Writing an Investor Update
Success leaves clues; perhaps that is why some of the most successful entrepreneurs turned investors in my startups such as Brett Hurt & Mark Cuban both told me that they like weekly updates from the startups in which they invest for the first year of the company. It forces the CEO to think on a weekly cadence and to be honest with themselves about progress.
Regular, transparent updates through good and bad delivered to your investors will create a village of people who feel like part of your extended team.
I’ve been writing weekly updates to my investors now across four startups for years. Every Monday I spend at least an hour reflecting on the previous week and planning for the upcoming week. Then I put those thoughts and facts into an email to 25+ people and my entire company. I’m not sure if they are “good” per se, but my investors regularly ask for a redacted version to share with another startup in their portfolio which needs an example of a good update. As the company matures, moving these updates to monthly or even quarterly can be sufficient, after all, a 150 person four-year old startup does not operate on a weekly cadence.
So rather than just sharing that redacted update with them, I will share it with the world. Hopefully, it is helpful.
Dear Shareholder,
Happy Monday from Austin! Team morale is high, we are exceeding the [REDACTED] KPI by several months, burn went up faster than expected, and product development is ticking along well except for one hiccup.
NEED HELP / ASK — At the end of the month, I will be in San Francisco for a customer meeting but am padding a day on either side to meet amazing people. If you know anybody amazing who is a [REDACTED TITLE] and who I should meet up with, please let me know.
Company Stats:
Financials:
The burn was much higher last month than in [REDACTED]. The [REDACTED] costing us more than expected. The final bill from [REDACTED] was paid for $XXX. The [REDACTED] is a $XXX per month burn. All of our hosting and tools come in at just under $XXX per month and our core team payroll+benefits is ~$XXX per month. Attached please find last month’s balance sheet and P&L.
Excluding the one-time cost of [REDACTED] that puts our monthly burn at just about $XXX which puts out zero cash date at XX/YY/ZZZZ. Maybe we’re the first company in history whose zero cash date keeps getting extended without any revenue. 🙃
One issue that I’ll need to address by the end of this quarter is that our books need some cleanup so that we are properly categorizing the [REDACTED] work as COGS. Right now our books are up to date and accurate but not useful for reporting purposes due to categorization issues.
Team:
- We are considering hiring [REDACTED] full time. From a cost perspective, it would be a wash but it would allow us to cut out some outside fees and ensure that she and her stellar work do not go elsewhere.
- We continue to interview individual contributors for the [REDACTED] role.
- One of the potential individual contributor [REDACTED]candidates self-selected out which was disappointing.
Marketing
- [REDACTED MARKETING ITEM DETAILS]
- [REDACTED MARKETING ITEM DETAILS]
- [REDACTED MARKETING ITEM DETAILS]
Sales / Partnership
- [REDACTED DEAL DETAILS]
- [REDACTED DEAL DETAILS]
- [REDACTED DEAL DETAILS]
Engineering
The team is working on 3 big initiatives in addition to [REDACTED]
- 🕐 [REDACTED] — In progress — expected completion end of next week
- 🛑 [REDACTED] — This is blocked until [REDACTED]
- ⚠️ [REDACTED] — Starting pending completion of [REDACTED]
As well, we are working this week on the longer term product roadmap to define the features and capabilities of the [REDACTED] product over both near and long term. I’ll share here that once we have it completed.
Finally:
Thanks for your support. Have a great week! 🚀🚀🚀
-Arlo
