The Role of Advisory Boards in Your Startup

Advisory boards are window dressing yes but I would say that scoring good advisors speaks to the influence of the entrepreneur and the merit of the idea.

In general most investors understand advisory boards are more of show but to me they demonstrate the kind of "company the startup intends to keep".

Ultimately advisory boards are endorsements - plain and simple.

Totally agree with Mark in the post that active advisory boards will require more discipline by the startup teams and equity compensation for advisors.

There was one part of this that stood out to me, where Mark suggested that it might be worth it ask for token investment from those on the advisory board:

"Get some skin in the game. I know it sounds crazy that you’re approaching industry luminaries that you would die to work with and you’re asking them for, gulp, money! But if you approach them with a very fair valuation and ask for a small check (say $10k, which should be nothing to someone in this position) I believe you’ll have a reasonable shot at it provided that you actually have an interesting company."

It stuck out to me, because it harkened back to a post John wrote a few weeks ago - "An Entrepreneurial Counter Culture is Looming" (http://siliconangle.net/ver2/2009/09/18/an-entrepreneurial-c...).

In the post, as was backed up by several HN commentors and commentors at the site, John said: "I’ve estimated that the required amount for a "real" seed round in today’s open source environment for tech ventures is about 200-300k – that is unless you are young and can do the coding yourself."

Obviously, fundraising isn't the goal of assembling an advisory board, but it is interesting that should you not be able to get angel or seed funding in the amount you're looking for (not millions, but not $10k or whatever), the advisory board might be a middle ground to look at.