The Board as Asset

seats on any board, especially start up and small companies, are as precious as diamonds in a necklace.  fully functional boards that contribute both during and between formal meetings are rare, but can be built.

in my thought process there are several reasons to select a person for your board:

• they are a significant investor, but one with intelligence, experience and common sense -- money does not always bring any of these
• they offer significant management expertise which is unavailable within the start up team
• they possess extensive market space, functional, or technical depth beyond any of the founders or management team
• they bring raw intellect, structured thinking, and energy to the table and are willing to commit their time and energy
• they have strong connections within the professional community, market space, or potential business partners
• they have charitable money (non-profits or for profit charitable B corporations only)
• they provide diversity in backgrounds and education -- not exclusively a list of Harvard or any other MBAs

build your board around these criteria and you will likely create a board who can fly cover for and provide insight to your management team, as well as completing some real work.

also, consider rotating your board on a three to four year schedule.  new people bring diverse, often out of the mainstream thinking.  Diversity is a very powerful enabler of creative solutions to dilemmas and cross-market space pollination.