What Good Advisory Actually Looks Like

4 min read

The advisory market is bloated. Every person with a successful exit now offers advisory services. The problem is that having built one successful company doesn’t make you qualified to advise on another.

Good advisory serves a specific function: it fills gaps in founder knowledge in moments that actually matter. It’s the difference between learning by experimentation and learning from someone else’s scars. But advisory quality varies enormously, and most founder-advisor relationships deliver far less value than they should.

The best advisors share common characteristics: they’ve actually built something comparable to what you’re building, they have skin in the game (equity stake, not just cash), they respond when you reach out, and they tell you what you need to hear rather than what you want to hear.

The worst advisors offer opinions freely, rarely ask clarifying questions, and disappear when their wisdom turns out to be context-specific rather than universal. They were helpful for their business, maybe not for yours.

Choose advisors carefully. A small number of high-quality advisors is infinitely better than a large board of well-known names who rarely engage. And remember: advisory is a tool for decision-making, not a substitute for it. You still have to make the call.