Board of Directors Meeting Notes

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Writing meeting notes is an art, even though it seems trivial at first. Here is what I came up with:

CEO writes down the take away notes (tasks) for each participants. CEO runs the meeting and sets the pace, he's the one who needs to track the different tasks each participant volunteers for (typically these are tasks like intros, sending reports or data to someone...) and summarizes the take away points in an email after the meeting.

(optional) Somebody (another founder) writes down wider notes that summarize the debate, point by point. Having written notes makes a lot of sense in a couple of weeks time when you have to refresh your memory. However it's quite likely that one cannot run a meeting and jolt down proper notes at the same time.

(optional) Have your lawyer write done formal BoD notes. This is something that I resisted at first, but than realized that makes a lot of sense. A good lawyer will not charge you to dial in to your BoD and will be very valuable at any legal questions you might have. An interest of the lawyer is that he's close by to the company and in the loop, because then he can be much more valuable to the business in the future. And you'll end up with a formal and correct board meeting notes.