Reporting

Our Community Templates are a collection of Update Templates created by our customers, partners, and friends. If you’d interested in showcasing your Update Template send a message to marketing@visible.vc Community Spotlight Company Name — Malomo Description —Malomo is a seed-stage, SaaS company based in Indianapolis, IN providing shipment tracking software for ecommerce brands Stage — Seed Capital Raised — $600k Market/Business Model — SaaS, E-Commerce The Investor Update Template If you’re a seed stage, SaaS founder this is a great template to get you started. Yaw, the CEO and Founder, of Malomo shares the Update below on a weekly basis followed by a longer form Update on a monthly basis. For a seed or earlier stage company a weekly investor Update can be a valuable resource for your company. A weekly Update gives you an added opportunity to leverage your investors and use their experience, network, and knowledge to help with early company decisions. Talk to your investors and see if they’d be interested in a more frequent Update. You may not need to send a weekly investor update to your entire investor list. If you have investors that are not as hands on or close to the business it may be best to only share a monthly or quarterly Update with them. You can view and use the Template below: Thanks to Yaw for taking the time to share his template. If you’re a founder, investor, or company operator and would like to share your Update Templates send us a message to marketing@visible.vc

Upside is a podcast about startup investing outside of silicon valley. Our founder, Mike Preuss, was able to sit down with the hosts at Upside and discuss all things founder and investor relationships. If you’re interesting in learning more about Visible, investor communication, and portfolio management give the episode a listen. From the Upside blog, you can find the recap of the episode below: AD: Finding experienced employees for your new business with Integrity Power Search (5:23) Mike’s background and entrepreneurship experience (7:56) Orr Fellowship (11:17) Managing a remote culture, different time zones, and off-sites (12:44) Initial problem and genesis of Visible (18:38) Changing the product from investors to founders (21:53) Finding clients (26:07) Tracking metrics and data (or lack thereof (30:05) Visible using Visible (32:38) Money model (36:13) Investors’ and founders’ access to information (43:13) Visible’s potential in a downturn or recession (46:31)

A board meeting can be an intimidating endeavor for first time founders. However, when a founder is well prepared a board meeting can be an integral part of a company’s success. In case you missed it, we hosted a webinar with Russell Benaroya covering the ins and outs of running a board meeting on demand. Russell spent the last twenty years investing in private equity and as a healthcare entrepreneur, building and exiting two start-ups. Currently, Russell is a Partner at Stride Services where they help high growth organizations with back-office support. Between his time as a founder and helping companies at Stride, Russell has become an expert in preparing and executing a board meeting. During the webinar, Russell shared how founders can always be prepared for a board meeting. You can find our favorite takeaways from the “Board Meeting on Demand” webinar below: Lead with Facts It is normal to feel anxiety and excitement before a board meeting. However, it is important to manage your emotions and stick with the facts. If you lead with data and facts then you can take the time to talk about strategy and the future of your company. Russell warns founders not to approach board meetings with a narrative or a story to tell as it can be exhausting and can understates the facts. A Board Member Will Never Know Your Business as Well as You Do If you’re looking for a board member to give you tactical operational advice remember that their view will be slanted. No matter how involved a board member is with your business they will not have the same information and understanding of your business as you do. In reality, a board member should be able to determine if you’re properly capitalized to execute on your strategy, how you are executing to the strategy, and do you have the right people in the right roles. Turn the Executive Session on Your Board Rather than using the executive session as a chance to air your frustrations and “seek counseling,” use it as a time to allow your board to bring up their own discussion items. Ask your board to come prepared to discuss their topics, their observations, and their agenda items they want to cover. What to Send Before the Meeting Russell suggests sending your metrics vs. plan, financial and operating metrics, actions since last meeting, key customer learnings, your pipeline, and your functional roles chart. You can take it a step further by saying founders should not send a simple org chart but rather a functional role chart that will showcase what positions you need to fill to deliver on your strategy. Russell recommends sending your materials 3 days in advance so your board has a chance to review the facts and form an opinion in advance of the meeting. No Surprises A board meeting should not be full of surprises for you as a founder or any of your board members. You should go into a board meeting with a deep understanding of where every board member stands. Russell recommends scheduling 1 on 1 meetings with each board member to pick their brain on different issues. There tends to be a herd mentality when sharing to a group (your board) so it is important to discuss on an individual basis to understand where they truly stand. Come with Your Best Thinking As a founder “you should be coming to your board meeting to share your best thinking.” This can be boiled down to a simple process. You come to the meeting and share how you are thinking about an issue, how you analyzed it, your recommendations, then ask the board for their thoughts on your recommendations. This way you stick to the data and use your knowledge to make the best decision for your business. From here, you can have a spirited discussion with your board. All in all, remember that running a board meeting comes down to the preparation you put in beforehand. With the right preparation and mentality heading into a board meeting, it can truly be a valuable asset for your business.

