Turn Your Board Into an Asset: A Guide to Building Relationships That Matter
Part 4 of the "Building Category-Creating Boards" Series
So far in this series, we've explored how boards impact category-creating companies at every level - from protecting deep innovation to evaluating bold strategic moves to navigating market evolution. We've examined what to look for in directors who can bridge between category creation and conventional metrics, and detailed the specific governance provisions that protect your ability to make non-traditional moves.
But governance structures alone aren't enough. Even the best provisions and most experienced directors can't help if you haven't built the relationships that enable real collaboration. Today, we'll explore exactly how to build those relationships systematically.
Here's what no one tells you about boards: Without constant effort, they naturally drift toward dysfunction. Even the best board will become a source of friction rather than value if you don't actively build and maintain relationships.
I learned this lesson the hard way at Nori. The breaking point came during what should have been a straightforward bridge round discussion in early 2023. We had a category-defining partnership with Bayer that would generate hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carbon removal credits. While the deal was signed in 2022, we were deep in the complex work of data collection and processing needed to issue and sell the credits.
I presented our financial model and budget for the year - admittedly with optimistic projections about how quickly we could complete the Bayer implementation work. That's when I learned the board had met separately and decided on a completely different approach. Instead of the agreed-upon $7.5M round, they proposed giving us just $1-2M immediately, with the rest to follow only after we hired a new CEO - a process we hadn't even begun.
The amount wasn't the real issue. I was thinking: Can't you see the potential? We're about to hire an experienced go-to-market CEO, we have this unprecedented partnership with Bayer that will give us inventory orders of magnitude larger than anyone in the market, and we're positioned to dominate if we can execute. This business has always been about the longer-term and everyone expects the carbon industry to be a trillion dollars in size in a few decades! However, I had failed to build the kind of collaborative relationship where we could openly discuss how to balance conventional risk management with category-creation opportunity.
That moment crystallized something I've seen repeatedly since: Your board will either be one of your most valuable resources or a constant source of tension. Which path it takes depends almost entirely on the effort you put into building relationships and creating the right structures from the beginning.
The Power of Systematic Relationship Building
The contrast became clear after we hired our new CEO, Matt. Where I had treated board interactions as formal status updates - often tense and rarely productive - he took a fundamentally different approach. He met with board members informally and frequently, keeping them updated on progress and building genuine relationships. The same board members I had struggled to connect with became active partners in the company's development.
This transformation wasn't just about frequency of communication. It was about building the kind of relationship where:
Concerns get raised early, before becoming problems
Strategic discussions happen naturally, not just in formal meetings
Different perspectives strengthen decisions rather than create tension
Trust enables hard conversations about balancing metrics with vision
A System That Prevents Dysfunction
A successful multi-time CEO once shared with me his exact framework for board relationships. Its power lies not just in the communication, but in how it systematically builds trust and understanding:
1. Weekly Foundation: The Tear Sheet
Build trust through consistent updates:
Key metrics movement
Major wins and challenges
Questions you're wrestling with
Upcoming milestones
For investor directors:
It’s important to remember that your VC board members have regular partner meetings where they discuss every company in their portfolio. They need metrics and updates that help them:
Compare your progress against consistent portfolio metrics
Explain your category creation story to their partners
Show pattern recognition across their investments
Justify continued support and follow-on investment
Surface risks early when they're manageable
This means providing:
Standard metrics their partnership tracks (ask them specifically what these are)
A clear narrative about category development
Early warning about potential challenges
The context for upcoming strategic decisions
The goal isn't just updating them - it's giving them the tools to be your advocate in their partner meetings.
For independent directors:
The unique value of experienced independent directors is their ability to recognize patterns from past category-creating companies. Help them apply this experience by sharing:
Customer conversation evolution
How are discussions changing over time?
Which teams are getting involved?
What questions are they asking?
Market behavior signals
Changes in how customers describe their problems
Shifts in decision-making processes
New stakeholders entering your discussions
Leading indicators they've seen before
Signs of market readiness
Potential scaling challenges
Partnership evolution patterns
The goal is to help them connect your specific progress to patterns they've seen work (or fail) in other category-creating companies.
The goal isn't perfection - it's creating regular touchpoints that build trust over time. Make it simple enough that you'll actually maintain it:
Example format:
Key Metrics:
- [Metric 1]: [Current] → [Change] | Context: [Brief note]
- [Metric 2]: [Current] → [Change] | Context: [Brief note]
This Week's Highlights
- Biggest win:
- Key challenge:
- Pattern we're seeing:
Looking Ahead
- Next key milestone:
- Strategic question:
2. Bi-Weekly Connection: Individual Calls
Schedule regular 30-minute calls with each director:
Share informal updates
Discuss emerging opportunities
Get early input on challenges
Build genuine relationships
With investors:
Help them see leading indicators before conventional metrics matter
Connect your patterns to their portfolio experience
Surface concerns early when they're easier to address
Build context for future decisions
With independents:
Here's where having the right independent director becomes crucial. While your investors bring valuable perspectives, they ultimately have duties to their partnership that can create competing pressures. Your independent director, however, has one focus: the company's success. This alignment creates the opportunity for a deeper relationship:
Build toward true mentorship
Make them your first call for tough decisions
Share concerns before they become problems
Get candid feedback on your leadership
Test strategic ideas safely
Draw on their pattern recognition
Explore implications of early signals
Question assumptions openly
Discuss potential failure modes
Map strategic options
Create genuine partnership
Build a shared understanding of category evolution
Develop trust for difficult conversations
Get an unfiltered perspective on board dynamics
Have a true thought partner for critical decisions
The goal is building the kind of relationship where you can have the conversations you can't have with anyone else. The key is consistency. These aren't just updates - they're investments in relationships that will determine how well your board functions when facing crucial decisions.
