The actual business of running the start-up is similar to what you do day-to-day: cash management, setting business / personal priorities, trying to balance short term deliverables with longer term vision / value creation.

The three “missing” items I listed can be charitably described as providing the executive habittrail in the startup world. On a shockingly frequent cycle, the company founders / execs must spend a rather large amount of energy to continue to convince a panel of judges that they are
1. competent to continue running the company
2. have Kreskin like powers to accurately predict technical progress, market adoption, and foreign currency exchange rates for the next 36 months down to the penny

The board of directors can and should provide helpful guidance as well as access to useful contacts outside the company. Preparing for board meetings forces the company executives to review the company’s activities and cash balance on a regular basis which is a good thing.

Unfortunately, the process of keeping the Board happy can easily get confused with the process of actually running the company. A company which notionally designs, manufactures, and sells a new, high-tech product should be focusing its marketing energy on those customers to develop and grow a sustainable business. For most start-ups, however, a large part of the marketing energy is directed towards securing additional investment funds instead. Capital is useful stuff and organic growth is rarely sufficiently rapid to satisfy either the founding entrepreneurs or the investment syndicate. Sadly, a significant percentage of the investment funds get spent on raising more investment funds in one form or another.

On the plus side, I’ve become quite adept at running on the hamster wheel and the food pellets we get as rewards at the end of the maze are actually pretty damn tasty. If you’ll excuse me, I have a 200 page business plan to edit.