{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Startup CPG Podcast","title":"#247 - How to Build a Board with Seth Goldman, JUST ICE Tea ","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2890,"description":"\nIn this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, host Daniel Scharff sits down with Seth Goldman—co-founder of Honest Tea, co-founder and CEO of Just Ice Tea, and one of the most experienced board members in the CPG space, having served as chair of Beyond Meat, Plant Burger, and Mission Guardians of Tony's Chocolonely—to answer the questions most founders never get a straight answer on: When do you actually need a board? Who should be on it? How do you manage it? And how do you protect yourself?\n\nSeth walks through every stage of the board journey—from the friends-and-family raise where you probably don't need one yet, to the angel round where you do, to the institutional raise where investors will ask for seats and you need to know how to vet them back. He shares the story of a would-be investor he turned away after learning they wanted management options to install their own CEO, how he recruited legends like Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield and Jeff Swartz of Timberland to an Honest Tea board when the company was doing a few million in sales, and why splitting your lead investment between two partners isn't just smart—it's protective.\n\nDaniel and Seth also dig into what makes a board meeting actually useful, how to avoid the nightmare scenario of surprising your board with bad news in the room, why diversity of opinion matters more than cheerleaders, and what it looks like to navigate a CEO transition as a board member. Plus: Seth's advice on how to position yourself if you want to become a board member someday—and the unsexy pallet configuration insight that saved Just Ice Tea hundreds of thousands of dollars.\n\nTogether, they cover:\nWhen you actually need a board—and when you don'tHow to vet investors who want board seats before you say yesHow Seth recruited Gary Hirshberg and Jeff Swartz to the Honest Tea boardBoard composition: why you want A players, former CEOs, and real diversity of thoughtCompensation: options, terms, vesting, and the 1% rule of thumbThe \"nose...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/pMuUaMpWaAi3tfCEgC2OkLBVzokuLjLsIzwDIbGFqi4/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9hMTFl/MTgxNTNlZTAwZjU1/ZmNmNWM1ZjkwMDg5/NTU4MS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}