At the time of operating Codiga, I was sending investor updates at the beginning of each month. The first working day of the month, early or late, rain or shine, sober or drunk, I sent an update to all my investors. Doing it was like going to the gym every single day: it’s a habit that is painful to take but very healthy in the long run.
Founders, you must send monthly updates to your investors. It forces you to report an honest status of your company. Put real data in your report. Stuff that matters and impacted the company bottom line over the last two months. Nobody cares if you went to a trade show, a conference, went on a podcast or met people if it did not improve the company's bottom line.
Not sending investors updates and asking for money for your next round is like asking money to your parents for going on vacation without showing your grades. Only rich, entitled kids do this, and my mother would have (rightfully) laughed hard if I had done it.
There is the template I used every month. Below, you will find an example of an updated I could have sent if I was the CEO of an imaginary company of a luxury marketplace that sold Louis Vuitton handbags.
I hope it can help some founders. Please share it if you think it can be helpful.
Investors Update Template
TL;DR
thing important number 1
thing important number 2
thing important number 3
Words from the CEO
<A paragraph or two describing what send well or not>
Lowlights/highlights
A list of bullet point about what went well, what did not go well and what did you learn.
Product Updates
Any change in the product and the corresponding impact on the customer.
Team
Any change in the team. People you hired/fired or people that left the company.
Sales and Marketing
One or two paragraphs about the sales. Discuss the progression of sales and the go-to-market.
KPI
Report your KPI and the variation from last month
Thank You
A section to thank people who helped you this week. Either from your team, your investors or external people.
Ask For Help
Section where you specifically ask investors for their help. You have investors with a large network of other entrepreneurs, lawyers, salesperson. If you need something, ask them.
(Imaginary) Investor July 2023
TL;DR
We lost a major partner in our logistics
Our new marketplace shows promise with 10% more sales
We hired a new content manager
Words from the CEO
This month has been focused on delivering our new marketplace. The new design is more appealing than before, and more customers are completing their purchases. We initially had issues with the release and identified a few technical difficulties that got solved within a few days.
We unfortunately lost a key partner that handled our logistic and shipped all goods sold from the marketplace. The team is currently handling all shipments, which is not sustainable. I am actively working on solving this issue in the coming month.
Lowlights/highlights
Lowlights
Losing of a key logistic partner
Highlights
More sales, increased our MRR by 10%
Reduction of bugs in the marketplace thanks to our new version
Reduction of our hosting cost down by 20% because of migration from AMD64 to ARM64
Product Updates
The release of the new marketplace took most of our efforts this month. This new version removes all fraudulent items from the store, thanks to our AI technology that filters bad products from the store.
These changes increased our trust to prospective customers. While our inventory is reduced (1/4 of the inventory got removed), our sales increased by 10%, and increased the number of active users.
Team
The core team stays the same. We hired Andrei, a content partner, as a part-time contractor. Andrei will focus on writing great content: blog post, marketing content on third-party websites and connecting with brands on our marketplace to promote our platform.
Sales and Marketing
Our MRR increased 10% this month and we expect this trend to continue over the next few months. From a marketing standpoint, our bet on organic content continues to pay off as we are seeing more organic traffic coming to our website.
KPI
MAU: 56,000 (+20% from last month)
MRR: $12,000 (+10% from last month)
Number of items on the marketplace: 4251 (-25% from last month, see product updates)
Thank You
Helena Crespo for troubleshooting the new marketplace and reporting customers issues rapidly.
Ask For Help
With the loss of our partner in logistic, we are seeking alternatives. All employees are shipping items themselves, which is not eventually sustainable. We are welcoming any help or introduction that could help us find a new partner.