Subject: [Startup] - Update [Month/Year]

1. A nice personable message to start

We’re all human. It’s also great to hear the personal side of things too. Updates on life, family, Hobbies, etc.

2. Company Mission or short summary of who you are

Just to give your investors or prospective investors a refresher as to who you are and what your mission is.

3. Let’s get the financials out of the way (see FAQ if unsure)

What is your current revenue at the time of writing this update?
How much runway do you have left at the time of writing this update?

4. Core Growth metrics

Pick the top 3 core metrics that you track and add them in.

5. Updates

This section could be broken up into sub-sections based on your own preference. If you’re a smaller team that has made some team updates, you should show that. Any product or feature updates? What are your customers/users saying? Add them in. Operational updates? Of course!

6. What’s going well & what’s not going well

Here’s where you talk about all the great and not so great things going on with your business. Signed on a new customer? Awesome! Add it in. Hired a brilliant new machine learning engineer or Sales savant? In it goes.

It is also very important to add in what is not going so well. Here’s why:

It holds you and your team accountable
It shows that not everything is going well (because it most likely isn’t)
Investors empathise with that and can even offer additional support on the points that are not going so well.

7. Asks

Here is where you can ask your investors various things.

Do you need help to find more customers in the U.S? See if any of your investors know someone and can offer warm leads. What about knowledge of understanding how to properly remunerate your founding employees or new hires with ESOP? See if one of your investors knows.

At the end of the day, your investors are incentivised to help you make this work and be a success. They either personally know or know of someone who could help in some shape or form. Leverage that.

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