A founder's monthly note to investors: numbers, cash, what went wrong and what they need.
Investors give a monthly update a minute or two, usually on a phone, and what stays with them is whether you told them the bad news yourself. This page has one month from a made-up seed-stage company: two sentences up top, numbers that tie out, and one piece of bad news stated flat. Borrow its order and fill it with your own month.
Who it's for
Founders with outside investors, from a first angel check to a seed round with a board. You send it in the first week of every month, to the same list. Those readers hold a small stake in many companies, so it has to work for someone who skims.
It isn't a board pack. Votes, legal matters and option grants belong in the papers for the meeting. A page can't take replies either, so say how you want to be answered. The sample asks investors to reply to the email the link came in.
What a good one contains
- Two sentences that carry the month. Revenue up 6.2% to $41,300, and the largest customer leaving. An investor who reads nothing else still has the truth.
- The same few numbers every month, beside last month's. Seven rows here, with October next to November. Investors notice when a number quietly drops off the list.
- Numbers that tie out. October's revenue plus new contractors and upgrades, minus cancellations, equals November's, and the page shows the sum.
- Cash, burn and runway as arithmetic. $1,718,000 to start, $43,000 collected, $149,000 spent, $1,612,000 left. Then runway: 15 months at this burn, fewer once the planned hires start.
- Bad news in plain words. "Kestrel Ridge Fence is leaving" comes with its size, 4.6% of revenue, the reason, and what it says about the other large accounts. Nobody wrote "headwinds".
- A plan you can be held to. Three things for December, each with a date or a number: Android by December 18, 20 trials from three states.
- Asks someone can act on from their phone. "Fence or deck contractors in Texas, Georgia or Florida with three or more crews" can be forwarded as it stands. "Intros to customers" can't.
Send it in the bad months too
The update that matters most is the one you least want to write. Investors forgive a bad month. What costs you is silence, or a problem they hear about later from someone else. Put the worst item in the summary, give it a number, and say what you changed because of it.
Before it goes out, check that the cash figure matches the bank statement, and that the October column matches what you sent in October.
How to send it
To named people. It holds revenue, cash and a customer's name, and none of that is public. List each investor's email address, so the update opens for them and not for whoever it gets forwarded to.
Every page you publish gets one link that opens in any browser. You choose who can open it: anyone with the link, anyone with the password, or only the people and company domains you name, who sign in with Google or Microsoft. Change the page later and the link stays the same.
