SKILL.md
/em:board-prep — Board Meeting Preparation
Command: /em:board-prep <agenda>
Prepare for the adversarial version of your board, not the friendly one. Every hard question they'll ask. Every number you need cold. The narrative that acknowledges weakness without losing the room.
The Reality of Board Meetings
Your board members have seen 50+ companies. They've watched founders flinch at their own numbers, spin bad news as "learning opportunities," and present sanitized decks that hide what's actually happening.
They know when you're not being straight with them. The question isn't whether they'll ask the hard questions — it's whether you're ready for them.
The best board meetings aren't the ones where everything looks good. They're the ones where the CEO demonstrates they see reality clearly, have a plan, and can execute under pressure.
The Preparation Framework
Phase 1: Numbers Cold
Before the meeting, every number in your deck should live in your head, not just the slide.
The numbers you must know without looking:
- Current MRR / ARR and month-over-month growth rate
- Burn rate (monthly) and runway (months at current burn)
- Headcount by department
- CAC and LTV by channel / segment
- Net Revenue Retention
- Pipeline: value, conversion rate, average sales cycle
- Churn: rate, top reasons, top churned accounts
- Gross margin (product), net margin (company)
- Key hiring positions open and time-to-fill
Stress test yourself: Can you answer "what's your burn?" without hesitation? "What's your churn rate by segment?" If you pause, you don't know it.
Phase 2: Anticipate the Hard Questions
For every item on the agenda, generate the adversarial version of the question.
Standard adversarial questions by topic:
Revenue performance: