Dan Martell - March 07, 2016


How To Send Investor Update Emails ｜ Dan Martell


Episode Stats

Length

6 minutes

Words per Minute

224.44662

Word Count

1,521

Sentence Count

86


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.320 How to send investor updates like a pro.
00:00:02.760 This is for the pro startup founders out there.
00:00:05.280 If you've raised some money,
00:00:06.640 you've gotten people to part with their cash,
00:00:09.520 I'm gonna teach you guys how to actually keep them informed.
00:00:12.760 In the big world of corporations,
00:00:14.520 they call it investor relations,
00:00:15.760 in the startup world, it's just like updates,
00:00:18.160 email updates, just sending them something.
00:00:20.440 You know, I know, I get it, you're busy.
00:00:22.280 You have no time, and you're just like,
00:00:23.720 I gotta write this email.
00:00:24.840 And I get it, you don't wanna look stupid.
00:00:26.920 Like, you're like, well, things aren't as good
00:00:28.320 they should be and you don't want to share that or you don't
00:00:31.020 want to waste the investor's time by sending them the wrong
00:00:33.560 information. So today I'm going to share with you guys three
00:00:37.460 kind of aspects of sending investor updates and I'm going
00:00:39.760 to share you some two powerful tips at the end.
00:00:42.000 You don't want to miss this but you know the truth is here's the
00:00:44.300 deal. I've invested in 34 plus companies at this point in my
00:00:47.580 career as an angel investor putting my own money to work and
00:00:50.540 other people and I got to be honest with you there is maybe a
00:00:53.680 half dozen companies that actually send me regular investor
00:00:56.880 updates. Actually, I'm going to give you guys a shout out to my buddy Scott at
00:01:00.300 classy.org. I'm not even an investor. I'm a formal advisor and I sit on the
00:01:04.520 advisory board and this guy runs a company like a pro. So a lot of what I'm
00:01:09.700 going to share with you guys is both things I've done for my own companies.
00:01:12.260 I've built a couple of venture backed startups and I've kept my investors in
00:01:15.860 the loop. And then also what I've been inspired by seeing some really great
00:01:19.880 email updates. So the number one is frequency. How often should you send the
00:01:23.200 emails. Well, the truth is I believe in the early days when you're just starting going,
00:01:27.380 maybe it's your seed round, six weeks is probably a good tempo. More often than that,
00:01:31.620 maybe there's not a lot of new information. So in the early days, the first 16 months,
00:01:35.220 two years, every six weeks would be awesome. Again, the alternative is not, which is what
00:01:40.000 most people do and it friggin' frustrates the bejesus out of me. And if you're watching this
00:01:44.380 and I've invested in your company, no, this is not my way to guilt you into doing it. I'm just
00:01:49.200 sharing with the world some of the things that I've learned.
00:01:51.660 So six weeks, as you progress, and you probably have a board
00:01:54.780 at this point, two years plus, every month is kind of the
00:01:57.600 frequency that you want to do it.
00:01:59.020 So that's the two ranges that I would suggest are kind of
00:02:02.340 optimal. The second is method, like how should you send these
00:02:07.080 emails, and here's my tip, is send them individually.
00:02:09.680 Do not send a broadcast to all your investors, all your
00:02:13.220 advisors, and all your, anybody else.
00:02:15.700 Because to me then it's not landing as a personal email to
00:02:18.460 of the person.
00:02:19.300 It's not saying, hey, you know, Frank,
00:02:21.320 I really appreciate you investing,
00:02:22.740 here's the update, and et cetera.
00:02:24.900 And they'll read that.
00:02:26.160 And I'll be honest with you,
00:02:27.600 Mark Cuban invested in my company,
00:02:29.300 and he's one of the few investors,
00:02:31.380 I had some amazing investors, the top guys,
00:02:33.500 if you go look and you say,
00:02:34.440 well, those guys are great investors,
00:02:35.840 those guys always responded as well.
00:02:37.220 But Mark Cuban, as busy as it is,
00:02:38.840 always responded with really insightful questions,
00:02:41.640 or comments, or feedback.
00:02:43.060 He read every one of my updates,
00:02:44.320 so I always took it as a personal,
00:02:47.120 Almost out of appreciation for their time,
00:02:49.180 I always sent them an individual email with my update.
00:02:51.960 The third is the format.
00:02:53.860 It's what do you say in these updates?
00:02:56.520 Number one is get to the numbers.
00:02:57.940 Don't write these long-winded stories and reasons
00:03:00.760 and anecdotes and whatever.
00:03:02.760 It's, at the end of the day, just share the numbers.
00:03:05.300 Bullet points are amazing.
00:03:07.500 If you want to do that, that would be awesome.
00:03:09.540 So really just get to the numbers.
00:03:11.280 And always start with what's bad.
00:03:12.980 It might sound crazy, but at the end of the day,
00:03:14.720 wouldn't you want them to leave with a good impression?
00:03:16.820 So you put that at the end, the good.
00:03:18.500 So start with the bad and with the good.
