Nikhil Basu Trivedi: Taking A Chance On Young Board Members, First Boards As A Venture Capitalist, And More Insights On The Role Of Observers

Boards Network

What is it like to be on a Board with heavy hitters such as Mamoon Hamid (KPCB), Aileen Lee (Cowboy), and Angela Strange (Andreessen Horowitz)? Why are google docs not an entirely bad idea to share the Board deck with Board members? Why can Observers have a relationship advantage with founders compared to Board Directors?

Nikhil is a board member/observer at ClassDojo, Frame.io, Imperfect Produce, Plays.tv, Tally, The Farmer’s Dog. He has co-sponsored many of Shasta’s investments since joining the team in 2012. Nikhil was named in 2015 to Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30 list for Venture Capital.

In this episode, we discuss how Observers can be in the ear of the entrepreneurs without the tension that exists between a Board Director and the CEO. We discuss why Observers can be strong allies for CEOs by being an informal point of contact for them to better understand the Board, and oftentimes they have more capacity to do work.

Nikhil also reflects on his first investment as lead and first Board seat as full Director at The Farmer’s Dog when he was still a Principal, why your first Board seat is as much the founder betting on you than the other way around, and more generally why that first Board seat is so special. Finally, we also debate why alignment is usually not an issue in early stage VC, and hence why the first role of a Board member in early stage startups is to provide services to the founders and make sure their Board duties don’t consume too much of their time and energy.
If like Nikhil, you are interested in consumer-oriented businesses and the transformation of healthcare, education, energy, and the life sciences by mobile and web technologies, you should absolutely follow him on Twitter @nbt. For more information on his firm, follow @shasta or visit their website www.shastaventures.com. For more podcasts on how to build better Boards, join us at www.boardsnetwork.com and follow us on Twitter @boardsnetwork.