The importance of keeping your angel or institutional investors updated has been written about in numerous articles. Just as a refresher, there are many benefits: whether it's keeping your startup top of mind, getting your investors to share your press success, or requesting an introduction to a potential partner or new hire.
Also - one understated benefit of sending out these updates is that they can keep you, the Founder/CEO/COO, in check. This process will hold you accountable to your decisions, successes and failures.
To ease this burden of thinking about how you would structure your first investor update, I've included some templates you or your startup can use.
These updates can typically include:
- thank yous to those who helped
- issues or problems faced
- big or small wins
- product, metrics, team or finance update
- request for help
- user feedback, whether positive or negative
TEMPLATE 1
Hello,
Firstly, thanks to those who responded with feedback: XXX, YYY, ZZZ, AAA
Secondly, I'd like to thank the following people for their help recently:
- XXX for going above and beyond with YY
- XX for making herself available for questions
- XXX for helping with introductions to various potential candidates
- XX for helping with both the technical recruiting
- XXX for being a sounding board
PROGRESS
Team
We were recently joined by a talented engineer .....
Starting next week, our team will be joined .....
Product
Today we received our latest major revision....
After learning more about their process ....
The design of our ...
Problems
Our XXXX needs go to a much...
We've also have not yet been able to find an XX engineer...
Testing
We are in the final stages .....
Financials
Our burn rate is currently $XXX per month and runway is YYY at this rate. We plan on continuing to scale the team and spending on XXX, which would take us just into early XXX.
How you can help
- Introductions to experts in the following fields: XXX, YYY, ZZZ
- Hiring XXX and XXXX engineers -- we're hiring and appreciate referrals.
- Hiring XXXXXX -- we're looking for people who come with a strong XX skill set
Thank you.
TEMPLATE 2
Hi all,
Let me start things off by saying that the past quarter was AWESOME ....
However, there's a long way to go .....
Highlights:
XYZ is now live
Shipped XYZ
ABC featured us which brought XYZ users
DEF unexpectedly promoted us to their users
We got a new team member, helping with XYZ
Lowlights:
Unfortunately, XYZ ....
ABC development is hard ...
Product:
Our focus is on improving ABC ....
Current metrics
ARR = XXX, MRR = YYY, MAU = ABC
iOS
We've fixed many bugs ...
We've launched ...
Android
We're building ...
Community
We've created ...
Press
Highlights this past quarter include .....
Our next press milestone is XXXXX, July 23rd.
Team
XX FTE currently.
XYZ has joined our team
Recruiting a ABC, please share https://
Financing
$XYZ in the bank
$ABC monthly burn.
ABC months runway at current burn.
Special thanks
- ABC and DEF atYYY for helping with the ABC .
- YYY for making YYY possible
- CCC for always being there to help.
Help needed
Please help us ...
Thank you.
TEMPLATE 3
Dear all,
[Opening...]
First things first
Now at XYZ MAU and have ZZZk downloads daily
AAA will be in New York next week to BBB
Still looking to hire XYZ
Progress
We shipped ....
This is BIG ...
The app has been ...
We have the ...
We have expanded ...
Company priorities
Raise seed
Growth: XYZ XXX
The metrics
MAU in October: ZZZ mil
Last month's downloads: ZZZ mil (YYYk in July) driven by AA, BB, CC
ZZZ% retention rate (vs AAA% in Dec)
The team
XXX has joined from ...
BBB has relocated from YYY to join us ...
Recent failures
We f*cked up ...
The media of the last 4 weeks
Lots of attention ...
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4