Mastering Early-Stage Board Meetings | Startup Finance Basics w/ Kruze's Scott Orn | E1865
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.2 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 December 2023
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s show:
Kruze COO, Scott Orn, joins Jason to discuss best practices for early stage startups to prepare for and execute successful board meetings. The two dive into the reasons VCs want governance through board meetings (00:56), what should be in a full board packet (6:51), formal things investors look for (11:10), and much more!
Timestamps:
(0:00) Kruze COO, Scott Orn, joins Jason (00:56) The reasons VCs seek governance in startups and key tips for developing a standardized board presentation (6:51) Building a startup financial package and the importance of presenting a financial flash page at the start of a board meeting. (11:10) Essential factors investors consider during a board meeting (15:08) The most common question regarding in-depth operational metrics (20:51) Examining R&D and engineering support expenses in the calculation of the cost of goods sold * Check out Kruze: https://kruzeconsulting.com * Follow Scott: https://twitter.com/scottorn
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Great 2023 interviews: Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Alright everybody welcome back to this week and start-ups. |
| 0:02.4 | It's time for startup basics with my good friend Scott from Cruz. |
| 0:06.8 | Cruz does all the accounting for almost all of my startups and we do this basic series for a very simple reason. |
| 0:13.9 | I get asked the same gosh darn questions over and over again. |
| 0:16.7 | And I would like to make it easier for me |
| 0:21.3 | to not have to answer the same basic questions over and over again. |
| 0:24.0 | All those basic questions are now listed at this week in startups.com slash basics. |
| 0:27.4 | Go there, learn the basics. |
| 0:29.2 | I'm going to tell you right now if there's 20 little episodes there for you to watch 20 30 minute segments you out of the 20 might know 14 but those other six men that's going to be gold for you and today is going to be gold as well |
| 0:40.4 | Because Scott today we're going to talk about how to run an early stage board meeting |
| 0:44.4 | and how to present your metrics in a way that your investors |
| 0:47.8 | will be more confident trusting and delighted and just understand your |
| 0:52.4 | business better so welcome back to the program Scott. |
| 0:54.6 | Thank you for having me Jason. |
| 0:55.8 | Let's get into it. What are VCs? You know let's say you got a seed round done you |
| 1:01.4 | raised three million bucks you got ten people |
| 1:04.7 | cruising along you're making so to speak five hundred thousand a year million a year |
| 1:09.6 | you got a functioning business here you got product market fit, you're growing, and now the VC say, you know what, let's do quarterly board meetings. |
| 1:17.0 | What is their goal? |
| 1:18.0 | Why do VCs want these, this governance and these board meetings? |
| 1:22.0 | They've got multiple goals. |
| 1:24.0 | The first goal is they are fiduciaries, right? |
... |
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