Hi, I’m Chris Walton, author of this guide and CEO of Eton Venture Services.
I’ve spent much of my career working as a corporate transactional lawyer at Gunderson Dettmer, becoming an expert in tax law & venture financing. Since starting Eton, I’ve completed thousands of business valuations for companies of all sizes.
Read my full bio here.
As a startup founder or CEO, there might come a time when you need advice that isn’t available within your core team.
In such cases, rather than hiring in-house, you can choose to work with external consultants who can bridge that knowledge gap while still keeping your startup lean.
In my 15 years as a business valuation advisor for startup founders, I’ve often seen them form a “startup advisory board”—a panel of consultants and experts who offer advice as needed.
Unlike a formal board of directors, an advisory board provides strategic guidance without governance duties.
This means you get valuable insights and support without having to deal with the rules and responsibilities of a formal board.
But finding the right advisors can be tricky, especially if you need expertise in various areas.
To help you build the best advisory board, in this article I recommend 10 advisors in different expertise areas, from business valuations to content marketing.
When choosing a startup advisory service provider, make sure they have the following:
Here are my best recommendations for each type of advisory you need as a startup founder:
💡 TL;DR: Why Choose Eton?
Choose Eton for fully compliant startup valuations, leveraging over 15 years of expertise and a track record of 3000+ audit-defensible valuations from ex-Big Four consultants — all at a fraction of the usual cost and time.
That’s us! I acknowledge that I’m a little biased here, so I’m going to be as transparent as possible below about our startup advisory services, how they work, and client experiences.
At Eton, we deliver fast, affordable, always-compliant valuations and advisory services for all types of startups.
Here’s why you should choose us:
✅ Experience: Since our founding in 2010, we’ve delivered over 3000 business valuations for venture-backed startups, private-equity firms, and fast-growing businesses.
✅ Value: The difference between us and those household name consultants? We offer the same quality at a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time.
Our consultants are all Big-4 trained (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PWC) and I, the CEO, will be your key contact throughout our engagement.
We also deliver valuations in as short as 10 days, and even shorter for an extra fee.
✅ Relationships: I make myself available to all of our clients for calls. The clock doesn’t run and no question is off limits. Having worked at the Silicon Valley Law Firm, Gunderson Dettermer, I can share all my secrets on venture-backed business law.
I’m really proud of the work we do at Eton and the level of service we provide our clients.
Check out this testimonial from Paul Sciarra, Executive Chairman at Joby Aviation, highlighting his positive experience working with Eton across their 10+ year startup journey:
And this one from Debbie Markowitz, Chief Financial Officer at Spring Health:
Whatever valuation or advisory you need for your startup, we do them all, and we do them well:
Eton’s valuations never take longer than 10 days (on receipt of documents) and when needed, can be fast-tracked. Some clients ask for one-day turnarounds which we’re happy to accommodate.
But I find a 10-day turnaround suits most clients. The process is the same regardless of the timeline.
Here’s what our typical 10-day timeline and process looks like:
First, we’ll have a conversation to understand your needs and how complex your cap table is. We’ll tell you exactly what we need from you to get started (such as financial statements)
and once you’ve delivered those documents we’ll review them within 1 day.
At this stage, every valuation gets a dedicated manager and analyst to keep things on track and accurate.
We get to work using our extensive databases and keen analysis skills to put your valuation draft together.
On day 6 or 7 we’ll send you exhibit pages that show the calculation data we’ll use. This will include the methods we’ll follow, assumptions we’re making, data used, and a conclusion.
We’ll then invite you for a call to review the document. 85% of the time our clients finalize on the first draft. The rest of the time, we’ll agree with you on what needs to be changed and make those changes in one day.
We’ll send the revised draft back to you and get it finalized in 2 days.
And that’s it, your valuation is complete.
The final step doesn’t usually happen. But if you are audited, we step up and support you through the entire process, working with the auditors (who our team usually knows from past work experiences) to make it as seamless and stress-free as possible.
And rest assured, our valuations have never lost an audit.
A large number of our clients are startups and scaleups with ambitious growth goals. Some names include:
We work directly with founders and finance teams as they prepare for funding rounds or just after they’ve closed a founding round so that their valuations are timely and relevant.
Here’s what one client had to say:
→ You can find more client testimonials here. ←
If you’d like more information or have questions, please get in touch with me here. I answer all my emails and calls!
Why I recommend them: For their great track record in helping companies get acquired and save millions in taxes collectively.
Kruze Consulting provides comprehensive finance and accounting services to over 800 fast-growing startups in sectors like SaaS, eCommerce, biotech, and FinTech.
Kruze has helped clients secure over $12 billion in funding and $100+ million in tax credits.
Their expertise shines from pre-seed to Series C, and their clients are twice as likely to be acquired.
Kruze’s key services include interim CFO consulting, financial modeling, bookkeeping, tax returns, venture debt consulting, and fundraising advice.
Here’s what one client says:
Why I recommend them: Graphite Financial offers scalable and long-term CFO support from seed to exit, with high-touch, in-house-style support.
Graphite Financial specializes in fractional CFO services and financial modeling.
They pride themselves on offering scalable and long-term support from seed to exit. Over 8 years, they have guided 250 startups to countless exits and M&As.
Some of their clients include:
While they cater to startups of all sizes, their sweet spot is well-capitalized startups with product market fit.
Each startup gets a dedicated team, not just a single accountant, offering high-touch, in-house-style support.