A great board of directors can be a “secret weapon” for a company. At the same time, a bad board can kill a company. Matt Blumberg, CEO of Bolster, joined us to break down how early-stage founders can build a great board — we covered everything from recruiting board members to running a successful board meeting. What we covered: How a great board can be a secret weapon The purpose of a board of directors Determining the makeup of your board Scaling your board as you grow How to best run a board meeting

A guest post for the Founders Forward blog by Florent Merian. Visible is on a mission to move founders forward. We’ve built an automation tool that lets you, founders and startup leaders, instantly create and send updates to your team and your investors. We often preach treating fundraising and investor communication as a process. It should be no different from any sales, marketing, or product process that you would implement at your business. In this blog post, we explore how you can apply your support process to your investor communication and why getting feedback from your investors is so important to build trust, engagement, and a successful long-lasting relationship. Know your investors, enhance your relationship To get feedback from your customers is vital to increase your business. So is feedback from your investors to build transparency and trust in your relationship. As Fred Wilson, partner at Union Square Ventures, reported, “founders and their teams spend a lot of time preparing for a meeting, and then they give the meeting their all, and often the Board leaves, and nothing is really said about it.” As he stated, “one of the most frustrating things about board meetings is that it is difficult for founders and CEOs to get feedback on them.” By engaging with your investors to know how they feel after a meeting and how you can improve, you better know them, their expectations and you get valuable insights to improve your performances as a startup leader. Related Resource: Navigating Investor Feedback: A Guide to Constructive Responses Build a personalized online survey to get insights There are several ways to ask for feedback. For instance, you can build an online review with a simple web tool, and share it with your investors when done. You can ask them the following questions: What are the three things we’re doing well? What are the three things we need to do better? What would you like to see followed-up on from this board meeting? Are there any topics you’d like to explore in-depth at the next board meeting? As your investors might be overwhelmed by emails and might not have the time to reply, personalize your survey with their first name to make more engaging and make sure it has a responsive design, so it’s accessible from any where and from any device. Then, you can collect data as part of your process to review your performances, to improve your management, and ultimately to foster your business development. This way, you can get valuable feedback from your investors and you can rely on it to improve your next meetings and updates. Get continuous investor feedback The same way you would do with your customers, regularly request feedback from your investors. Send them surveys after your Board meetings and keep them informed of your activity with regular updates to build and maintain a trustworthy relationship. Remember founders who regularly engage with their investors are 200% more likely to receive follow-on funding. To engage with your investors by getting feedback and sending updates regularly helps you maintain a trustworthy relationship, and it also enables you to build a better company. Thank you for your read! How about you, how do you engage with your investors?

Investor communication is a key skill that all startup founders should hone. Whether you're pitching new investors, updating existing ones, or trying to raise your next round, your ability to engage investors can mean the difference between failure and success. In this webinar you’ll learn: How to reach out to investors and get a meeting How to pitch effectively How to stay top-of-mind with prospective investors How sending consistent investor updates can make getting your next round easy How to leverage your investors’ experience and networks to get the help you need

Investor communication is a key skill that all startup founders should hone. Whether you’re pitching new investors, updating existing ones or trying to raise your next round, your ability to engage investors can mean the difference between failure and success.

