Startups & Business › Building the Company

Startup Advisors

Experienced people who advise in exchange for a small amount of equity, and how to pick them.

Also known as: startup advisors, advisors, advisory shares

Advisors are experienced operators who help in exchange for a small equity grant (typically fractions of a percent, vesting over time). Good advisors compress years of mistakes into conversations: fundraising introductions, pricing sanity, hiring judgment, “don’t do what I did” stories. Bad ones collect logos for their bio and cost attention.

good advisor:  specific expertise you lack + time given + doors opened + tells you no
bad advisor:   generic wisdom + always busy + wants updates to brag about, gives nothing

Formalize with a short advisor agreement: scope, time expectation (a couple of hours monthly is plenty), vesting over ~2 years with no cliff games, and a trial period. Equity without vesting for advice is a gift to someone who may disappear.

The classic mistakes:

• Advisor collecting. Ten advisors, each 0.25%, none engaged — a messy cap table signaling desperation. Three engaged advisors beat twelve names.
• Paying cash-strapped equity for introductions. Intros are cheap to promise and often worthless. Grant equity for sustained help, thank with updates for intros.
• Advisors instead of customers. Advisor opinions about the market substitute too easily for customer evidence. Advisors advise; customers decide — weight accordingly.
• No vesting or end date. The advisor who helped twice in 2021 still owns part of the 2026 company. Vest monthly, keep terms short, renew deliberately.
• Celebrity advisors. Big names who never answer dilute focus and cap table alike. Relevance and responsiveness beat fame every time.

Find them through specific asks in founder communities, ex-operators in your space, and investors’ networks — one sharp question per meeting, follow up visibly on advice taken. See finding a mentor for the longer relationship version.