Laioutr is defining a software category that has no blueprint. Our advisory board is made up of people who have already been through commerce, enterprise architecture and scaling, and who push back where we have gone blind to our own assumptions.
WHY
Why we have an advisory board
We are defining a category that did not exist three years ago. That also means there is no blueprint to follow and little corrective from outside. Anyone building a category risks mistaking their own assumptions for market truth.
The advisory board is exactly that corrective. Not a supervisory board, no corporate office, no authority to issue instructions, just people who sit down with us four times a year and ask the questions that get lost in day-to-day business.
THE MANDATE
What the board works on with us
The board does not work on everything. Four areas where outside experience makes the biggest difference, and where we explicitly want to be contradicted.
Go-to-market
Positioning, pricing and sales model across markets. Partner channel versus direct sales, and the question of which markets we take on seriously, and in what order.
Enterprise architecture
Scaling, security and migration paths out of legacy stacks. What enterprise IT actually needs before it replaces a frontend.
Partners & ecosystem
Whitelabel channel, agency model, tech alliances. How individual integrations turn into an ecosystem that sustains itself.
Funding & organisation
Round timing, unit economics and building the organisation. When growth carries itself, and when it is merely expensive.
THE BOARD
Who sits on the advisory board
Four perspectives we do not have internally. Each seat covers one of the four mandate areas, and none of these people is employed by Laioutr.
Go-to-market
Tests our market assumptions against real expansion experience, challenges pricing and sales model, and tells us which market we should not enter yet.
Enterprise architecture
Assesses scaling, security and migration paths from the perspective of large legacy stacks, and names the requirements we would otherwise only fail on during a tender.
Partners & ecosystem
Brings experience from partner and agency models, and holds us to building the whitelabel channel so that partners earn from it, not just us.
Funding & organisation
Guides round timing and unit economics, and keeps us anchored to the metrics that actually hold when we build out the organisation.
HOW IT WORKS
How the advisory board works
The advisory board advises the management of Laioutr GmbH. It is not a supervisory board and holds no corporate office: it has no authority to issue instructions, no voting rights and no control function over management. Decisions remain with the managing directors.
Four times a year, 90 minutes each, usually remote. Once a year we meet in person in Berlin. Ahead of every session we send a written update with key figures and the two or three questions we want to be challenged on. Between sessions, one-to-one conversations are the rule rather than the exception.
Members receive an expense allowance. No shares, options or performance-based compensation are granted, so that the advice stays independent of the company's valuation.
At the start of their appointment, each member discloses which commerce and software companies they hold a stake in or work for. Where a topic touches those interests, the person is not involved. All members are bound to confidentiality.
We fill gaps rather than networks. We first define the area where we lack experience, then look for the right person. Appointments run for 24 months and are reviewed by both sides afterwards.