Startup investor update template

Fundraising Board 9 Min Read. Article Contributors. Lily Lyman Partner. Underscore VC. In this Article:. Tips for Your Investor Update As you fill out an investor update template, keep the following in mind.

Keep it brief. Be concise. Avoid writing long intros to your emails. Cut any rambling text. Make it easy to read: Use bullet points and subheadings. Keep it real. Avoid superlatives. If something meaningful is happening in your business, good or bad, keep investors in the know. Keep it specific. Include real numbers and metrics when you can and explain how they compare to plan. Make your asks for help specific and actionable.

Keep it meaningful. You shipped X product. You got X media coverage. What is the benefit or result, and why does it matter? Mention the market. Keep it contextual. If reporting numbers or metrics, provide context. How do these compare to your expectations? Your budget? The prior year? Share any relevant positive or negative trends you notice, and explain how investors should think of them in the future. A Note About Metrics Be sure that the metrics you report conform to a normal convention.

How Transparent Should You Be? Ask yourself: Would you be comfortable with an investor forwarding this to someone in their network? Would you be comfortable with an investor storing this in their database as they track your progress? Will an investor need to have this context to help you? Will this item likely spark a discussion? Customer Love : Keeps on growing! New case studies and quotes on [URL to Page].

Really excited to have [Name] join as [Title] to help us [Job Goals]! Customer Advisory Board: We are forming a customer advisory board of thought leaders and influencers in [Industry] — already 10 members strong. If yours is a SaaS business , let your subsequent slide describe your monthly recurring revenue churn. Move on with this report with a focus on target markets and growth channels. Update any activity on your core acquisition channels, as well, before you continue with new information on your average customers, their acquisition cost, and lifetime value.

From here, present your product and growth team. Add any highlights or changes in regards to the faces behind all your hard work.

As the last section to this, describe your financials. Title a slide to show you're getting there and display your figures on the subsequent one if you'd like. We suggest a revenue vs. Include any new milestones for which you're aiming next. You can decide to wrap up with a reminder of your contact details as an invitation for investors to contact you on any needs that might come up as of their review of this report.

Remember to tailor all this thinking of your audience, right? You should know your investors well by the time you sit down to give reports on your startup. Let your slides speak of your brand and passion and highlight your good and could-do-better with select milestones for the near future, if possible. Hopefully, rather than stress over figures and rendition, these investor updates will be a reliable approach at steady growth for your company on diverse fronts.

All templates Startups. What is an investor update? What do investors want to see in an investor update? Free Investor Finder Be mindful of your presentation and format Be consistent in the format you choose for your initial investor update template. How often are investor updates sent? How to write the perfect investor update First of all, your reports need to reflect more than just data.

Exercise relevant customization Remember to tailor all this thinking of your audience, right? Most popular templates.

We've got it! Look for an email from downloads slidebean. All rights reserved. Pitch Deck Builder. Pitch Deck Consulting. So today, we are publicly sharing all of our past email updates in hopes that it will help other early stage founders better craft their monthly updates.

Here are a few reasons why writing monthly updates can be super valuable:. Developing the habit of writing monthly updates is not just valuable to your stakeholders, its beneficial to your whole team.

We view them as a method to help keep us focused on improving our business and to track our own progress over time. When we hit the send button on an update, we are proud of the work we did in the previous month and energized to do good work in the month to come. As you write these updates, here are some things to consider.

Instead, we try to switch things up based on what has happened that month. But here is a rough guideline for the kind of content we include in our emails. We try to keep this section to a maximum of 3 or 4 short sentences. When we include this section in an update, we like to keep it pretty close to the top of the email.

Did we make any hires this month? How is team morale? Did we have to let anyone go? Any team related update goes here.

I love including screenshots. This is my favourite part. We always like to remind people at the very end of the email what our company actually does.