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Boards are necessary too Are they? I've run my own company without a board for 9 years (bootstrapped) and several friends who were CEOs of funded companies had

• bluGill 5y ago
  In many cases the law requires it. Check with your lawyer to see if this applies to you. Even if it doesn't apply, it is useful to get outside advice. The hard part is getting good advice. Boards should do this, but as the article points out, they rarely do.
  • ilamont 5y ago
    I've been on nonprofit boards in the past, and we really did play important roles on advice and some tactical activities related to committees. But the incentives were completely different.
• kelnos 5y ago
  They're necessary if you want to take on funding. It's hard to imagine VCs agreeing to give you money without you agreeing to have a board. I'm sure there are rare exceptions, but they're just that: rare exceptions.
  • ghc 5y ago
    That's not really true until an equity round these days. Companies who raise seed rounds on SAFEs and notes often avoid having a board. In the portfolio of my firm, that situation accounts for just over half of the initial seed investments we've made in the past five years. Forming a board is an investment from both sides. It takes a lot of work to be a director or even an observer. At the earliest stages (pre-A) VCs are much more willing to keep it informal and avoid the distraction.