Jason M. Lemkin talks board dynamics and what investors actually think. He brings in perspectives from Brian Halligan and Parker Conrad on how board members operate and what founders should know about working with them.
I mean my, my board explicitly, my board explicitly told me nine or ten months ago there's no more money coming. You better figure this out. Good. You didn't have to ask. It's good. It's good to know. Right? I know it was good to know.
Sam didn't need to follow up with the one to five question.
He put it up front. It was a one. It's just. Okay. It's okay to ask. It's okay to ask. And do you think you can know the and different people and actually if you want to get nuanced in it. Depending on your company different people may have very different perspectives depending on where they, when they invested, how, how successful they are. Right. The more successful an investor is, the less they sweat the small stuff. It's just reality. It's, it's not good or bad. Right. And, and, and also some folks and also if you have an investor that's either investing their own money or runs the fund, they have more latitude sometimes than other folks. Right. So you just. My point is you just don't know unless, unless you ask.
Brian Halligan had a really good article around this and had like 15 points around board board setup just from his perspective.
He did. Although it was interesting that Parker Conrad said it was all wrong. Yeah. Oh he did. Brian. I, I, I deeply love Brian.
I didn't think Brian was, well he, look, his wasn't super prescriptive to what open AI. The one thing he did say is that at the end of a year do a360 with your board as well. Which I thought was. That was an interesting take. Have you Jason, have you done any 360s with your boards? Like everyone, every board member gets graded as well.
Well look, I, I do think that no a little bit the, the world ha. Since HubSpot was found and we may be more like HubSpot in the coming years. Right. But for the last years the world has changed people. I, I have a different experience. One of the best investments I've made that I, I think will triple this year and triple next year. The largest investor still refuses to take a board seat because they're too busy at a big fund. Wow. They just invested another 15 million the other day. They're totally supportive, completely supportive, but just don't want to do like. And I've got another one probably there's another investment. One of my best current investments. I'm the only director outside of the founders and probably will be until IPO because they don't need any more money.
So the world.
I'm not saying this is bad. I mean, Brian clearly benefited. And his point is, I was a first time CEO. I had Sequoia. He got so much benefit from it. And I think that sounds great, but just. The world in some ways has changed, right?
Oh, yeah.
