The worst board meetings are a founder reading slides aloud for two hours while the directors try to work out what they are being asked. A pre-read fixes this. If everyone has read the situation before they arrive, the meeting can start at the question.
What a board pre-read is
A board pre-read is a short written document, sent to directors ahead of the meeting, that covers where the company stands, the numbers against plan, and what the board needs to discuss or decide. It is meant to be read, alone, at a desk. That makes it different from the deck you present in the room, even if the content overlaps.
It is also different from the full board pack (or board book). The pack is everything: financial statements, last meeting's minutes, option grants to approve, committee reports, legal resolutions. The pre-read is the part a director reads first and remembers: the story and the decision. In a small company the pre-read and the pack can be the same document with an appendix.
A Sequoia-style structure
Sequoia's guide "Preparing a Board Deck", by partner Bryan Schreier, is the structure many early-stage boards still use. It was written for the first formal board meetings of a startup, and the guide says Dropbox kept the basic format even as a public company. It suggests these sections, with time for each in a meeting of about three hours:
| Section | Time | What goes in it |
|---|---|---|
| Big picture | 15 min | CEO update, highlights and lowlights since the last meeting, where the company needs help (hiring, customers, partnerships, product, marketing) |
| Calibration | 45-60 min | "Tell the story" of the company with the fewest correct metrics: financials and forecast, sales against targets, product engagement, customer experience |
| Company building | 30 min | Forward org chart, product roadmap, engineering, growth, marketing, business development; monthly waterfalls for revenue, burn, cash and headcount |
| Working session | 30 min per topic | One or two deep dives: a functional area, a large partnership, a business challenge |
| Closed session | 15 min | Feedback to founders, formalities, option grants |
Two lines from that guide are worth keeping in front of you. First, picking the fewest correct metrics is harder than adding chart after chart, and boards have been misled by companies that showed the wrong charts. Second, the best board material is built from the reports you already use to run the company, so there is little extra work each quarter.
The guide also notes that board decks do not have to be decks: some of its companies use Amazon-style written memos instead.
What to put in the pre-read
- The headline. One sentence on the state of the company, with a number. "ARR up 38%, churn still too high."
- Key numbers against plan. Revenue, net new revenue, burn, runway, plus the two or three metrics that drive your business. Every number next to its plan figure.
- Highlights and lowlights. Three of each. Lowlights stated plainly; the board will find them anyway.
- Where you need help. Specific: candidate names for a VP Sales search, introductions to named kinds of customer.
- The decision. One question for the meeting, with the options, your recommendation and what you need the board to approve.
- Appendix. Financial statements, the full metrics table, hiring plan. Linked, not inline.
When to send it
Sequoia's guide says to send board materials one to two days ahead and ask directors to study them, so the meeting is spent discussing. That is a minimum. Many boards, especially with independent directors or a large decision on the table, ask for three to five days, and a full board pack with financial statements often needs that long to read properly. A sensible rule:
- Routine quarter: two to three business days before.
- A big decision (a raise, a pricing change, a reorganisation, an acquisition): five days, and call each director before the meeting so nobody sees the proposal for the first time in the room.
- Never the night before. A pre-read nobody had time to read turns the meeting back into a presentation.
Whatever you choose, agree it with the board and keep it every quarter.
Build the meeting around one decision
Most of the pre-read is context. Its purpose is the decision. Frame it the way you would want it framed if you were a director:
- The question, in one line: "Should we raise prices for new customers from $149 to $199 a month in January?"
- Why now: the number that forces the question.
- The options, two or three, with what each costs and what it risks.
- Your recommendation and the reason.
- What you need: approval, a vote, or advice.
If there is no decision this quarter, say so, and use the working session for the hardest problem instead. A board that is asked for nothing gives generic advice. When the decision is the company's direction for the next year, write it up as a strategy memo and send it with the pre-read.
Common mistakes
- A different set of metrics every quarter.
- Numbers without the plan beside them.
- Thirty slides, no headline.
- The decision buried on page 14, or missing.
- Rebuilding the whole thing from scratch every quarter instead of updating last quarter's.
A template
The board pre-read template follows this structure on one page: the big picture as stat tiles against plan, highlights and lowlights as cards, where you need help, the calibration numbers in a table, and one decision with options. If your notes are in Obsidian, myone.page keeps it a note and shares it with each director as a link; a director can answer in the page itself, and the edit comes back to your note. For the monthly version for all investors, see how to write an investor update.