One of the biggest challenges for first-time founders with little work experience is that they don’t always know what “great” looks like in every area required to build and run a successful business. Understanding “great” is one of the single most important levers to push your team to greatness, hire…

What do your board meetings look like? Do investors focus on their BlackBerries and iPhones while the CEO plods through every slide in the deck? I’ve sat through (and run) more board meetings than I can remember. And the truth is, most board meetings aren’t as effective as they should…

At a mentoring session at GROW I was asked about advisors and what entrepreneurs had to keep in mind when forming an advisory board. Here are a few quick tips: You want to focus on few but really engaged advisors – having 2-3 people that can help you on a…

Chris Fralic‘s tweet about a board meeting best practice this morning got me thinking that this was something I wanted to write about for some time. I currently sit on 12 boards and have therefore seen my fair share of board meetings – most of them were really productive, some…