Customer Advisory Boards
By Jasmine and 3 others4 authors21 articles
- We started to build our CAB and some of the people we reach out to ask if there is equity involved. What are the best practices around it? If the advisor worth it, what are the normal equity if any?
- CAB Resources
- What is the Customer Advisory Board (CAB) and how did you reach out to the people on your list?
- I have CAB leads asking “what is the overall time commitment?” Still thinking about our format, but leaning towards a 12 month period w/ individual bi-weekly calls, an “online forum” with some “hangout” discussions based on certain milestones.
- Is there documentation of the CAB process after securing their interest?
- Getting pricing push back from a CAB prospect that our price is too high. I feel he is just haggling&it's possible to end up ~$5 PEPM. Worried low PEPM when projecting it for the fully featured GA product to be $10 will look bad to investors.
- I had a potential CAB member ask for what % he’d be getting instead of just amount of shares. did people actually share this knowing it was pretty low?
- We're about to start recruiting for our CAB. Alchemist materials say offering a small amount of stock, like 200 shares is optional. If we don't offer that inducement in our opening letter, what do we expect is "in it for them" to join our advisory board?
- In terms of CAB, would it be weird to approach more than one executive of a big corp?
- How do you “officially” get someone on the CAB? Any agreements to sign or is it just verbal good faith thing?
- We sent out 200 invitations for the CAB; have 54 responses. Should we start multiple CABs so people don’t feel like we let EVERYONE in, or should we push people out?
- Regarding sending email sequences for CAB invites. Did I hear a coach say Don't send HTML emails?
- What is the best way to keep potential customers interested in our product/service if we're unable to convert our CAB to sales?
- What do you offer to the high-level decision makers in your CAB? What are their feedback on number of shares?
- We have a CAB member that wasn't involved in a pilot with his company but with another one. He's doing referrals for me and I'm not sure if I do the contract and how is he involved in the process. Should he be in the sales process at all?
- We have a CAB underway (using the Advisor Template) and they're asking if we have documentation that this falls under an 83(b) election w/ respect to IRS requirements so that their accountant can submit that. Any suggestions?
- Concerning CAB, what do you usually do if a person replies that it would be a potential conflict of interest with them advising us on a product/service that could create a benefit to competitors?
- Any experience with a non-performing CAB advisor? We had one who did not perform according to the contract so we won't be proceeding in giving them any equity. Is there a standard "format" to be used?
- Do you know how a VC would react to a company that has dozens of CAB members on the cap table? Could this create logistics/regulatory nightmare later?
- Customer Advisory Board Frequently Asked Questions
- How should we approach Customer Advisory Board (CAB) members who don’t want to engage in sales?