Updating Your Seed Investors – Investor Update Email

By David Beisel - Nextview VC
TLDR:

  • One or two sentence summary of the most important takeaways from the last update
  • One sentence that reflects the state of mind of the founders. Worried?
    Optimistic? Burned out?
  • If there is a specific, high-priority ask, put it here as well.
HIGHLIGHTS:
  • If there is a specific, high-priority ask, put it here as well.
  • Be sure to include hitting goals or exciting learnings from trying to
    achieve those goals
  • Feel free to include stuff that was not part of the list of goals if they
    are important highlights.

Core Metrics

Metric Name (e.g. Monthly Active Users)

  • Explain the data in a few short sentences above a screen shot of relevant
    charts, graphs, or tables. Include previous months for comparison
  • (Include 3-5 similar sections – one per metric – depending on the
    specifics of your business, your goals, and your current KPIs.)

Challenges:
  • Stuff that didn't go well.
  • Be sure to include missing goals and your reflection what you are
    learning.

Goals:
  • What are the top 1-3 things you are looking to accomplish in the next 2-4
    weeks? Be specific because you should revisit them in your highlights
    and challenges in the next update

Asks and Thanks:
  • Be specific about your asks
  • Call out people who did helpful stuff. It makes the helper feel good and
    motivates everyone else to try to help in the future.

Finances:

(This section will be a recurring item in each board meeting, so linking to a
shared spreadsheet is an easy way to provide this information. In most
cases, this will be an FYI more than a discussion point.)