10 Tips for Your First (or Any) Board Meeting

You raised your Series Seed round of financing, and a VC fund led the deal. Congratulations! Now the real work begins… Time to prepare for your first official board meeting.

1. Board Deck. Ask for examples of what your lead investor board member likes to see. Frequently the VC will share an old (and/or redacted) deck with you that will provide an excellent framework of that they want to see.
2. CEO Report. This is a single slide at the beginning of the deck that can include top operating metrics, wins/losses, cash position and burn out date. I often recommend including a “What’s keeping me up at night” section on this slide so the board knows what your current priorities are and can think about how they might help.
3. Time to Review. Do not send the materials an hour before the meeting starts if you want to have an effective meeting. I prefer to have the board materials about two days before the meeting even if you are still working on some areas. That gives me time to supply feedback (in case there are obvious errors), let you know the questions I will have (so you are not caught flat-footed during the meeting), and inform you if there is anything missing.
4. Financials. You must have a strong command of your company’s financials. At a minimum you should have a profit and loss statement showing agreed upon budget vs actual, cash flow statement, and a balance sheet. Once the company has grown significantly you can move to a quarterly view of the financials, but until then (and after you confirm your board is ok with the switch) I highly recommend delivering financials in a monthly format. Many VCs will want the financials in excel (not cut and pasted into a PDF) so they can follow through all of your assumptions and the math.
5. Major Functional Areas. Product, Marketing, Sales, Finance, Security, Legal. Each major functional area is critical to the success of the company and should have their own section of the deck. Each of the sections should include updates on progress, priorities for the next 1–3 months, and any issues or problems.
6. Senior Leadership Face Time. Once you get into a rhythm with your board meetings you should begin to rotate your senior leaders from each function through to present periodically. Have your head of marketing present in a board meeting and then your head of product present the next time. Not only does this process provide an opportunity for growth for your team members, but it also gives the board a chance to interact directly with your team.
7. Bad News. Always share any bad news early and often. Your investors are, by definition, invested in your success and 90%+ of the time they will try and help you in any situation — but they cannot do that if they don’t know what problems you are having. Whatever you do, do NOT hide bad news.
8. Asks. Your board should be there to help you. They have experience that you do not. Think about how best to use them. Be specific with your requests to each individual board member. Do not just throw an ask out and see which board member might volunteer. Work your board.
9. Coordination. During your first board meeting set up dates for future board meetings. Depending on the number of board members, stage of the company, and size of the team, I like to alternate between formal and informal meetings. The exercise of creating a formal deck and having team members present serves a lot of purposes, but if the company is still small, an informal meeting every other month can be even more valuable and less time-consuming. You can sometimes get more candid feedback from board members in an informal setting.
10. Non-Executive Board Time. Ensure you schedule 20–30 minutes (typically at the end of the meeting) when non-executive team board members can talk amongst themselves with nobody else (including the founder/CEO) on the call. Expect to get some candid feedback based on this part of the meeting.

Ultimately, each board becomes unique with its own operating tempo, information shared, and timing, but the tips above can save you time and help you run a more effective board meeting right out of the gate.

Good Luck!