A Board of Advisors (BOA) is NOT for providing advice.Our intrepid CEO, DC, managed to assemble one of the best, if not the all time best, BOAs in the history of local enterprise. We had fundraisers, CEOs, multi-millionaires. We had several members that sit on the boards of fortune 500 companies and one who previously sat on the board of a fortune 100 company. We had specialists in rolling out new products, specialists in sales and marketing, specialists in emerging technologies and they all (at least initially) drank the Cool-Aid.
Let me restate:
A Board of Advisors (BOA) is NOT for providing advice.In the beginning, this incredible team met monthly to steer the good ship EveryCorp.com to its rightful place in the minds of all involved. The meetings were exciting, that much success and positivity in one room is a rush. I cannot tell you how much I looked forward to our BOA meetings (until my honesty made me a liability).
Every meeting ended with a clear set of instructions from the board: take these measures and we will meet again to discuss the next steps. It was a dream situation: being mentored by the best over a company that is seen by all to have huge potential.
Unfortunately, come the next meeting the measures suggested by the BOA had not been carried out.
But, "We have a new and exciting direction that we are heading in..."
DC would then regale them with his latest, greatest thoughts on how the company was going to either bring in revenues of a million a month in six months or be sold for 50 million by the end of the year.
The meeting would end with a clear set of instructions from the board: take these measures and then we will meet again to discuss the next steps.
DC treated these BOA meetings eerily like development meetings, his disrespect for the input of others was identical.
Soon the BOA was meeting every 6 weeks, then every 8 weeks, then not at all.
Can you blame them?
But, I fear you have missed the point. It is good that the meetings have trailed off; you see they only took up time. Let me restate:
A Board of Advisors (BOA) is NOT for providing advice.The purpose of the BOA is to lend credibility to the company website. To lend credibility to other investors who are looking at us. You see, with a BOA like this how can we not succeed? How can we not be worth fifty million dollars?
Arrgghh...
