You're Missing a Team You Don't Know You Need.

Early in building my first software company, Shoutlet, I did something most founders never do. I picked up the phone and called people I had no business calling. A VP at Twitter. An SVP from Google. A CRO from Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

I expected to get ignored. Instead, they said yes.

I was building my first Product Advisory Board (PAB). It is the most powerful strategic move a growth-stage software company can make.

I know because mine changed everything.

These weren't just names on a slide deck. They became our secret weapon. They gave us an unfiltered inside look at where our industry was actually going, not the version everyone was reading about in TechCrunch. They helped us see around corners our competitors couldn't see. And they did something I never expected.

They went to bat for us.

Early API access from platforms that were saying no to everyone else. Warm introductions to enterprise customers we couldn't have reached through cold outreach in a decade. Media quotes from industry titans that helped us land coverage in Forbes, USA Today, and more.

They created unfair advantages. Completely legally. Just by being in the room.

It worked so well I built a PAB at my next company. Then the one after that. Different industries. Different stages. Same result every time. The right advisors, structured correctly and given a real seat at the table, change the trajectory of a company.

A Product Advisory Board is a growth engine. The right people, meeting with real structure and a real agenda, given real access to your product roadmap. In return, you get honest perspective no internal team can give you, introductions you could not make on your own, and advocates who carry your flag into rooms you have not entered yet.

Almost no growth-stage software company has one.

That is a wide open lane.

I learned a lot building my first PAB. What to do, what not to do. Do you pay them? Give them equity? How many meetings per year? What does a real agenda look like?

If you want to talk about building one for your company, DM me and we'll talk.