Boards are an inevitable part of the startup journey. Your decisions in the early stages of your startup around your cap table and your board structure will persist and have implications throughout the life of your company.

Chang Xu will share her experience from sitting on and observing a number of startup boards as well as give advice for how you can set up your board for success. She will dive into topics such as:-- What does a board do?-- What is it useful for and what is it not?-- What rights do they have?-- When do you form a board and is it ever too early?-- What are the benefits vs. tradeoffs?-- Should you give an investor a board seat and how do you choose your first investor board member?-- How do boards evolve over more rounds of financing?-- How does your relationship with your board change?-- How do your rights with respect to your board change?-- What are the features of a well-functioning board vs. a dysfunctional board?-- What precipitates the latter and how do you avoid it?

BioChang Xu is a venture partner at Basis Set Ventures, a $140M seed fund that invests in AI and the future of work. She previously spent three years at Upfront Ventures, the oldest and largest SoCal-based early stage venture capital firm with $2B in AUM. Prior to joining Upfront, she was a founder and an operator. She was the first Product Manager at the Minerva Project. She co-founded and was the COO of Onion Math, an ed-tech startup in China that has raised $90M to-date. She started her career at BCG where she advised clients across technology, retail, healthcare and private equity. She holds an MBA and AB in Applied Math and Computer Science, both from Harvard.

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