Customer Development was introduced by entrepreneur Steve Blank in the early 90s. Since its inception, customer development has become core curriculum for startup founders and operators. Customer Development is one of the parts that make up a “lean startup,” an idea introduced by Steve Blank and Eric Ries. As the customer development framework has become a widely used approach in the startup world, we’ve decided how the process can be applied to a key facet of building a startup: investor development. In order to better understand investor development, it is important to understand customer development. As Steve Blank puts it in his book, The Four Steps to the Epiphany, “Broadly speaking, customer development focuses on understanding customer problems and needs, customer validation on developing a sales model that can be replicated, customer creation on creating end-user demand, and company building on transitioning the company from one designed for learning and discovery to a well-oiled machine engineered for execution.” The customer development framework can be broken down into the 4 steps below: Customer Discovery — “The goal of Customer Discovery is just what the name implies: finding out who the customers for your product are and whether the problem you believe you are solving is important to them.” Customer Validation — “Customer Validation is where the rubber meets the road. The goal of this step is to build a repeatable sales road map for the sales and marketing teams that will follow later.” Customer Creation — “Customer Creation builds on the success the company has had in its initial sales. Its goal is to create end-user demand and drive that demand into the company’s sales channel.” Company Building — “Company Building is where the company transitions from its informal, learning and discovery-oriented customer development team into formal departments with VPs of Sales, Marketing and Business Development.” Finding and marketing to new customers is hard. To help with this, it is important to note the four steps are recursive and iterative. As Steve Blank writes, “The nature of finding and discovering a marketing and customers guarantees that you will get it wrong several times. Therefore, unlike the product development model, the Customer Development model assumes that it will take several iterations of each of the four steps until you get it right.” What is Investor Development? As founders and investors often stress, raising venture capital is very much a structured process. And more times than not, a process full of nos and disappointments. Just as the Customer Development model assumes it will take several iterations until you get it right, the same can be said for pitching and closing investors. Elizabeth Yin, founder of the Hustle Fund, says, “an experienced fundraiser knows that the goal in going into your first fundraising meeting is to ask lots of questions and walk away understanding what next steps make sense. You should understand your potential investor’s pain points. Is there something you can solve for a potential investor by having him/her invest in your company? Do you have a solution for those pain points?” Following the core principles of the Customer Development model and Elizabeth’s idea mentioned above, a founder can easily systemize their fundraising process using the four investor development steps below: Investor Discovery — Investor discovery is the process of identifying targeted potential investors and whether your company/product/service can solve your investor’s needs and requirements. Investor Validation — Investor validation is where founders iterate on what they learned in the discovery stage and tailor their pitch and begin targeted outreach and conversation. Validation proves that investors are reacting positively to your company/product/service by investing capital. Capital Creation — Capital creation builds on the success from the first 2 stages and creates a scalable process for the current, and future, fundraises. Checks are being written and demand is being created for follow-on and future investors. Relationship Building — Relationship building is when your fundraising and investor relations process has matured. Formal expectations have been set between you, the founder, and your current and future investors. Note, that this is an iterative process (just like the Customer Development Model). If you believe your company cannot satisfy a potential investor’s requirements, ask questions to understand why and reiterate your solution to solve their investment pain points and requirements. Investor Discovery Investor discovery is the start of your fundraising journey. Before you begin the investor discovery stage it is important to identify who you believe your target investors to be by creating an ideal investor persona and list of targeted investors. The discovery process will happen during your first meeting with a new investor. A first-time founder may be tempted to begin their meeting with a company pitch and paint a picture of why their company is worthy of being venture-backed. However, this should be a time to understand the investor’s needs. Ask plenty of questions and pull together your learnings to tailor your solution and pitch to their needs. As Elizabeth Yin sums it up, “Your job in the first meeting with a potential investor is to ask a lot of questions—a la customer development style—to understand how you might be able to tie your story to their problems and interests. And so your pitch should not be stagnant, and although you may have created a deck before the meeting, it’s important to tie your talking points together as a solution to the problems you learn about in that meeting.” Investor Validation The next step in the process is to validate your solution and scale your process to other investors you’ve identified. As mentioned above, the first meeting with every investor should be about uncovering their pain points and requirements to tailor your pitch for each investor. The same holds true for the validation stage, but with an emphasis on rolling out your learnings and dialing in your pitch as you uncover different strengths of your business and your pitch from each new meeting. By completing both investor discovery and investor validation, you confirm that your company/product/solution is worthy of being venture-backed. These steps verify that your business model is feasible, the market is of interest to investors, establishes your price, and creates the perceived value to the market, and investors. Capital Creation To create capital you need to have proved your company is worth of being venture-backed. By completing investor discovery and investor validation you have likely confirmed your company is ready to be venture-backed. Capital creation is when checks from initial investors are being cashed. By validating the value of your company, a new sense of demand will be created for your company, new opportunities with co-investors and future investors will arise. It is important to note that new opportunities will arise for a future round. However, by taking your learnings from the first discovery and validation, you’ll be to engage these investors for a later fundraise. Relationship Building The final stage is relationship-building. The relationship-building stage is when your investor relations and fundraising processes have matured. You’ll have an established rhythm for communicating and engaging with your current investors as well as an approach for reaching out to prospective investors. Investors are invested in your success as a company and have validated that you are fulfilling a pain point. It is your duty to show that you’re taking their commitment seriously and sharing how you’re deploying their capital and ensuring they can help create value along the journey. All in all, it is vital to create a process that allows you to iterate and improve along the way. At the end of the day you are selling your company to a potential customer (read: investor) and communication is at the center of the relationship. Interested in learning more about investor development? Check out other ideas on our Founders Forward blog here.

