As an angel investor, I get various investor update emails. Some are good and some not so good – just quickly sharing a few of my personal observations here.
1/ Consistency is far more important than quality
For me, a founder sending brief regular updates like clockwork feels more trustworthy than a founder sending a spectacular update once then goes completely quiet for a long time. Create a calendar reminder or otherwise create a process to send out updates regularly.
2/ Quarterly > monthly
For most companies, I feel like quarterly update is better than monthly. I feel like monthly is too much work for the founder.
3/ Keep it short and simple
Most investors aren’t just reading your company’s update; rather, it’s one of many they’re reading. So make it easy for the readers by keeping the update short and simple. Use generic web fonts and highlight important parts.
4/ Numbers and metrics
For me personally, this makes a night and day difference. If I had a choice, I’d prefer an update email with nothing but numbers than one with nothing but texts, any day.
5/ Actionable “asks”
Make sure the asks are very clear and (this is important) actionable. If you’re asking me to upvote your product on Product Hunt on a certain date, I’ll not only upvote but will also tell a few others to do the same. If you’re asking me to start searching for all possible Series A investors for your company, that’s probably too daunting for me.
6/ Create an online board for potential investors
I find the majority of my help as an angel investor is to make intros to potential investors for the next round of financing. Make the intros easy and actionable. Do the homework first; don’t put the entire burden of intros to the recipient.
The bad: “We’re opening our round soon – can you think of suitable investors for us?”
The good: “I notice you’re connected to (investor names) on LinkedIn, do you feel comfortable making an intro? Or, (investor names) that invested in your previous company? By the way here’s our investor pipeline Notion board, if you can make intros to other investors there, please let us know as well!”
7/ Create a process to collect wins and highlights
Sometimes I can almost feel the agony of the founder putting together yet another investor update email. Investor updates shouldn’t feel like duty or homework. Don’t try to write everything from scratch; rather, create a process to collect weekly wins/highlights on your own (which you’ll have to do anyway if you’re a good CEO), and copy/paste liberally.
8/ Sense of humor goes a long way
We’re all humans and can appreciate a sense of humor. Don’t take everything too seriously; bring some levity wherever you can. But please do not include gif memes.