Starboard is a community of experienced startup people focussed on making startup boards better

How our journey began

Starboard was founded on the belief that startup boards have immense potential to help founders build transformational companies, yet too many founders, investors and execs complain their boards are ineffective or even value-destroying.

After seeing the same issues play out over and over again, a group of experienced startup founders, operators and investors decided to something about it.

Who started Starboard

Chris Morton

Starboard was founded by Chris Morton in 2024.

Chris was formerly the founder/CEO of Lyst, a fashion data platform with over 200m annual users which raised $200m from investors including Accel, Balderton and Fidelity International.

Chris was also the first Independent Board Director at Depop, from Series B until its sale to Etsy for $1.65Bn.

 FAQs

  • Starboard is free to use for startup founders, operators and investors.

  • Our community is passionate about making startup boards better, so more transformational companies are built while improving the mental health of founders, operators and investors alike.

  • We’re focussing on the UK & Europe at first, as that’s where we believe the biggest opportunity for improvement is; however this resource is for founders and board directors globally.

  • We don’t do recruitment, but we occasionally help founders looking to grow their startup’s boards by sharing their roles with our community of startup board directors. If you’re interested, contact us here.