Board of directors

The group legally responsible for overseeing the company on behalf of shareholders.

Example

Quarterly meetings with a pack sent a week in advance.

A board is not an advisory group you can ignore. Run it deliberately: no surprises, bad news early, decisions requested explicitly.

Board seat — A place on the company's board of directors, which oversees the company and can hire or fire the CEO.
Governance — The rules and structures by which decisions get made and the company is held accountable.
Investor update — A short regular email to investors covering metrics, progress, problems and specific asks.

What an IPO actually is — Advanced and far away. A financing event that turns your company into a public one, with everything that entails. (10 min)
Isolation, and delivering bad news — Founding is structurally lonely, and telling people bad news early is a skill that protects the company as much as it protects you. (12 min)
Investor updates — A short monthly email that turns passive shareholders into people who actually help — and makes your next round dramatically easier. (10 min)
Your job changes as you grow — The thing you were good at stops being your job. Founders who do not notice become the bottleneck they built. (10 min)