3. Monthly Deep Dives: Strategic Understanding
A note on board member time: When I was a new CEO, I felt guilty asking for too much time from board members. I worried I was bothering them with too many meetings. This was exactly backward - board members can't fulfill their responsibilities without deep understanding of the business, and good board members actually want this level of engagement. More importantly, a lack of deep strategic discussion creates bigger problems later.
While bi-weekly calls maintain relationships and surface immediate concerns, monthly deep dives are structured strategic sessions that help everyone fulfill their roles effectively. Pick one critical area of the business and spend 90 minutes diving deep.
Sample Focus Areas
Business Model Evolution
How unit economics are shifting as your category matures
Where scalability challenges emerge
What metrics become most predictive
Market Development
Mapping competitive responses
Tracking ecosystem changes
Identifying inflection points
Strategic Positioning
Build vs. partner decisions
Geographic expansion timing
Product line evolution
For each session:
Send pre-read materials 48 hours ahead
Set clear discussion objectives
Identify specific decisions needed
Document follow-up commitments
This is where you build the deeper strategic context that makes other updates meaningful.
Preventing Common Failure Modes
1. Surprise Decisions
Instead of my experience - being blindsided by a pre-discussed funding change - regular communication surfaces concerns early:
WRONG (What I Did): Present optimistic projections in formal board meetings, hoping they'd see our category-defining potential with Bayer partnership and new CEO hire and conclude they should fund.
Result: They defaulted to a standard risk framework without context for our progress.
RIGHT (What Matt Did):
Regular metrics updates created context for progress
Bi-weekly calls surfaced concerns early
Board meeting deep dives aligned the different perspectives
Real relationships enabled honest dialogue
2. Strategy-Metrics Tension
When traditional metrics don't capture category creation progress, boards often push for conventional approaches.
WRONG (Common Pattern): Focus purely on current metrics, losing sight of category development signs.
Result: Pressure to optimize for short-term metrics over category-creating moves.
RIGHT (Systematic Approach): Develop collective insight into:
How customer conversations are evolving
Where market patterns are emerging
What leading indicators matter most
Which strategic moves create an advantage
3. Vision Dilution Under Pressure
When market conditions get tough, boards often push companies toward conventional paths that can kill category creation.
WRONG (Common Pattern): Lack of deep understanding leads boards to default to traditional playbooks.
Result: Category-defining moves get blocked in favor of "proven" approaches.
RIGHT (With Strong Relationships): You've built:
Established trust for challenging conversations
The context that makes it possible to make unconventional decisions
Shared pattern recognition framework
Foundation for defending bold moves
Making It Work: Your Next Steps
Start here:
Design Your Weekly Template
List 5-7 key metrics
Create a simple update format
Set consistent delivery time
Make it sustainable: This is crucial - the worst thing you can do is start an elaborate update process that dies when you get busy (and you will get busy).
Some practical ways to make it sustainable:
Keep it simple
Start with just 3-4 key metrics that are easy to pull
Use metrics you're already tracking for the team
Don't create new work - repackage what exists
Resist the urge to add "just one more thing"
Build the system
Create a simple template you can fill in 15 minutes (e.g. in Notion, Miro, Google Docs, or even create a template in ChatGPT/Claude)
Set up automatic data pulls where possible
Have your team compile their updates in a consistent format
Block 30 minutes every Friday - same time, every week
Plan for crises
Have a "minimum viable update" version for crazy weeks
When things are calm, create crisis templates
Build muscle memory by never skipping weeks
Remember: Brief updates build more trust than missed ones
The goal isn't perfection - it's consistency. A simple update delivered reliably does more for relationships than detailed reports that fall apart when you're busy.
Schedule First Round of Calls
Set bi-weekly calendar holds
Draft basic agenda template
Focus on relationship building
Commit to consistency
Plan Initial Deep Dive
Choose focused topic
Prepare key patterns to discuss
Create discussion framework
Schedule follow-ups
Most importantly: Start now. These relationships get harder to build the longer you wait.
The difference between a board that enables category-defining moves and one that blocks them often comes down to the relationships you build before you need them. Your board isn't just oversight - they're potential champions for your vision. But that only happens through intentional relationship building.
Next in Part 5, we'll explore how to evolve these practices as your board grows - without losing the independence that protects category creation.
Previous posts in this series: