Investor Update

Why It Matters

Investors help the companies they are thinking about, and they think about the ones that write. An update arriving on the first Tuesday of every month is worth more than a brilliant one that arrives twice a year. It also sets up the next raise: a founder who has reported honestly for eighteen months starts diligence with a record behind them, while one who went quiet after a bad quarter starts by explaining the silence. Runway is the figure people read first, and the one they notice you leaving out.

How It Works

Fix a template and a date and then change neither. Keep the same metrics in the same order every month so a reader can compare at a glance. If you publish rather than attach, put the page behind a password-protected link and share the password once, separately from the link itself; the update contains figures you would not want indexed or forwarded. Where the page is HTML, a noindex instruction in the head keeps it out of search results, though it is the password that actually keeps it private. Give each month its own address so the set becomes a record, and put the headline numbers in the email itself, because some readers will never click through.

Real-World Example

Common Mistakes

• ✕Skipping the month that went badly — the silence is louder than the bad number, and it is the thing people remember at the next raise
• ✕Changing which metrics you report each time — a reader who cannot line this month up against last month stops reading carefully
• ✕Using a public address because it was quicker — runway and revenue figures on an indexable page have a way of turning up where you did not intend

Related Terms