00:03:20.380 And then to me, it's all about being concise.
00:03:22.200 So what I do in my updates is I say at the beginning,
00:03:25.600 here's what I'm gonna cover.
00:03:26.760 I just bullet points, like these are kind of the headings.
00:03:30.040 And then within the email, I'll put the different sections
00:03:32.760 so they can skim it, they can jump right to a certain point.
00:03:35.300 It makes it easier for them, it's very concise.
00:03:38.040 So that's the format.
00:03:39.320 Third, I'm gonna suggest to you guys, put a call to action.
00:03:42.940 Your investors are there to support you.
00:03:44.720 Yes, they gave you money, but trust me,
00:03:46.760 because I'm the same way, they wanna help.
00:03:49.200 They wanna know what are some of your big challenges
00:03:50.860 and how can I specifically help?
00:03:52.420 Now, don't be lazy.
00:03:53.580 Don't be like, I need an introduction
00:03:55.500 to 15 technical leaders out there.
00:03:58.120 No, no, no, don't be lazy.
00:03:59.480 Or, can you give me an introduction
00:04:01.500 to somebody who works in retail?
00:04:02.760 No, go do the research, try to understand
00:04:05.740 the person's background, the investor's background,
00:04:07.400 and ask for something specific.
00:04:08.800 Hey, Frank, I noticed that you're friends with John
00:04:11.720 at this company, because of LinkedIn,
00:04:13.860 do you mind making an introduction?
00:04:15.340 Or, you know, your background in marketplaces
00:04:17.480 is really valuable, do you mind jumping on a 30-minute call
00:04:19.640 so I can walk you through kind of our four-month strategy,
00:04:22.640 product development roadmap, et cetera.
00:04:24.300 So, like, be specific, but always put them to work.
00:04:27.160 Your investors are there to support you
00:04:29.280 and serve you and help you.
00:04:30.720 And many entrepreneurs just don't take advantage of that.
00:04:34.100 And it blows my mind because, trust me,
00:04:36.240 when you put your money into something,
00:04:37.900 you want it to generate a return,
00:04:39.280 you want it to be a huge outcome,
00:04:41.380 put them to work.
00:04:42.380 So that's action.
00:04:42.900 Now, here are my two power tips, right?
00:04:45.340 Number one, and unfortunately this happens way too often,
00:04:49.340 is don't go silent.
00:04:51.200 I get it, you're working on your business,
00:04:53.100 it's not going good, you're supposed to raise
00:04:54.440 a round of funding, it didn't happen,
00:04:56.280 and the default state is I'm gonna fix this
00:04:59.940 and then I'll send the update.
00:05:01.180 I'm going to have this win and then I'll send the update.
00:05:04.580 Do not go silent, right?
00:05:06.340 To me, if you've got two to three months
00:05:08.880 of runway in the bank and you haven't sent
00:05:10.280 an investor update in a while, shame on you.
00:05:12.400 That's not cool, because investors wanna help.
00:05:14.340 They want to make sure that they can be there to support you.
00:05:16.960 And if you keep delaying and putting it off,
00:05:19.880 you're not really serving yourself
00:05:21.720 or really respecting your investors.
00:05:24.040 So that's a big one.
00:05:24.960 Then the other one, if you want to be a baller,
00:05:27.280 if you've got the gumption,
00:05:29.720 if you've got the you-know-what
00:05:31.240 to really do this at the next level,
00:05:33.740 here's what my challenge is to you,
00:05:35.200 is send your updates to everybody in the business.
00:05:38.800 Team at company.com, whatever it is,
00:05:41.020 or all at whatever your group team email list is,
00:05:45.180 send it to the investors and then also send it to your team.
00:05:48.060 I've always done that because to me it's like
00:05:50.540 they know what's going on anyways in your business
00:05:52.900 and if they see the way you're communicating
00:05:54.740 to your investors and they see the priorities
00:05:56.220 that you're setting, your goals,
00:05:57.600 and they know that you've made that commitment,
00:05:59.460 they're gonna support you and give their all
00:06:01.740 and to me it just creates an amazing sense of collaboration
00:06:06.000 and community and transparency amongst your team.
00:06:08.020 So that is not for the faint of heart.
00:06:10.100 If you've got it in you, send it to your whole team.
00:06:13.340 That's what I got for you today.
00:06:14.440 I want to invite you to share this video.
00:06:16.740 If you know anybody else that has been struggling with this
00:06:18.980 or you know that they're about to close around
00:06:20.380 and they should probably learn how to do an investor update,
00:06:23.140 share this video with them.
00:06:24.480 I want to invite you guys to subscribe.
00:06:26.380 I want to ask you guys to leave a comment below.
00:06:28.320 Let me know what the number one takeaway from this video,
00:06:31.720 what aspect of sending an investor update
00:06:33.960 did you not think about until you heard it in this video?
00:06:36.660 I want to hear from you below in the comments,
00:06:38.360 number one breakthrough takeaway, et cetera.
00:06:40.460 I wanna ask you guys, or really challenge you,
00:06:42.560 to live a bigger life and a bigger business,
00:06:44.500 and I'll see you next Monday.