We all know that founders face an array of operational challenges as they start, grow and scale. Dealing with those and the added leadership and management challenges in the transition to CEO and Director can add significant strain, and enhances the potential for startup failure.

But that doesn’t have to be the case. Needing to have a Board is the reality for scaling businesses, and contrary to views of many that they’re just a reporting burden, the best ones deliver value far beyond that which a founder can often imagine.

A well-structured and managed Board can help a founder to gain insight, knowledge and expertise, see around corners they don’t even know exist, and navigate through the challenging times that the future is sure to bring. When you understand the power of this relationship, you can amplify your trajectory, and better position your startup to be on the path towards the successful business we’re all aiming for.

If you want to understand how to build and manage your Board for success, our Startup Board Course is for you. The Course covers the essential pillars to support founders and VC/ecosystem professionals to build, manage and/or contribute to a Startup Board that has great impact.

The Course covers:

1. Board Foundations to set yourself up for success: including why you need a Board, your legal duties and responsibilities, and how responsibilities tend to be split between Founders/the Management Team and the Board;

2. MVP Director Capabilities to ensure you have the skills you need to go from Founder to CEO/Director: including your essential financial literacy and reporting skills, as well as how managing Growth (Strategy) and Risk can be supported by your Board in line with your commercialisation stage;

3. 101 of Building & Managing your Board for great execution: offering a Board Roadmap from concept all the way through to IPO/exit to understand who you might need and when, plus a series of How-to’s on all the elements you need to run your Board successfully.

The Course also includes a number of highly practical and useful templates that you can immediately utilise and make your own to build and amplify your Board Meetings, practice and engagement, including:

• Startup Board Charter;

• ‘Inspired’ Code of Conduct;

• Director Job Description;

• Board Skills/Attributes Matrix;

• Risk Register;

• Board Agenda, with matching Board Minutes, and more.

This Course will both equip and inspire you to create and manage the board that will support you and your venture towards your vision.

At the conclusion of this Course, including the live learning Cohort experience, you can expect to:

• Understand the foundations you need to set your board up for success and be able to implement them immediately;

• Have a better understanding of how the board can support you as a founder and management team;

• Know what you need to deliver to the board, as well as when and how, with an eye on best practice and right-sizing for your startup’s stage;

• Feel more confident about your obligations as a director and how they apply in real life scenarios where the nuance, pressure and risk is real;

• Feel more confident and equipped to develop, analyse, sense check and deliver your startup’s performance reporting across financials, strategy and risks, enhancing your ability to lead your startup and generate success;

• Know your preliminary desired composition of your board or your next steps on who you might need and when, according to your startup’s stage;

• Understand the foundations of great relationships and how this can help you to foster a supportive board from the outset, ensuring that your investors will not only back you once, but keep backing you (the best);

• Develop and enhance your personal acumen, skills and confidence for positive board interactions;

• And having the opportunity to cultivate all of this live with your co-founders and management team for maximum efficiency, collective learning and upleveling, and impact, plus more.

Here’s what some of the founders had to say about the Course:

'Thank you, it's been a really good experience. I studied Law a very long time ago [and Directors’ Duties] .. and they scared me at the time and they still scare me adequately now ... but this process has demystified and increased my confidence around that.'

‘Thank you so much ... the Course has been really fantastic... all the resources particularly outside of the actual 2-hour windows that we had are really, really good, and I've been trying to make sure I've got them stashed somewhere so I can keep going back to them as I get things setup with what I am doing.’

'I got lots out of it, I thought it was a really great course. Some validation for me from one of our Board Directors who said they'd seen an improvement over a short period of time, in the last few weeks, just in terms of how I am engaging in that space, so that was nice to hear and [the Course definitely] contributed to [that].'

'The real-world application of what we're trying to learn is definitely the way that I learn best, and that was super beneficial...'

'We had some really valuable conversations as a Team around what does that ideal first Board look like, who would be in there, what would they bring - that was really quite valuable for me. I enjoyed the Course.'

The Startup Board Course runs over 5 weeks - we meet online every Wednesday, 12pm - 2pm, for a practical and impactful working lunch session.

The Course and live sessions are structured as follows:

• Week 1: Opening Session to set the space, go through how the Course will be facilitated, introduce ourselves and start to get to know each other, and share what it is that you want to get out of the Course. Facilitated by Ashleigh Camm;

  Ahead of the first In-Practice Session the following week, watch Module 1 Theory Session: Board Foundations (c. 2 hours)

• Week 2: Module 1 In-Practice Session: Board Foundations. Facilitated by Ashleigh Camm, plus a LUNA Legal expert.

  Ahead of the In-Practice Session the following week, watch Module 2 Theory Session: MVP Director Capabilities (1 - 2 hours)

• Week 3: Module 2 In-Practice Session: MVP Director Capabilities. Facilitated by Ashleigh Camm, plus a LUNA Accounting expert.

  Ahead of the In-Practice Session the following week, watch Module 3 Theory Session: 101 of Building & Managing your Board (1 - 2 hours)

• Week 4: Module 3 In-Practice Session: 101 of Building & Managing your Board. Facilitated by Ashleigh Camm, plus a LUNA Legal expert.

• Week 5: Closing Session to reflect on learnings, progress to date, and set next steps. Facilitated by Ashleigh Camm.

All live sessions are run like a Board Meeting and designed to enhance applicable learning, ensuring that the time we spend in sessions is directly useful to your startup and what you need to develop in relation to your Board. For example, we will spend time each week supporting you to tailor a particular template for your startup (such as the Startup Board Charter), so that you can adopt it in your next Board Meeting! Our sessions aim to be that practical.

