February 22nd, 2010 | 
OK, maybe not every company. Raw startups – two people in a garage kinda thing – shouldn’t waste their time with anything formal. But young companies – those that are established and on their way, regardless of their size or level of funding should, as should any company more established than that. It seems that [...]
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In my career, I’ve been fortunate enough to have sold a handful of public and private companies that I was running at the time and acquire about a dozen others. Looking back, the activities and process around mergers and acquisitions may have been the most fun I ever had as CEO. Probably even more fun than the IPOs. I [...] This is the fourth and final post (for now) in my series on communicating with your board. You can find the previous posts here, here and here. As a corporate director, I wince when I get a board package that opens up with a stack of detailed group-level reports and loads of spreadsheets containing every piece of [...] This is the third post in my series on communicating with your board. You can find the previous posts here and here. Consolodating key financial information on a single page is a great tool for communicating some of the most important data about the company in a quickly-grasped snapshot. Because of this, it’s not only good for your [...] As your company grows, you’ll find yourself frequently seeking approval for grants of equity from your board. Most often, the desired grants will be for new employees, but you’ll also want to use equity to recognize and retain existing employees, consultants, advisors and even your board members. Since many grants will be made, it’s important to be [...] I’ve mentioned before that it’s likely that your board remembers less about your business between meetings than you think. As much as you think that your business is the most important thing in the world to them, your directors are probably on more than one board and many are on several at any given time. So, with [...] I have never seen a board of advisors work after the initial few meetings. I’m sure there are cases where they are managed well and it works out, but for the most part, my experience is that any initial engagement and excitement wanes and the value diminishes fairly quickly. I think that the reason this happens is that [...] The first time I was presented with an opportunity to join a board, I was so flattered that I agreed to join without really considering whether it was right for me to do so. That is, right for the company and right for me. Luckily, it was a strong board and while I don’t feel that [...] Fred Wilson has a great post today on his blog, AVC, titled, Required Attendance Board Meetings. In the post, Fred discusses his thoughts on face-to-face meetings of which he is in favor and I strongly agree; the frequency of meetings for companies with respect to their maturity – more for younger companies, fewer for older [...] I have read several posts on board meetings lately, including a couple of insightful ones by Scott Converse, CEO of Clickcaster, discussing his first two board meetings (you can find them here and here). Brad Feld also has a great series on board meetings which you can find here. Having chaired, as I count ‘em up [...] |
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