One of the most powerful tools at investors’ disposal is equity research reports. Wall Street firms employ some of the sharpest minds in the industry who study companies with publicly traded stocks. These analysts delve into every aspect of the company, from its financial statements to its management team and competitors. Equity research reports provide solid analysis and the opinions of the analysts who follow the companies and their stocks extremely closely. What Is an Equity Research Report? An equity research report is a detailed report written by an analyst at a sell-side firm or independent investment research firm that analyzes the company’s business and finances and gives the analyst’s opinion of the company’s prospects and future stock price. Analysts are experts in the companies’ businesses, finance, and industries they follow. They research a company’s financials, performance, and competitive landscapes. They also create models to predict metrics like future earnings per share, sales, and a target price for the stock. Analysts keep a close eye on every move of the companies they follow and update their equity research reports at least once a quarter after the company issues its quarterly earnings report. If significant material changes occur mid-quarter, the analyst will write an update to their research report in a flash report. An example of an equity research report is a report on Apple written by a sell-side analyst from Argus. This report includes the analyst’s analysis and opinions about the company’s financials and future revenue and earnings predictions. The report also provides the analyst’s target price estimate and rating. Important Components of a Typical Equity Research Report The typical equity research report includes components that dig into the company’s financials, industry landscape, risks, and other vital aspects that can materially affect the company’s future business performance and stock price. Recent Results & Company Announcements Shortly after a company announces its quarterly results, an analyst will issue a new equity research report. This report will include an analysis of the recent quarterly results, including EPS, sales, and various financial metrics like EBITDA and profit margins. When releasing quarterly results, a company often makes announcements in a press release or through a conference call between management and the analyst community. The equity research report will include an analysis of these company announcements. Organizational Overview and Commentary An equity research report typically summarizes the company’s organizational structure. This summary outlines the management structure and the company’s major divisions. If the company makes any significant structural changes, such as appointing a new CEO or shutting down a division, the analyst will discuss the implications of these changes in the equity research report. Valuation Information Perhaps the most impactful part of an equity research report is the valuation analysis provided by the research analyst. The analyst provides an overview of the company’s performance through this analysis. The valuation information included within an equity research report includes margin analysis, EPS and sales estimates, the stock’s target price estimate, and other valuation and financial metrics calculated through a deep dive into the company’s financial statements. Estimates An analyst uses a company’s reported results and their own research into the company’s operations and the industry to calculate various estimates. The most prominent estimate is the EPS estimate, the analyst’s estimate for earnings per share for future quarters and fiscal years. Analysts also calculate forecasts for sales, margins, and other financial metrics. Many equity brokerage reports include a target price estimate, which is a short-term estimate for the stock’s price. An analyst may also issue a rating for the company’s stock, such as buy, sell, or hold. Financial Histories An equity research report typically contains financial data going back several years on both a quarterly and fiscal year basis. The analyst uses this financial data to perform an analysis of the company’s financial health and create projections. While research reports typically do not include complete financial statements, the reports often include important line items, valuation ratios, and financial metrics in tables which the analyst will reference in the commentary. Trends Evaluating trends is a big part of an analyst’s job; equity research reports discuss these trends. The report includes trends like year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter growth rates for metrics such as EPS, sales, and margins. The trend analysis gives an excellent overview of the growth of the company. For example, suppose sales significantly grew year-over-year, but EPS was stagnant. In this case, the company may be facing higher expenses, and the analyst will dive into the financial results and attempt to uncover the cause of the problem. Risks Many equity research reports include a section that describes the risks the company and investors may encounter. These risks may include economic headwinds, an increasingly competitive landscape, and company-specific risks like failed product launches or management changes. In-Depth Industry Research While analysts are experts on the companies they follow, they are also experts on the companies’ industries. Equity research reports include the analyst’s evaluation of the industry trends, the competitive landscape, and how the company’s prospects align with changes within the industry. Buy Side vs. Sell Side: What Role Do Both Sides Play? Buy-side and sell-side firms play different roles in financial markets, and it is vital to understand the role of each. Buy-side firms, such as hedge funds, pension funds and asset managers, have money to invest. They buy stocks and other investments and are fiduciaries of their client’s money. Sell-side firms, such as brokerage houses, sell investments to their clients, including buy-side firms. Sell-side firms employ analysts that write