Graphite Financial’s key fractional CFO services include CFO and fundraising, financial reporting, comprehensive bookkeeping, tax compliance, and expense detail reports.
Here’s what one client had to say:
Why I recommend them: For saving you time, money, and hassle with transparent fixed fees and fast communication.
The Rapacke Law Group specializes in intellectual property and business law for startups.
They handle various patents, trademarks, and startup legal services. The firm’s expertise spans from initial business formation to final liquidity events.
The Rapacke Law Group aims to be hassle-free with transparent fixed-fee pricing for easy budgeting and quick responses within one business day.
Their services include IP protection, legal opinions, company formation, agreements, and liability.
Here’s a customer testimonial:
Why I recommend them: TechEmpower transforms ideas into web/mobile apps with custom development, AI expertise, and performance optimization through unique benchmarks.
TechEmpower transforms your startup’s innovative ideas into smart web/mobile applications.
Their team of 25 US-based engineers excels in web and mobile development, AI, big data, Java, Python, and cloud infrastructure.
TechEmpower has worked with startups of all sizes across various markets, including:
Their unique TechEmpower Web Framework Benchmarks, viewed hundreds of thousands of times by web application developers, have proved that your choice of tech impacts performance.
Their services include tech review, due diligence, and fractional CTO.
Here’s a client testimonial:
Why I recommend them: For their long and notable history, emphasizing diversity and inclusion in hiring.
Frederickson Partners helps build HR teams and hire executives for startups and unicorns.
They are a market leader, having worked with over 400 venture-funded startups in nearly three decades.
Their expertise spans various tech sectors, including internet, e-commerce, AdTech, EdTech, construction technology, Health Tech, and social media.
Known for their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, they coach clients on securing diverse executive leaders, exemplified by their DEI project for Facebook.
They offer HR Executive Search, HR Advisory Services, and Board Services.
Here’s a testimonial from their client X (Formerly Twitter):
Why I recommend them: For their track record in driving significant results from marketing campaigns.
Growth Marketing Advisors (GMA) helps founders and executives build scalable growth marketing and enterprise CRM strategies.
They specialize in high-growth ventures, particularly startups and category creators. Their clients include:
The GMA team is great at both the creative and the tech side of growth marketing, expertly managing ad servers, CRMs, and tech stacks.
Known for creating “marketing machines,” GMA delivers impressive results, such as quadrupling Time Study’s annual recurring revenue and tripling Hunterz’ return on ad spend.
They offer performance marketing, CRM database optimization, and data management.
Here’s a testimonial from GMA’s client Minitab:
Why I recommend them: For their expert SEO-driven content strategy and scalable system that generates high-converting inbound leads for B2B SaaS startups.
Founded by content marketer Ben Goodey, Spicy Margarita specializes in content marketing strategy and implementation for global B2B SaaS companies.
Specifically, Goodey and his team helps startups scale traffic, leads, and conversions with SEO-driven content operating systems and high-quality content.
They’ve advised B2B SaaS startups like the below on content and SEO strategy:
Goodey is also the founder and creator of the How the Fxck community where you can get podcasts, blogs, and templates on all things SEO and content.
There, you’ll also find case studies of how companies like Monday.com, SurveyMonkey, and Typeform scaled content to 1M+ traffic per month.
You can work with Goodey and his team in three key ways:
If you’re not ready for a full-on engagement, you can subscribe to his premium newsletter to get weekly emails filled with juicy podcasts, case studies, and strategy advice.
You can also choose to do a one-off purchase of his Content Scale package.
Or just connect with him on LinkedIn where he shares valuable insights regularly.
Why I recommend them: For combining experienced professionals with fresh talent to ensure efficiency and innovation.
Renovarum supports startups through every stage of their lifecycle – from business ideas to exit strategies.
With a team of multidisciplinary professionals, they address financial, strategic, accounting, and legal challenges.
Renovarum’s team has senior and younger professionals – giving a mix of experience and new ideas.
Within startup advisory, key services include drafting business plans and pitch decks, strategic advice on management control systems, and assistance in finding funding sources.
Why I recommend them: For their Vision-Led Product Management framework to build scalable, product-led businesses.
Prodify helps startup founders and CEOs build scalable, product-led businesses across B2B, B2C, and B2B2C sectors.
Their past clients include Savonix, Whoop, Pinkaloo, and Higher Logic.
Prodify developed the Vision-Led Product Management framework, detailed in their #1 Amazon bestseller “Build What Matters”.
The core concepts focus on selecting product success metrics, crafting a customer journey vision, creating a strategic plan, and developing a product roadmap.
Here’s what a client said about their experience working with Prodify:
Have more questions about startup advisory services? I answered them below:
An advisor for a startup provides expert guidance and support in various areas crucial for the business’s success. Here are the key responsibilities:
The compensation for startup advisors can vary widely based on factors like the advisor’s expertise, the specific services provided, the stage of the startup, and the region. Generally, startup advisors may charge:
The difference between a startup advisor and a consultant lies primarily in their roles and the nature of their engagements:
Startup Advisor:
Consultant:
In short, a startup advisor provides ongoing strategic guidance and mentorship, while a consultant offers specialized expertise for specific projects or tasks within a defined timeframe.
Schedule a free consultation meeting to discuss your M&A or valuation needs.
Chris co-founded Eton Venture Services in 2010 to provide mission-critical valuations to venture-based companies. He works closely with each client’s leadership team, board of directors, internal / external counsel, and independent auditor to develop detailed financial models and create accurate, audit-proof valuations.
