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Picking your advisory board for your startup Mark MacLeod’s advice

by Tris Hussey on February 13th, 2008

When b5 got its advisory board last year I was pretty excited to read the line up (it’s made up of: Robert Scoble, Hugh MacLeod, Renee Blodgett, Stowe Boyd, and Doc Searls if you don’t remember).  Mark MacLeod of StartupCFO has a post that I think every startup CEO and management team should read on picking your advisory board:

Yesterday I had lunch with the CEO of a young startup in town. He’s in the process of putting together an advisory board and wanted to chat about it. For those of you that were unable to join us for lunch, here are my rules for great advisory boards:

Be selfish: Advisory boards are not for the company, they are for you. As leader of your company, the advisors are there to provide you with a personal, confidential, trusted sounding board. Source: StartupCFO: Advisory boards

I only took the first of the tips, because that one struck me as the most important: “Advisory boards are not for the company, they are for you.”  I think every new company needs this kind of advice.  Even when the company isn’t facing a major decision, maybe especially then when things are just “normal”, you need some outside perspectives to help you stay on course.

Of course I haven’t really run a startup, yet, so I might just be thinking pie in the sky here.

Beyond a good advisory board, what other tips would you startup leaders give to those starting out?

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POSTED IN: Entrepreneurs