Why having a board is the best decision for your business🤵🏽‍♀️

🎅🏽 Holidays break: we will be out for 2 weeks to recharge and plan more interesting topics for discussion next year. Here is a big thank you note for the support, attention and interest you’ve been giving to OpenBooks. I hope we are bringing value to your business life and helping to create clarity for your financial decisions. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a happy new year! See you all in 2022. Now, onto this week’s issue:

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We all informally have people we look up to. Role models, inspirations, mentors, or even friends.

For entrepreneurs, the concept of having a formal board is quite hard to understand, since the reason for starting your own business is to have freedom and explore your ideas with more flexibility than having to comply with the corporate world rules.

But let's be realistic: nobody is immune from rules. They can be market rules, imposed by your competitors. Or they can be rules imposed by your customers, that either change their preferences or require you to tweak your product so it can be appealing for a client base. So don't full yourself: nobody in the business world is completely free.

Knowing that why not take to your advantage the rules that eventually you will be subject to and surround yourself with people that you aspire to be like, and put them on your team? That - in essence - is what a board is.

The board members will be the first filter of your ideas, projects, pivots, etc. before hitting the market. I know, it may sound time-consuming to have to prepare every quarter with reports, analysis, discussions, etc. But frame it as an opportunity for 'customer discovery'. If you have a board composed of individuals that have experience in the field, are incentivized for your business to grow (aka investor-board members), the whole board meeting exercise is a great chance to properly structure the short-term tactics and long term strategies that your business is taking.

By having a board in place, you create the discipline of planning, structuring your projects, prioritizing, and ultimately being held accountable. You have the opportunity to structure the board meeting and the reporting cadence in a way that fits your business and your preferences - so you can focus on the strategic discussions rather than reporting numbers, KPIs, etc. Once again: you want to use the board as your asset, not as a liability you need to manage. Here you can find is a great resource on how to structure an efficient and valuable board meeting.

Board members could also be a great opportunity to cover your blind spots. Having board members that have different perspectives, experiences and are 'independent' ultimately creates more resilience to your business decisions. You may start to consider discussing more long-term focused topics, such as hiring and talent retention strategies, or including more stakeholders (government, strategic partners) that would not be your priority for discussion but may create a moat in the future.

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🎧 Podcast recommendations

▶️ Acquired - Not Boring: Packy McCormick the master of the newsletters shares his short, but fantastic growth story of Not Boring, which is becoming a conglomerate in the investing market. Key lesson: never underestimate the value of an email list.

▶️ The James Altucher - How to Write Books That Sell 160-Million Copies with Ken Follett: My favorite writer recently just wrote another book! Can’t wait to read his new book over the holidays.

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This is Open Books - a weekly newsletter carefully curated by me, Leticia Souza. Every week I’ll be compiling relevant topics around finance and financial strategy - from choosing your first accounting system to how to successfully close a fundraising round to your business.

In a world full of noise, I aim to bring clarity and direction to your finance processes so you can manage your business in peace. If you find the content useful, do your friends a favor, and please share this newsletter with them.

See you all next week 👋🏼

Leticia