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Alternative · Advisory Board

An alternative to an advisory board,
before you have one

Real advisors bring judgment, network and reputational accountability. Until you have them — and between their meetings — the alternative to an advisory board is a board of opposed AI experts you can convene tonight.

In short

No. Real advisors bring introductions, network, reputational accountability and a named person behind the recommendation. SynthBoard cannot. Use it as the stress-test before the advisor meeting, so they see your sharpest thinking, not your first.

Last reviewed

An example

One ask, start to finish.
What comes back is a memo.

How a board takes a call like this: her read, who sits, what they ask first, then the call — with how sure they are, who disagreed and the first step.

Advisory Board

Example · Board of 3

Should we raise our seed round at the higher valuation that comes with the worse investor?

Chief of staff

This one needs a board: The Strategist, The CFO and The Investor. The Strategist maps competitive dynamics and strategic options across multi-year horizons. Each researches alone first, then they react to one another — and on a decision, two of them take opposed sides.

  • The StrategistCompetitive Expert
  • The CFOFinancial Controller
  • The InvestorVC Partner

Asked first

Has a competitor already made this move?

Yes, one hasNot that I knowWe’d be first

The board’s call

Take the higher valuation, but only if you secure board observer rights from the lower-quality investor and an A-round commitment letter from a top-tier syndicate partner.

Valuation today is less load-bearing than lead-investor signal at the A. Observer-only structure protects the cap table without the governance risk.

Confidence75 · High

The Investor disagreed

“Board governance gets messy fast — get a venture lawyer to draft the observer terms”

First step Test what The Investor flagged before you commit.this week

Board of 3 · up to 135 credits on the card · an example, not a recorded run

Other asks people bring here

Several asks in one message become several rooms, each with its expert and its own price on the card. Keep or drop any, then convene them together.

  • What are the watch-outs on our pivot from B2C to B2B-first? — The CFO, up to 85 credits
  • How would a thoughtful advisory board sequence our hiring plan against runway? — The Investor, up to 85 credits
  • What is the steel-man case against the partnership our biggest customer is asking for? — The Customer, up to 85 credits

What you get

What she handles.
On this kind of call.

An advisory board, proposed for you

The Strategist, The CFO, The Investor, The Customer and The Skeptic, from 24 named experts. How many seats a board has depends on your plan.

Disagreement by design

On a decision, at least two experts are assigned opposed positions. You see the dissent, the risks and the memo’s confidence — not a polite single-voice answer.

A memo you can share

Every board ends with a written memo you can send to your real advisors or co-founders. A board’s memo shares as a page anyone can read without an account.

Why SynthBoard

Why SynthBoard for this.
Not one voice. A board.

Convened tonight

Real advisory boards take months to recruit. Tell your Chief of Staff the question; a board lands in about 6–10 minutes.

No equity, no retainer

A board shows its price on the card before it runs — up to 135 credits for a 3-seat board on Free — and a board never bills above its card. A typical advisor takes 0.25%–1% equity over four years.

Meets when you have a call

Real boards meet four to twelve times a year. A board here meets whenever you have a decision worth running — and nothing runs until you tap.

Confidence that drops with dissent

Real advisors are diplomatic by training. Here the memo’s confidence drops with dissent and is never rated above 90.

Who sits

The experts for this call.
Each one holds a position.

Your Chief of Staff proposes who sits for the call, and every board is built with someone whose job is to argue against the obvious answer. Name an expert and they take a seat; tell her who you want on your board and they sit by default. How many seats a board has depends on your plan.

Pick an expert

Hover, tap or tab throughSwipe, then tap one
  • GPT
  • Claude
  • Gemini
  • Grok

Seats are spread across model families: GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and more.

In their words

The best advisory boards are not for the advice — they are for the moment a name says "I will back this." SynthBoard is for everything else.
The Investor VC PartnerThe Investor on what real advisory boards are actually for

Questions

Fair questions.
Straight answers.

What people ask before they bring this call to a board.

Does SynthBoard replace a human advisory board?

No. Real advisors bring introductions, network, reputational accountability and a named person behind the recommendation. SynthBoard cannot. Use it as the stress-test before the advisor meeting, so they see your sharpest thinking, not your first.

When is SynthBoard better than a human advisory board?

When you need an answer tonight, when you cannot assemble the room, when the decision is too small to spend advisor goodwill on, or when equity is too expensive to give before product-market fit.

When is a real advisory board still the right answer?

When you need introductions. When you need a named human to stake their reputation on the call. When the relationship itself is the point. SynthBoard is a thinking room; an advisory board is a relationship network.

How does the price compare?

SynthBoard costs credits, not equity. Free to start — 150 credits every month + 250 to start. Talking to your Chief of Staff costs nothing. A board shows its price on the card before it runs — up to 135 credits for a 3-seat board on Free — and a board never bills above its card. Paid plans are $20, $50 or $99 a month (1 credit = $0.01 USD). A typical advisor expects 0.25%–1% equity over four years, plus expenses.

What does SynthBoard NOT do that an advisory board does?

No introductions, no warm intros to investors or customers, no reputational accountability, no lived industry anecdotes. Its experts are AI and can be wrong. SynthBoard is a structured board; an advisory board is a relationship asset.

Can I bring real advisors into a SynthBoard board?

Not into the room — there is no shared team workspace. A board’s memo shares as a page anyone can read without an account. Send your advisors the memo with the call, the dissent and the risks, and spend their time on the judgment only they can give.

SynthBoard (synthboard.ai) is one place for your business, your life, and every hard call. Your Chief of Staff keeps what you tell her on file, and 24 named experts on different AI models take the calls — one expert for a consult, a board with opposed seats for the hard ones — and hand back a memo with the call, the dissent and the first move. How it works.

A different mechanic for the same hard call.
Start free, with one message.

It waits in her box after you sign up. Nothing is sent until you press send. Tell your Chief of Staff the call. She proposes who sits from 24 named experts, and nothing runs until you tap. Free to start. No card.