Your First Board Meeting

You have reached the point where you are finally about to have your first board meeting. First off; congrats! That means you have built something that others have invested in & it’s starting to grow into something bigger then just a startup.

But WTF do I do? We have all been there and just like building your company, the first time you do something will always be the most uncomfortable so as a founder who has had two “first board meetings” I am here to tell you two things

• One: You will always be nervous

• Two: You will do just fine- at the end of the day your board wants this to succeed

Since I recently went through my second “first board meeting” at my new startup I thought this would be the best time to fully dive in to my take on how to handle Your First Board Meeting

How to Structure your board meeting:

There are a couple keys to structuring your board meetings

Timing:

Aim to conduct board meetings on Fridays and plan for them to be 2 hours long. You should pre-schedule out your board meetings for the entire calendar year in advance and I always prefer to do them on the 2nd Friday of the new quarter. This gives enough time for you to close out the previous quarter, prepare your board materials, circulate board materials, and have everything in place for a productive meeting

Structure:

Board meetings should have a very clear structure

• Pre-Meeting: sent 48-72 hours in advance.

  • Agenda

  • KPI’s / Financial Dashboard

  • CEO update (big wins, issues priorities)

  • Functional update (product, sales, marketing, hiring, etc)

  • Any pre-reads or decisions that require a vote

• Board Meeting: Opening & House Keeping (5-10 minutes)

  • Confirm quorum & approvals (prior minutes, option grants, etc)

  • Quick reminder of goals for the meeting

• Board Meeting: CEO Update (15-20 minutes)

  • Top 3-5 priorities from last meeting and current status

  • Wins and progress since last meeting

  • What’s keeping the CEO up at night (be transparent! they can help)

  • Hiring & culture pulse

  • Tip: Don't just celebrate—share what’s not working, too. Transparency builds trust.

• Board Meeting: Financial Review: (15-20 minutes)

  • Current cash runway & burn

  • MRR/ARR growth & unit economics

  • Budget vs actuals

  • Forecast for next 1-2 quarters

• Board Meeting: Department Snapshots: (10-15 minutes)

  • High-level updates from product, sales, marketing, customer success

  • Key hires, churns, or pipeline notes

  • Can be a quick scroll unless board needs to dive in

• Board Meeting: Strategic Deep Dive & whats upcoming (30-45 minutes)

  • One or two key topics only (e.g., fundraising strategy, go-to-market pivot, M&A, international expansion)

  • Encourage discussion & input from board

  • CEO should guide, not just present—this is the meat of the meeting

• Board Meeting: Formal Decisions / Votes (5-10 minutes)

  • Option grants, budget approval, legal matters, financing terms, etc.

Now this is where things may deviate slightly from what the book says. The way that I always wrap up my board meetings is I end with a quick closing statements, any action items needed, and schedule any specific follow ups from the call with any board members. I try to wrap up with 15 minutes left in the meeting so I can then allow my board members to conduct an Executive Session after the myself and the other startup team members leave the call.

The executive session is a key period of time for board members to talk about the status of the company without the CEO or other startup members being present; although this is scary it is necessary.

But you can do this part however you and or your board members prefer. You can do it as I do or you can do it as the “book” suggests which is to host the executive session with about 30 minutes left, let the members converse for 15 minutes and then rejoin to go over any items that came out of the session for the last 15 minutes.

What you should get out of your board meeting:

At the end of the day your board is on your side and they want you to succeed so the main things that I believe every founder should leave their board meeting with are:

• A clear understanding of the direction in which they need to go to achieve the greatest success

• A clear understanding of where the potential pitfalls are in their strategy and where the board has the greatest concerns

• A clear understanding of what the board would like to see improved upon for the next board meeting

• A clear understanding of if the board would like any changes to the structure, flow, or presentation of information for the next board meeting (and what those changes will be)

• and most importantly, a clear understanding of what “asks” the founder has for their board members in order to help them succeed in achieving success over the next 90 days

If you leave your board meeting with all of these things then, in my opinion, that was a good meeting. As mentioned in the intro it should never be about “feeling good” it should be about understanding where you need to go from here.

Over the years I have had many board meetings & the majority of them covered “uncomfortable topics”. From missed sales targets, to overspending, missed financings, lawsuits, and many other uncomfortable topics. But every single one I left with a clear direction of what needed to be done, where our strategy was failing, where we need to focus our attention, how we can better run the next meeting, and most importantly what pieces of strategy could my board assist me on.

WTF tips and tricks to perfecting the board meeting:

What are some of our favorite tips and tricks for perfecting your board meeting:

1. Share the RIGHT information: It’s not about only sharing the good or the bad it’s about sharing the right information. As mentioned above you have clear things you want to get out of your board meeting and a big pitfall founders fall into is sharing EVERY piece of information which can cause the board meeting to quickly go sideways due to an in-depth discussion being spurred around a piece of information that is either good or bad but having an in-depth conversation about that topic will distract from having a conversation for a more important topic that you need your boards help on. On the flip side of the coin you also need to provide enough information that your board is able to sink their teeth in and actually help you out.

2. Use board tools: Currently we are using Zeck in order to simply the structure, voting, pre-read, and minute notes management that comes with running a successful board meetings. In previous companies I used simple slide shows to convey the information and across all companies I have used google meetings, recorded the meeting, and used transcription to easily document minutes, attendance, and overall governance requirements.

3. Have an on going relationship with your board members: If something is going to be ugly, try to have these conversations in advance so they aren’t caught off guard on the meetings. I personally have a direct relationship with all of my board members; some of which I even have weekly meetings with. This allows us to have much more productive board meetings & not waste any time with any “shocks”.

And overall; breathe. Board meetings are a key piece of the pie when it comes to running a startup. No one said it would be fun … or easy… but they will always be worth it.

So as you come into your first board meeting hopefully you can now say “I got this” instead of WTF 🎉