Ask HN: How do you ask someone to join your board?

1 pointjaysonelliot1 comment

It's time for my gaming company to choose our first board of directors, and I've identified a number of potential members that could help a lot with their wisdom and experience. The thing is, I don't know many of them, and they're important people who probably get approached about a lot of things.

Does anyone have experience "cold calling" a request like this, or advice on how to approach them?

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One approach is to use LinkedIn or similar and go friend-of-a-friend. On the downside, you could end up with a board of people who are all on the same page to the extent that they don't challenge conventional wisdom or ask the hard questions.

Why not make contact through your firm's lawyer? People will always pay attention to contact from a law firm or general counsel, and your lawyer will be able to give you some good advice on appropriate compensation, obligations, conflicts of interest etc. etc.

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