Complement. Hedge. Support! - Brief thoughts on the topic of advisory boards for start-ups

For me, there are three key words that shape the question of the need - or better perhaps - the understanding of an advisory board in a start-up: Complementary knowledge, safeguarding the (new) company, and support in the market environment.

Founders, in my opinion, should always be in a mode characterized by an undiscussable focus - namely on their new product, their new service offering, their new development to improve the world. It is only out of such extremely focused thoughts that new, better and successful things emerge. But it is precisely with such a focus that two very important factors are correctly missing, namely money for classic consultants on the one hand and time for the many complementary fields of business management on the other.

When I talk about the advisory board for a start-up, I am not talking about pure formal governance, which tries with vehemence to nip any founding spirit in the bud with in-depth risk analyses. No, I'm talking about three positively proven core issues for the development of the company:

Complement.

You wouldn't be founding a company if you weren't as convinced of your idea as you are of your special skills. Nevertheless, you will never be able to cover all functions with equal competence. A cleverly selected advisory board can cover a large part of these open areas - even without large consulting bills, for which no business angel will provide you with money. Good solutions in finance, communication, HR, admin structuring, and last but not least in the entire corporate governance pay off in stability and attractiveness of your company.

Hedge.

Corporate governance is a topic that every company needs. The sooner you start taking care of good corporate governance, the easier it will be to meet the ESG requirements of today's investor world. The first round of funding, the pre-seed, you will still get on the basis of "story" and "team", but by the second round at the latest, it's into the real due diligence. And here you can really score with a good advisory board that "watches over" you, because the investor risk of overlooking possible "skeletons in the closet" is reduced many times over.

Support.

Probably my strongest argument for the establishment of an advisory board is the creation of support, as a sounding board or sparring partner for all your decisions that become necessary, be it for the MVP, the proof of concept, the proof of market, pivots that become necessary, scaling, regulation, and so on. Here, good advisory boards help with their self-experienced expertise, with their connections to the market, their networks, and with their possibilities to find the right partners to build an ecosystem.

If this makes sense in all due brevity, just contact us. My senior advisor colleagues and I will be happy to accompany you in the context of your advisory board.

source top image: Startaê Team on unsplash.com