equity research reports. The sell-side firms provide these equity research reports to their buy-side clients. Buy-side firms use these equity research reports to help make investment decisions. Other Types of Research Reports Analysts produce several types of equity research reports. These include initiation of coverage reports, quarterly results reports, flash reports, and sector and industry reports. Initiating Coverage Reports When a sell-side firm begins covering a stock, the first analyst report is called an initiation of coverage report. This report gives the analyst’s first take on a company and its stock. Many investors pay attention to initiation of coverage reports because they provide a fresh perspective on a stock. Quarterly Results Reports After a company reports its earnings, an analyst will issue a new research report incorporating recent results. The analyst discusses the results and what went wrong and right in the last quarter. The analyst will also calculate new financial projections based on the results, company guidance, and management commentary. Related Resource: Portfolio Management: What it is and How Visible Can Help Related Resource: How To Write the Perfect Investor Update (Tips and Templates) Flash Reports Analysts issue flash reports when significant material changes involving the company, or the company’s industry, occur. An analyst may issue a flash report if the company’s CEO resigns, the company initiates a significant stock buyback program, or other major news breaks. In a flash report, the analyst will discuss the relevant news and how it may impact the company and its stock price. Sector Reports Sell-side firms also issue sector reports. The sector reports will dive into trends within the sector, a high-level analysis of the top companies in the sector, and past and future predicted performance of the stocks within the sector. Industry Reports Like sector reports, industry reports discuss the competitive landscape and major players within an industry. An industry is a subset of a sector. For example, the technology sector includes the semiconductor, personal computer, and cloud computing industries. Industry reports focus on a narrower industry rather than a broader sector. Equity Research Report Example Although each sell-side firm has a unique style for presenting analysts’ research in equity research reports, most contain similar types of information. Let’s conclude our discussion of equity research reports by looking at a recent Microsoft report written by Argus analyst Joseph Bonner after the company issued its fourth quarter 2022 results. The report starts with several tables of key statistics, such as financial and valuation ratios and the analyst’s investment thesis. The table also includes the analyst’s rating and target price for the stock. The report continues with the analyst’s investment thesis for Microsoft stock. This thesis briefly explains the analyst’s rationale for his Buy rating on MSFT stock. A section detailing recent developments within the company, which the analyst derives from the company’s earnings report and conference call, is followed by a look at select financial data. An analysis of growth rates for several key metrics like revenue and margins leads to an overview of risks that investors of Microsoft may face. Equity research reports offer investors a great way to harness the power of Wall Street analysts. These analysts live and breathe the companies they follow. Investors can use their expertise to advise them in the investing process.

You do a lot of work for your investors. Regular updates keep your board abreast of the latest company developments and current performance metrics. Monthly or quarterly meetings keep you accountable to their questions and concerns. You’re expected to answer their inquiries in a timely and satisfying manner. All of that accountability is wonderful, but it should also work both ways. One of the most valuable aspects of your investor updates is the opportunity it provides founders to make targeted asks of their VCs. After all, you chose these folks on the strength of their experience, capital and network. Accessing those resources with a focused request can be one of the best ways to improve your business. But inevitably, some investors will be better than others when it comes to tapping into their networks and assisting their founders. It’s not a bad idea to let them know where they stand and provide a nudge for improvement. Ranking investors can be an intimidating idea, but when done right can provide a useful way for founders to spur increased engagement from their investors and better illustrate their additional needs from the board. To handle it in the most tactful manner, focus less on creating a zero-sum, Game of Thrones-style battle between investors for the top spot and instead provide up-to-date developments on how investors have made a specific impact on the business. To succeed in doing so, you need to show contributions in several categories – a nice mix of hard metrics like # of intros alongside less qualitative items like offering good product advice. Here’s what I recommend: Ranking Your Investors by Hard metrics Nothing quite beats delivering clean data to convince your VCs of their value or their need to do more. A regular report on these three critical categories can encourage greater participation using nothing other than the facts. Referral revenue – Investors help drive deals. It isn’t a terrible idea to tie revenue directly to each investor or firm and be transparent with the entire board of this growth metric. Your board is likely comprised of a competitive group. Developing a referral revenue leaderboard won’t be the only way you’ll assess contributions, but just putting these numbers down on a one-sheeter could be a great way to fire up VCs to go out and hunt deals for your business. Capital – If you need follow-on funding from your board, you’re going to be asked to deliver data and provide a convincing argument for the initiatives that need cash to scale. Once you’ve completed their requests, it isn’t a terrible decision