While we take a ‘Chatham House Rules’ approach to our time together, due to the confidential nature of the discussions that will naturally take place, we ask that you agree to our Course Code at the outset, to ensure we all understand the expectations of being in the Course and can respect each other’s privacy and confidentiality obligations. You’ll find the Course Code once you sign up for the Course, and if you are concerned about this prior to signing up, please get in touch with us.

During 2024, LUNA will run four Cohort intakes over:

• 27 March - 24 April;

• 5 June - 3 July;

• 14 August - 11 September; and,

• 6 November - 4 December.

Each Cohort is limited to a maximum of 20 people to ensure all those joining us have the ability to engage and contribute in sessions.

It is imperative that you are available for these live session times as they will not be recorded nor re-scheduled to a different date/time.

If you are not able to join these Cohort dates and would like to participate in the live learning, please get in touch. We are able to run Cohorts at other times for a minimum of 8 - 10 participants.

Investment:

Company: $3,500, including GST | Purchase here

Founder: $2,750, including GST | Purchase here

Self-paced content-only: $1,990, including GST | Purchase here

What does this include?

Company:

• Access to the recorded Theory Sessions of Modules 1 - 3 and the Course’s best practice templates (including any updates to these) for your startup Company forever*. Our best practice templates can be utilised immediately, such as a Startup Board Charter, a Board Agenda and matching Minutes, and more;

• Two employees able to join one of our Startup Board Course Cohorts run over 5 weeks, with live In-Practice Sessions to compliment each Module for team-orientated applied learning, Q&A, and more.

• A free 30-minute Office Hours Session with a LUNA Legal expert and a LUNA Accounting expert to assess your needs post the Cohort sessions and support you in your next steps.

• Lifetime* membership to our new Startup Board Course Professional Development Alumni Community, SOL. Think of SOL as a supportive peer community, engaging Sessions and AMAs 3 - 4 times a year with Startup CEOs, Directors and Investors, and special events, to support your development as a leader and your startup in its evolution.

• Lifetime* access to a dedicated Slack group to support Course and Cohort engagement, as well as ongoing SOL Alumni community engagement too.

• Additional Team Members from the same company can join the live Cohort learning for an additional $880, including GST, per person.

• Special discounts available from our partners and for future Startup Board Course Modules to come.

Register for the 2024 Cohorts - limited places available: Jun-24 | Aug-24 | Nov-24

If you are registering a place prior to paying for the Course, payment must be made in full asap after registering your place to ensure your place is confirmed.

Please separately register all from your Company who wish to attend to ensure their place is confirmed^.

Founder:

The Founder Investment includes all of the above, with the exception of including only one employee able to join one of our Startup Board Course Cohorts run over 5 weeks.

Register for the 2024 Cohorts - limited places available: Jun-24 | Aug-24 | Nov-24

If you are registering a place prior to paying for the Course, payment must be made in full asap after registering your place to ensure your place is confirmed.

Self-paced content-only:

The Self-paced content-only version includes access to the recorded Theory Sessions of Modules 1 - 3 and the Course’s best practice templates (including any updates to these) for your startup Company forever*, and without access to the Cohort live learning sessions, Office Hours, Slack group, SOL Alumni Community or special discounts on future Modules.

Purchase the Self-paced content-only option here

*Forever for your Company entity (one) only, and for as long as the Course lives for (which we expect to be forever in the foreseeable future).

^It may be the case that the cohort sells out while you’re in the process of registering - if it appears not all of your team members can register via the link, please email us here to find a solution.

Introducing, SOL - LUNA’s Startup Board Course Professional Development Alumni Community.

We don’t want to just support you once. We want to support you and your startup to be everything your vision aspires to. To do that, your startup not only needs great fundamentals, but also great leaders, and SOL is here to support you and your team in your professional development as leaders of the future.

Think of SOL as a supportive peer community, engaging Sessions and AMAs 3 - 4 times a year with Startup CEOs, experienced directors and investors, and special events, to support you and your startup to thrive.

The Startup Board Course has been designed in collaboration with experts that have been in the early-stage trenches and the challenges of scaling, all the way through to those that have IPO’d into full-disclosure listed environments.

You will be supported by our Board Course Director, Ashleigh Camm, LUNA’s VP of Labs, alongside LUNA’s in-house Legal and Accounting experts. Find out more about all our Facilitators here. We will also be joined by special guests from time-to-time.

This course is suitable for all Founders who are building a growing startup. It will have the most impact on those taking on, or planning to, third party investment. Typically this could look like Founders who are pre-Series B, so that by the time you get to Series B, the way you run your Board, as well as your overall approach to governance, is in great shape.

The Course is also suitable for VC professionals to support them to understand their board obligations, and better understand the Founder to CEO/Director journey and what is involved on the company side to manage board obligations and meetings.

If you choose to jump into the Course Cohorts as opposed to self-paced, you will need to be able to ensure you can commit to around 1 - 2 hours of viewing time and 2 hours live per week (on Wednesday’s at 12pm) over 5 weeks.

The live In-Practice Sessions will not be recorded, so it is imperative that you can commit to coming to these as they are scheduled over the Course.

Part of our time together will include building practical resources for your startup that you can immediately implement post the sessions too, so your time is efficiently used.

See the scheduled Cohort dates above and if you are not able to join these Cohort dates and would like to participate in the live Cohort-based learning, please get in touch. We are able to run Cohorts at other times for a minimum of 8 - 10 participants.