee or schedule a meeting. I have built a great network of both formal and informal advisors and investors through this process. Formal advisors really should be limited to just a few. In these cases, granting options to purchase equity between 0.5 - 1% is standard for great advisors. But reimbursing expenses is far less standard. I'll always offer to pick-up the tab as a sign of respect for their time, but other than that, advisors (myself included) are generally happy to pay out-of-pocket unless for travel. Just like any relationship, be sure that you want to make a long-term commitment in equity before formalizing the relationship. Often, good advisors where there is a mutual chemistry will be happy to do many meetings without anything committed. Lastly, I would caution you to be wary of people who approach you to act as an advisor and/or people who are actively operational and also on many advisory boards. I limit myself to a handful of formal advisory relationships at a time and it's usually owing to a longstanding friendship that I am an advisor. You want your advisors that you're paying equity to to really be engaged. Happy to talk any of this with you in a call.TW
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