Especially for first time founders, not inviting an investor to sit on your board when you raise is a mistake. I can speak from personal experience here. The many upsides of an outside board member (mentorship, a cadence to the business, outside perspective, pattern recognition, real investor buy-in) outweigh the few downsides (loss of control, investment of time in board management).
It's an especially insidious mistake for founders, because not giving up control (i.e. not giving up any board seats) seems like a victory during fundraising, and you only see the downsides when things start to turn sour.
What's missing from this article is a way to distinguish bad board members from good ones. The same goes for shareholders (founders, angel investors and VCs). One bad one can cause you a ton of trouble and take attention away from the day-to-day running of the business when it matters most.
It's an especially insidious mistake for founders, because not giving up control (i.e. not giving up any board seats) seems like a victory during fundraising, and you only see the downsides when things start to turn sour.
Here's another great post about the value of outside board members: http://allthingsd.com/20130927/the-value-of-a-board-at-the-s...