Hanging with #Paid: My first 6 months as a first-time startup advisory board member
Word up, friends. It’s Sunday blog post time. Today I wanted to share a little bit about my experiences as a first-time startup advisory board member with #Paid.
My goals are to help other new advisors think about ways of adding value to the companies they’re working with, and to help the founders amongst you get the most out of your advisory boards.
Are you sitting comfortably? Let’s begin…
First things first: A little bit about #Paid
#Paid is all about connecting brands with influencers who are popular on Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat and Pinterest. As a brand, you get to search for influencers that line up with your goals and budget. Then, you connect directly with the influencers you’ve picked to create your campaign.
Think of it as a post-millennial product placement platform for a world where the definition of “famous” has been forever disrupted by social.
(If you doubt this to be true, find a 15 year old and ask them who they think is famous. Lists of people defined as celebrities by this demographic are just as likely to include Vine stars and Snapchatters as musicians or movie stars.
#Paid is located at the DMZ, Canada’s top breeding ground for killer startups. The platform they’re building to support their mission is very slick, and they’re already partnering with amazing brands like AirBnB and Frank & Oak.
Next: Why I’m on the #Paid advisory board
“Because they asked me.”
Actually, that’s not entirely true. I told co-founder Bryan Gold that I would love to be on their board if there was an opportunity. And he invited me!
I met Bryan in London, Ontario about 18 months ago. I was facilitating a Startup Weekend event, and he was there as a participant, pitching an entirely different project. We hit it off straight away — Bryan is smart, humble and isn’t afraid to ask lots of questions.
So reason number one was pretty much the fact that I already liked Bryan, and respected his deal as a person. We stayed in touch, and when I heard about #Paid I knew that I wanted to be involved.
Working with people that you like, trust and communicate well with is key to relationships of all kinds. An entrepreneur/advisor relationship is no different.
The other main factors I considered were:
- What can I bring to the table?
This wasn’t something I approached casually. I wanted to make sure I had something useful to offer.
For the first couple of years of my career a huge part of my job was advocating for investment in social media. I’ve worked with clients and internal stakeholders to educate decision makers about why social media is like, really really important and useful. That means I’ve been in the types of roles that are now held by #Paid’s target customers.
I also get to interact with lots of startups through my work with TWG. Mostly this focusses on entrepreneurial capacity building for Toronto at a community level through programs like Startup Next. Working with a broad range of startups at varying stages (and alongside people who have been-there-done-that) means I get to see patterns. Mistakes people make, roadblocks everyone experiences, strategies for success. These are learnings I can feed back into #Paid.
I’m also a diehard believer in the power of a strong network. Relationship building and strategic communications are core to my professional practice. I figured there might be some cool opportunities to put that to work in an advisory context.
- Does the team know what they’re talking about?
The #Paid team knows their space inside out. One of the most compelling things about the company is that they have deep and genuine relationships with influencers. Last time I hung out with the #Paid team, Chris Carmichael, one of the first viral Snapchat stars, was crashing on the floor of Bryan’s apartment. Max, #Paid’s Head of Talent, is an Instagram influencer in her own right, as are others on their team.
Domain expertise is a key factor in what makes a company successful. This expertise means they can advocate for their influencers when working with brands. In turn, this means that campaigns end up hitting the mark for everyone involved.
- Does this idea have potential?
Tools-for-social-media is an unwieldy, crowded space. But it’s also a big and growing pie (the best kind of pie if you want a slice). There’s a reason why YCombinator lists Hollywood 2.0 as one of the spaces they’re particularly interested in. Niche, #Paid’s vine-first competitor/comparable, got acquired by Twitter earlier this year, so it’s clear there’s interest in these types of companies.
There’s a few different trends at play here that I can see: The shift away from Facebook as the dominant social communications platform towards Instagram and other networks. The post-millennial understanding of fame and celebrity. The ongoing rise of authentic, meaningful product placement as part of the consumer marketing mix.
If I was promoting a consumer-facing brand that cared about getting teens and young adults excited about their products, damn straight I’d be interested in experimenting with #Paid. It’s a very easy company for me to recommend, and I think that’s a good sign.
A few examples of things I’m doing for #Paid (and where I could be doing better).
- Hooking up publicity opportunities: #Paid appeared on Dragon’s Den after I told the producer they’d be a good fit for the show. They also pitched at TWG’s last Decoded Fashion event because I knew it would work for the audience there.
Sidenote: Decoded Fashion returns to Toronto on Thursday, September 24. Join us if you’d like to get some customer engagement tips from Roots Canada, Joe Fresh and Sampler
- Introductions: In person at networking events and via email
- Writing/editing support: The #Paid team is in the process of ramping up their content marketing activities. So in addition to writing this post, I’m making myself available for editing support, content ideas etc.
One of the other things I really wanted to do was to get all of the other advisory board members together to brainstorm some ideas. Not only did it seem like that would that be a cool networking opportunity, I also like the idea of combining our brainpower to see what ideas we could come up with.
This hasn’t happened yet. Which brings me to my main failing as a startup advisor: Lack of time.
(It’s also been about 9 weeks since I suggested writing this blog post. #Fail.)
I don’t really believe in “busy.” We all make choices about how to best spend our time. There’s only so many hours in a day, days in a year, years in a life and so on. It’s up to us as individuals to figure out what to do with that time.
But I’m also aware that between a fun and engaging full-time gig with a team I really love, launching my own business, and a strong commitment to making time for the important people in my life, the days can fill up pretty damn fast.
Making sure I contribute effectively as an advisor is, of course, on me. Setting time aside to think about #Paid is proving to be critical. In general, having a military-style approach to my calendar keeps me (mostly) productive, effective and sane.
On the advisor side, it’s important to be realistic, open and communicative about your bandwidth and how you can best contribute. I also think it’s on us to coach the entrepreneurs to work with on the best way to get value out of our involvement.
So, finally: Some advice for founders on making the most of your advisory board
Here’s a few tips for getting the most from your advisory board based on what I’ve learned in the last few months.
- Your advisors really want to help you. Let them. For me, quick requests via text or GChat for advice or introductions is a great way to get my brain on a particular problem.
- Empower your team to leverage your board. Connect your advisors with relevant people on your team that could benefit from their experience or network. Let your team know that it’s fine to bug them, respectfully, about whatever.
- When you’re putting your board together, think carefully about how each person can contribute, and their ability to do so. If someone is deep in the trenches of building their own company, it might be hard for them to help you, even if they have experience that makes them seem like a perfect fit. Establish what you want from the relationship early on.
And this is the big one…
- Keep your advisors in the loop. Things move fast when you are in the early stages of starting a company. Obviously. If you’re meeting with an advisor, say, once a month, things could have changed so much in your world that contextualizing your challenges can end up taking way too much time.
Your advisors will do better for you when they truly understand what’s what in your business.
Include them in your shareholder/investor updates. Encourage new team members to reach out and introduce themselves. CC/BCC them on relevant emails. Add them to your company Slack channel. Let them know what your priorities are, and what they should be thinking about when they’re out there speaking to people on your behalf. The more you can do, efficiently, to include them, the more you’ll get out of the relationship.
That’s it from me. I hope you found this post useful or at least interesting to read. What are your top tips for advisory board members, or founders looking to get the most out of their board? Do you disagree with anything I’ve suggested? I’d love to hear your thoughts so please feel free to leave a comment.
#paid connects brands with influencers on Instagram and Twitter. Get in touch if you’d like an introduction, or to talk about anything else here you found interesting.
#Paid’s “credit card” business cards. Shared here to close things out because I think they’re great.
