Use this template and send updates to updates@opencoreventures.com
It’s important to build the habit of sending investor updates on day one. New companies should aim to send their first investor update on the 1st of every month. Send your first newsletter the month after you started, even if it’s only been a couple weeks. This will help develop the habit.
An investor update is a brief and honest snapshot of the company’s current status. It’s sent via email to current investors and team members. The content should focus on showing month over month progress and typically includes the company’s monthly metrics, highlights/lowlights, and goals.
Keeping investors in the loop builds trust and keeps you accountable. It makes the investor feel like they are part of your team and makes them more likely to help you. Sending monthly updates is another way to hold yourself accountable to measuring, tracking, and reporting on your monthly progress.
Pre-Seed companies will send this to the OCV email address provided and employees.
Post-Seed companies should send their updates to all current investors (including OCV) and employees.
Content to Include
Use this template. If you need more inspiration, here’s an example from GitLab.
Metrics
Leed with your 1-3 most important metrics. The update should include both the monthly metric and % change from the previous month. We recommend also including your ARR growth, burn rate, and runway.
Highlights/lowlights
Share a few bullet points on what’s going well and what’s not going well. This gives investors more context.
Goals
Share 1-3 ambitions explaining what you aspire to achieve in the upcoming month. These goals may be different from your bi-weekly office hours goals. They can include things like shipping new features/functionality, hosting an event with a high attendance rate, upcoming announcements, collaborations, etc.
Ask
One ask to investors for something you need help with. Keep asks in the update simple. For example: candidate recommendations, prospective customer intros, investor intros. More complicated requests should be sent 1:1.
Potential Investors
Don’t send potential investors the same update you send to current investors.
If investors are showing early interest in your company but it isn’t time to begin the fundraising process, you can keep potential investors “warm” by sending a separate investor newsletter. This update can be sent less frequently (quarterly) and should focus on sharing good news and major milestones. You can chose to share metrics but be selective. Don’t share all of your metrics or metrics that don’t show growth.