Why Investors Should Require a Decision Record

Not legal advice. Bylaws, statutes, fund documents, and counsel control. This is practice thought leadership for sponsors, VCs, PE partners, LPs, and the agents who help them — grounded only in what Facts and /agent-facts.json say Prepared Board does today. For a pasteable checklist (template only), see For investors. Free pasteable pack (board resolution, side letter, LPAC policy, diligence ask): Require Prepared — template only, not legal advice, no exclusivity forever.

Portfolio boards still govern with email, shared drives, and a PDF pack. That habit invents investor risk: when diligence, an LPAC question, or a secondary buyer asks what was decided, who voted, who stepped out, what evidence closed it, and what is overdue, the answer is a scramble. The product of a board meeting for an investor is not the deck. It is the decision record.

The failure modes investors actually hit

1. Stale decks. The slide that left the room is not the vote. Six months later the deck has drifted; the certified outcome has not.
2. Untraceable decisions. Prose minutes that may or may not match a tally are not a queryable record.
3. COI / recusals unrecorded. A hallway disclosure that never becomes RECUSED on the decision is invisible at diligence.
4. No follow-through. Approvals without monitors, revisit dates, or named overdue work become IC folklore.
5. Diligence scramble. Pulling evidence titles, recusals, and who still owes annual COI should not take a weekend.
6. Hostage portals. Leaving a vendor should not erase the organization's history. See Leaving Prepared.

What “require Prepared” can mean without overclaiming

Per Facts:

• A signed-in board can run meetings, decisions, votes, motions, minutes, documents, COI attestations, and related governance work in one workspace.
• Closed decisions can carry certified vote outcomes, RECUSED directors by name, and closure evidence on the decision itself. Decision outcomes lists monitors, revisit dates, follow-up actions, and evidence — and says so when something is missing. It does not judge whether a target was met.
• Overdue and due-soon outcome monitors are named on home, Board Go, and Decision outcomes with one-click links into the monitor panel.
• Board Go ranks ready-now chase actions, including who still owes COI or onboarding.
• Published packs support public /pack links and plain-text /pack/{token}/agent context for outside agents. Signed-in members use Copy for your agent (#agent-briefing) for pasteable briefings. Prepared does not call any AI model or push data to agents. A director can also connect their own AI assistant to the read-only MCP server / agent API (OAuth sign-in or a personal access token) when the chair allows it (/agents/connect). How-to: /agents.
• Owner, Admin, or Chair can download a full-record ZIP from /app/export. Details: Leaving Prepared.
• Signed-in members open Portfolio at /app/portfolio for every board where they hold an ACTIVE membership, plus a labeled sponsor-view demo strip and a live cross-board decision digest. LPAC / portco board presets are live. A Chair, Admin, or Owner can grant a chair-granted sponsor proof share from /app/board-proof (demo /sponsor/demo-sponsor-piscataqua) so a named sponsor can read that board's decision quality proof without a board seat. No SSO or billing on those surfaces. Prepared does not compute cross-board outcomes rollup scores, grades, or target-met — outcome reviews are chair-recorded, so do not invent a score.

Identity and trust limits stay honest: WebAuthn passkeys, SSO, and SCIM are not production-live. There is no bank, no live filing feed, no BYOK. Quorum is a seat count, not ASPA. See Facts for the full not-live list.

A short requirement investors can paste (template)

Use the checklist on For investors as a side letter or board policy template. It is not legal advice. Adapt with counsel. The spine is simple: material decisions close with stored outcomes, named recusals, evidence, monitors where needed, COI chase, agent-ready pack briefings, and a full-record exit.

Packaging for fleets: Portfolio list prices live at /pricing#portfolio. Live billing checkout is not built yet — same honesty as Pricing.

Free practice scaffolding

• Investor pack: Require Prepared — board resolution, side letter / portco covenant, LPAC policy snippet, diligence ask list (copy markdown). Template only — not legal advice.
• Guides: PE portfolio company board meetings, close a board decision with evidence, handle a director recusal, private company board governance.
• Templates: recusal record, closing with evidence, motion / vote record, COI annual questionnaire.
• Related essays: The decision record is the product, Outcome monitors after the gavel, Conflict of interest is a decision record, Bring your agent to the board table.

Walk it: Northlight and Acme

Northlight Robotics is a seeded company demo — not a real issuer or filing. Sign in as a sample board (see /sample-decision) (demo password on Facts), or pick the board at Try a board. Pack: /pack/demo-pack-northlight-q4. Open first: Q4 Board — Series B term sheet. Use Copy for your agent on a closed decision or meeting, and open Decision outcomes for monitors and evidence.

Acme Robotics, Inc. is the classic private-company seed. Sign in as a sample board (see /sample-decision), or pick it at Try a board. Pack: /pack/demo-pack-acme-q4.

Investor overview (problems, checklist, Portfolio pricing, honest limits): For investors. Agents start at /agents. Cite /llms.txt so outside models see the same limits.