It’s December 7th, and I am an investor in approximately 30 startups. To date, only 12 of those have submitted a monthly report for November.
Setting aside the handful of deep tech startups I'm involved in, where a quarterly report suffices due to slower progress, approximately half of all the startups haven’t provided a status report to their investors for November.
This is a widespread issue in the industry, and I believe that "my" startups are no better or worse than average.
There appear to be three main excuses:
1. Don’t know it’s important: While very unlikely, there could be a few founders who are still unaware of the importance of keeping their stakeholders, including investors, updated on progress. However, they should understand that it's crucial. How can you expect your investors to assist you going forward if they have no insight into the company's status?
2. Don’t have time: I understand how stressful it is to be a startup founder, where you always feel overwhelmed with too much to do and never reach the bottom of the to-do list. However, how much time does it take to write an update email to your investors – 15 minutes, one day per month? I believe it's something that you must prioritize.
3. Bad news: Many founders hesitate to send updates to their investors because things are not progressing according to the plan. A good rule of thumb is that if you haven’t heard from a startup in a while, you can safely assume they are facing challenges. Just last month on the 27th, I received a call from a founder that I hadn’t heard from in 5 months: “We are out of money.” Seriously, keep your investors updated, especially when things are rough!
Now, someone might ask, "But Nicolaj, how good were you at updating your investors when you were a founder and CEO?"
Honestly, very bad, for the same reasons ??. But now I'm an old and grumpy investor who wants my updates!
#investors #startups #communication
