Alternative · Board of Directors

An alternative to a board of directors
for the days between meetings

A board of directors carries fiduciary duty and a quarterly cadence. There is no alternative to a board of directors for governance — but between meetings, SynthBoard runs the argument, so the call you bring is your best thinking, not your first.

Start free See how it works

In short

No, and it cannot. A board of directors carries fiduciary duty, legal accountability and governance authority that SynthBoard does not and should not have. Use SynthBoard between meetings, to sharpen the call before you bring it to your fiduciary board.

Last reviewed October 1, 2026

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.

Board of Directors

Example · Board of 3

How should I frame the runway question for the board next week?

Chief of staff

This one needs a board: The CEO, The CFO and The Investor. The CEO holds the through-line on company strategy and stakeholder trade-offs. Each researches alone first, then they react to one another — and on a decision, two of them take opposed sides.

The CEOChief Executive Officer
The CFOFinancial Controller
The InvestorVC Partner

Asked first

If you could do only one thing this quarter, is this it?

YesOne of twoProbably not

The board’s call

Bring the runway question to the board with a 2-option frame: 12-month bridge round at flat valuation or 18-month cost-out plan that defers the round.

A 2-option frame respects board governance; a single-option pitch invites pushback. The bridge protects optionality on the next round timing.

Confidence73 · Moderate

The Investor disagreed

“Existing-investor bridge can suppress next-round valuation — model the dilution carefully”

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 is the steel-man case against the new product line we are about to commit to? — The CFO, up to 85 credits
How would a thoughtful board sequence the executive hires against our budget? — The Investor, up to 85 credits
Is the CEO succession plan I am drafting realistic? — The Strategist, up to 85 credits

What you get

What she handles.
On this kind of call.

A board-shaped panel on tap

The CEO, The CFO, The Investor, The Strategist and The Skeptic — the room your board would convene if assembling it took no days at all.

The pre-board stress-test

Walk in with the memo: the call, the risks, who disagreed and why, and the memo’s confidence. Save the boardroom for the harder judgment calls.

A room for the calls between meetings

For decisions that arrive between quarterly meetings and cannot wait. Run them past a board of experts and keep the rationale on file.

Why SynthBoard

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

There between quarters

Boards meet four to twelve times a year. SynthBoard is the room for the other 350 days.

One number on the card

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. Independent director pay typically runs $30k–$150k+ a year per seat.

Opposed by design

Directors are diplomatic with the CEO by habit. On a decision, at least two experts are assigned opposed positions, and the memo’s confidence drops with dissent.

The board’s call

Bring the runway question to the board with a 2-option frame: 12-month bridge round at flat valuation or…

Confidence73 · Moderate

What would flip it

Cost-out plan needs HR sign-off before the board meeting, not after.

The Investor disagreed

Existing-investor bridge can suppress next-round valuation — model the dilution carefully.

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

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.

Chief Executive Officer

The CEO

Everything on this list is important. That’s the problem. Pick one, and say no to the rest.

The CEO Chief Executive Officer

Best on: Trade-offs between teams, priorities, and what to stop doing.
Won’t let you: Keep every option open until none of them is real.

Try asking The CEO

Start with

The CEOOpen on every plan, Free included

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 board meeting is the wrong place to think out loud. Do the thinking first; arrive with the memo.

The CEO Chief Executive OfficerThe CEO on board-meeting preparation

Questions

Fair questions.
Straight answers.

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

Does SynthBoard replace a board of directors?

When is SynthBoard useful alongside a real board?

Before a board meeting, to stress-test your framing. Between meetings, for calls that cannot wait. After meetings, to work through what the board left you with. The board of experts is the rehearsal room; your real board is the performance.

When is a real board of directors irreplaceable?

For governance, legal accountability, CEO succession and any decision that needs a fiduciary record. For investor signalling and the relationships that come with named directors. SynthBoard is a thinking room; a board is a governance structure.

How does the price compare?

They are not substitutes, and the costs show it. 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). Independent director pay typically runs $30k–$150k a year per seat at venture-backed companies, more at public ones.

What does SynthBoard NOT do that a board of directors does?

No fiduciary authority, no governance decisions, no CEO hire-or-fire, no audit committee work, no filings, no legal accountability. SynthBoard is a thinking room for the CEO and the exec team, not a governance body.

Can I bring SynthBoard output into a board meeting?

Yes, and it makes the meeting denser. Share the memo as a pre-read so directors arrive with the analysis absorbed, and spend the hour on the calls that need human governance.

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.