#14 - My life as a Senior Advisor

"Why did you take on advisory board for your start-up? Simple: it looks good on my pitch deck and advisors are happy to add it to their Linkedin profile. Beyond that, the impact isn't obvious: my advisors don't have much time for me and I for them, so..."

Yes, I've heard that before. Not from the startups I work with, but it does exist.

Other people often ask me what purpose I serve as an "advisor". Good question!

I remember an exchange with a startup founder who told me: "You see, your focus on 'ops' isn't what we're about. Today, our priority is to sell.

— Okay, I say, once you've sold your product to 200 corporate clients, how do you manage flows of cash (a classic insurance topic that needs to be closely mastered if you want to manage the whole insurance chain)?

— It's true that we are already struggling on this. And the bigger we get, the more it's going to be hot! Do you have some time to talk about it?” ??

I haven't particularly theorized this role, I've deployed it according to need. That's how I see it.

Establish good habits while there is still time

My favorite subject is execution. I see it in two ways for the companies I work with:

• When a company is just starting out, building solid foundations in terms of operation will enable it to grow healthily: focus, allocation of roles within the team, taking into account the business realities of insurance, etc. That's why I get involved especially when the company is in a (pre-)seed phase.
• If we're talking about execution, this advisory role requires a minimal immersion in the life of the company. Understanding what the team does and how they do it. We try to talk to each other every 15 days to keep in touch with what's going on in the field.

Starting from the "micro" to talk about the "macro”

By definition, advisors listen to the founders: they are the ones who set the agenda. In the early stages, you need to take time, starting from their business needs. We proceed with informal discussions, to see what their issues are:

• Go to market - understand business and product priorities in their insurance context
• Stakeholder management - insurers, administrators, service providers (if any)
• Delivery organization - Claims, customer support (care), insurer relations

At the end of these discussions, the points of friction felt by the founders naturally emerge; this is what will structure our exchanges, as we carry on.

But beyond that, when we talk about operational issues, at one point or another, we widen the focus to other subjects

• P&L, unit economics: are the fundamentals in line with insurance business models? And yes, insurance isn't necessarily SaaS, even for a tech company!
• Culture: how do you establish a natural practice of prioritization, capitalize on knowledge when the company is at the start of its learning curve, etc.?
• People: how/who to recruit when you're starting out, how to align teams as the startup grows?

The broader the focus, the more we come to discuss the trajectory of the company as a whole, to the point of being able to discuss the company's medium-to-long-term milestones together. The natural tendency is to materialize the company's roadmap in one way or another, in the form of an OKR for example.

In short, I see the advisor role as more hands-on than a board member, more neutral than the operating partner of an investment fund.

What's in it for the startup?

• Teams can benefit from an external, critical and constructive viewpoint, over the long term.
• Managers remain in control: I suggest, give an opinion, but they are the ones who decide.
• Our discussions enable us to verify the company's alignment with insurance fundamentals.
• To provide benevolent guidance when approaching important milestones for the company (key hiring, changing scale, fundraising, …)

What's it for me?

• Working with brilliant entrepreneurs who are (often) younger and (always) smarter than me.
• It's an opportunity to contribute to projects that will change the face of insurance.
• I aspire to transmit: what I know, what I believe, what can be passed on.
• Expanding my network and building new relationships.

… And does it pay?!

Not really, but that's not necessarily the point.

In reality, if it takes a few hours a month per startup, it's not that big an investment.

• If I were to devote more time to it, this would mean going beyond an advisory role, for example by being involved in problem-solving. That would be under my consultant hat ??.
• Having said that, even if time investment is small, it's fair to receive some sort of compensation (in the form of free shares, for example), so as to guarantee the startup my full involvement in the mission entrusted to me

For all that, I limit these mandates to spare billable time on my side. I therefore devote myself to a limited number of high-impact projects, ones that appeal to me.