to start compiling a report that details the contributions of each investor as well and share these dollar figures. You’ll want the help of your current board to assist you in your raises. Detail who matters most. Investor referrals – In addition to follow-on funding from their own pockets, you want your investors to help facilitate venture deals with investor referrals. If members of your board make warm introductions that later lead to signed checks, track that money like a sales lead so an investor’s value isn’t solely tied to the size of their bank. Also, providing examples of referrals that have worked well can be an exciting talking point to inspire other investors to make additional introductions to close your rounds quickly. Human Resources Beyond the easy-to-quantify metrics, there are two core contributions investors can make to attract and retain talent. Here is how to leverage transparency in order to improve their commitment. Employee referrals – Money and deals will keep your startup afloat, but in the long-run, you need top talent to beat the competition. As you build out your leadership team, your investors should be your best recruiters. Their referrals can cut down on the time it takes for you to hire and ensure quality candidates will make the most of your time. The value of one’s networks can be easily shown by identifying for the group who is doing the best to fill the ranks. If a board referral leads to a hire, detail this in your investor’s contributions during your regular update. Employee training – Your investors’ responsibility for human resources doesn’t stop at employee referrals. “Traditionally, VCs and platform teams have helped their portfolio companies attract the best talent by providing recruiting and hiring support,” Maria Palma of RRE Ventures writes. “But recently, some VCs have also started to help their companies on the development and retention front. Many are now offering ongoing training, coaching, and proactive solutions to address the common leadership and management challenges that occur frequently as startups scale.” In order to encourage these contributions, you might both quantify the time they invest in these efforts and outline the specific areas where they’ve filled a need. This informs your entire board of what’s going on with investor-assisted retention efforts and builds a template for employee support in the future. A concise update to encourage contribution Compiling these data points and informal efforts into a single slide or one-sheeter underlines its importance to your work, shows that you value their endeavors, and doesn’t unnecessarily embarrass anyone. After all, you may have a few in the group that have fallen short recently but will be motivated to catch up and make moves soon. A concise overview can be both constructive and respectful. It’s a good jumping-off point to ask for more. It also doesn’t waste their time. As for your own records, you might take a more blunt approach. It will be helpful to regularly review these data points and actually assign a numerical rank to each investor. That way, as you begin to scale and the stakes increase on investor relations, you never lose focus on who has objectively mattered most to the business.

Running a Board of Directors Meeting For most businesses, a Board of Directors meeting must be held at least once a year — however, some businesses may choose to schedule them more frequently. A Board of Directors meeting is an excellent opportunity to make sure that key stakeholders are on the same page. During a Board of Directors meeting, stakeholders will be updated regarding the status and finances of the business, as well as offered presentations regarding the company’s future. Perhaps most importantly, stakeholders will be allowed to vote on future strategies and directions. For startups, a board meeting is an data and people. In a board meeting, the right people are exposed to the right data. Profit-and-loss reports, general ledger sheets, and other financial documents are presented to key stakeholders, and these key stakeholders are able to synthesize this information into important insights. Further, board meetings provide a pathway through which key stakeholders are able to discuss the company’s performance. There’s a reason why board meetings are required: because they are essential to a healthy business. Startups often experience more volatile changes than other companies, and may face unique challenges. Consequently, startups may want to have more frequent board meetings, and may find that their board meetings are even more useful than they are in traditional, established companies. Even in preparing for a board meeting, a startup will be able to explore its performance and its challenges, locating and assessing its risks. However, challenges can arise when the principles of a startup don’t have the time to prepare for a board meeting, or feel as though they aren’t certain what’s expected of them. As many startups are loose and informal, a board meeting may provide an unnatural level of formality. Startup founders may need to research board meetings further if they want to run a successful one. Board Meeting Rules How are board meetings run? What are the board meeting rules? Board meetings are 5% the meeting itself and 95% preparation. Before the board meeting occurs, you will need to prepare all of your documents and presentations in advance. You’ll need to determine exactly what you want to talk about during the meeting, as well as establishing what your goals are for that meeting. Ideally, your business has already been tracking its KPIs, metrics, and financial data. After the board meeting is scheduled, and before it starts, you should consider the current state of the business. What are its largest risks and challenges? What items are of the largest strategic importance? Before your board meeting begins, you should: Have completed and compiled the meeting minutes from the previous board meeting (hopefully well in advance). Most board meeting rules of order will have reading the prior meeting minutes first. Prepare financial