Entrepreneur's Board of Directors Guide

Check out the extremely detailed guide to help entrepreneurs set up a Board of Directors. It is available online at the Telecommunications Development Fund, a venture capital firm for companies in the telecommunications industry. (The guide applies to a corporation in any line of business, and not just to telecomm firms.)



This guide is quite practical. It is designed for small businesses that are setting up a Board for the first time. It assumes the entrepreneur has no experience with a Board of Directors, and covers:

1. Why have a Board?

2. How do I "control" my Board?

3. Who should be on my Board?

4. How do I recruit members of the Board?

5. How does the Board operate?

6. How much should I pay directors?

7. Should I have directors' and officers' (D & O) insurance?

8. How do I change the composition of the Board as my business grows?

9. Should I have an advisory board?

10. How do I avoid disaster?

It even includes helpful how-to's such as: criteria for selecting directors, a sample board meeting agenda, and a primer on the basics of taking corporate minutes.



VC firms can seem forbidding to entrepreneurs, and not very mentor-like. Most have not done much to train entrepreneurs, certainly not in any formal way. Could this be an example of a nascent trend by VCs to mentor and educate entrepreneurs?