Here’s a think that I see first time founders do, that I’m going to say “don’t do”, just because it will save you a lot of time, effort, and eventually money.
If you are a tiny business, you do not need an advisory board.
I think this behaviour pushed on founders through misplaced advice. If there are one, two of three of you in the business, and you are pre-revenue, you don’t need a BOARD, i.e. a committee that sits there and advises you on what to do.
There’s a simple reason for this – you don’t know what you’re doing yet, and having people who are in the business lobbing in advice once every few weeks when you get an hour of their time will slow you down and cost you equity that you should be preserving for the core team and first hires.
You should use advisors tactically – i.e. if you have a specific problem to solve then find someone to solve that specific problem. If that problem keeps coming up and you keep asking them, you’re using them strategically, and they should be a co-founder, not an advisor.