reports, analysis, and other documents for the board members to review. Board meeting protocol generally suggests that these be reviewed early on, though they will also be sent to the board members in advance. Identify the company’s greatest risks, assets, and challenges, especially those that are most pressing. Create strategies that you would like the board to weigh in on, whether they approve or disapprove. Define clear goals that you want to achieve by the end of the board meeting. Once you have these things in place, it’s time to create an agenda. Your board meeting agenda is comprised of the topics that will be discussed, in order. It’s intended to keep everyone at the board meeting on the same page, as well as to ensure that nothing is missed. Many boards don’t have the best time management, and can potentially spend all of their time on a single issue, when multiple issues need to be discussed. Your agenda should be sent to all the board members directly, before the meeting occurs, so they themselves have time to prepare for the meeting. While it’s just a general outline of the meeting to come, it should still give them enough information that they’ll be able to form some thoughts, opinions, and ideas. A board meeting is a collaborative process, and your goal is to facilitate thought. To that end, your startup should be focused on presenting board members with the information that they need, as well as the challenges that are ahead. As mentioned, each board meeting and each company is different, and startup culture tends to vary significantly. Some startups may have looser and more frequent board meetings, while others may have infrequent, formal meetings. Some have strict board meeting rules of conduct, others don’t. Over time, you’ll discover what a normal “board meeting” for your startup looks like. Board Meeting Agenda What does the actual board meeting look like? How much time should be allotted for different things, and how do you go about voting for specific agenda items? Your board meeting agenda will provide a significant amount of guidance at this stage, but a traditional board meeting will look like this: Review the meeting minutes from the prior meeting. Discuss the company’s financial documents. Address any challenges and risks the company is facing. Host any presentations, regarding the status of the business. Discuss forward-facing strategies for the business. Vote on key decisions regarding the company’s direction. Raise and discuss any additional motions. The agenda should be paced properly, so that everything on the agenda can be covered within the time that has been allotted for the meeting. You will need to take control of the meeting, keeping an eye on the clock, and making sure that the board meeting doesn’t get bogged down. Understandably, the voting aspect of board meetings is often one of the most important. As key stakeholders do have a say in the future of the business, the vote will represent the actions that the business is allowed to take moving forward. Most of the board meeting will be leading up to these votes. The financial statements, challenge statements, presentations, and strategies should all be offering potential solutions to these board members. These board members will then vote on these solutions. Board meeting voting procedure is generally as follows: A motion is put to the table and discussed. Affirmative and negative votes are given. The affirmative and negative votes are tallied. This is for pre-scheduled votes. For non-pre-scheduled votes (new motions), a motion will generally be raised by a board member. From there, it must be seconded by another board member, at which time it will then be put to the table and discussed. Adhering to board meeting voting protocol is often necessary for two reasons: it ensures that votes occur expediently, while also making sure that the vote (and accompanying discussion) remains clear and civil. Often, board meetings may involve votes on topics that the board members consider quite passionately. Robert's Rules of Order Robert’s Rules are an excellent way to maintain order and decorum throughout a board meeting. A board meeting, by necessity, has to be orderly. Even in the most informal of startups, it must at least be clear what is being discussed and what the results were of that discussion. Robert’s Rules of Order can be applied to virtually any type of meeting, with a board meeting being one of the most likely to benefit. It is focused both on conducting meetings generally and also making decisions as a group. Here’s a simple Robert’s Rules one pager: Under Robert’s Rules of Order voting is done through motions, which must be seconded, and when these motions are seconded, they are then voted upon. A motion is defined as an intent to do something. In a board meeting, any planned strategy or decision would be considered to be a motion. Under Robert Rules of Order motions and voting are done with a single speaker at a time: there is no cross-talk, leading to an atmosphere more conducive to progress. Under Robert Rules of Order voting procedures, debates often precede votes, so that board members can discuss votes in full, and each board member can be allowed to share their opinion. In general, a “quorum” is required for most meetings. A quorum is a minimum number of members that the board meeting requires to be considered a full board meeting. Under Robert’s Rules of Order, meeting members have the following rights: to attend meetings, make motions, speak in debate, and to vote. These rights can be applied easily to board meetings. Depending on the way that Robert’s Rules of Order are applied, votes may be required to be unanimous, two-thirds, previous notice, or majority. Robert’s Rules of Order for small boards can be used as a method of structuring board meetings, giving insight into the decision-making process for groups, as well as the most important factors to emphasize. In general, Robert’s Rules place an emphasis on ensuring that an agenda is designed and kept, that everyone has space to talk and discuss, and that discussion is kept orderly and clear.

Last week, we hosted a webinar on how to raise a Series A. In it, Zylo CEO & Co-Founder Eric Christopher and I shared tactics and advice on how to make sure your Series A raise is a successful one. If you made it, thanks! We had a great turnout of engaged audience members. If you weren’t able to make it, you can check out the recording below: Today, I want to share three key takeaways from the webinar, in the hopes that they might help you raise your next funding round. How to know if you’re ready to raise? Series A readiness is a difficult thing to pin down. So much depends on your specific situation: the industry you’re in, the product you’ve built, your business model. A good breakdown of specific numbers you should be hitting can be found here, but even that list isn’t universal. As a general rule, though, you’ll know you’re probably ready to raise your Series A when you have these three things: an engine, healthy metrics, and a compelling story to tell. “An engine” refers to a predictable engine for acquisition. Acquisition of what, exactly, will depend on your company; it could be users, customers, revenue, etc. The important thing is, do you have a predictable way to acquire more? Healthy metrics refers to three general patterns: accelerated growth, low churn, and efficient acquisition. If your metrics demonstrate all three of these things, you’ll be very attractive to potential investors. The third item is this: can you tell a compelling story? This is potentially the most important item of the three. Every investor wants to invest in a good story. If you can effectively communicate what you’ve done so far, then paint a clear picture of what the future will look like if you keep succeeding, you’re likely to have success with your raise. If an investor likes the sound of that future and they believe you can make it happen, they’ll invest. Before you raise, commitment is key If you think your company is ready to raise a Series A, the first thing you have to do is prepare yourself. You have a lot of hard work ahead of you. A Series A raise takes, on average, about 5.5 months to complete. That’s a lot of time where your focus will be outside of the day-to-day of your business. You’re also going to face a lot of rejection—the most common answer after pitching an investor, after all, is “no.” A CEO/Founder who is undertaking a Series A round needs to be fully prepared to do so—committed to seeing it through, confident in their pitch, and always working with a specific goal in mind. Before diving into your Series A raise, you need to make sure you’re prepared for what it means. Don’t forget about your current investors Your current investors can be absolutely essential in closing your Series A round—whether they participate in the round or not. If your current investors choose not to follow on—for whatever reason—they can still be a huge help to you as you raise your round. They can provide everything from pitch feedback to warm introductions to other investors who might be a better fit. These are just three takeaways from our webinar on raising your Series A round, but there’s plenty more content where that came from. Check out the recording below:

Y Combinator has funded over 1900 startups since their inception in 2005. In the process of funding those startups, YC receives thousands of investor updates on an annual basis. As Aaron Harris, Partner at YC, puts it, “At YC, we get lots of updates from our alums. There seems to be a correlation between quality and frequency of updates and the goodness of the company and founders.” Over the past year, we’ve had thousands of founders share Updates with their investors and other stakeholders. While investor updates come in all different shapes and sizes, we’ve found that most, if not all, include some form of the following: a quick recap of the last month, metrics and KPIs, and specific asks for your investors. To this point, Aaron Harris of YC suggests using the same components but has interesting thoughts about the order of these components what specific information should be shared. Metrics & KPIs Metrics and KPIs are included in almost every Update template we’ve seen come across our table. Including your key metrics with growth percentages is widely expected. Aaron Harris suggests sharing your KPIs and growth percentages first when reporting to your investors. Sharing high-level growth metrics and financial status metrics are what you are looking for here. Examples include revenue, cash in bank, and burn rates. No matter what you decide to share, make sure the metrics are defined and explained to your investors and repeated on a monthly basis. Targeted Asks Making targeted asks to your investors is arguably the most impactful part of an investor update. If engaged properly, investors are more than a source of capital. They have experience, advice, and networks you can leverage. Don’t be afraid to ask your investors help with closing deals, finding talent, and future fundraising. Regardless if you put asks first or second in order, Aaron recommends putting it as close to the top as possible to make sure your investors see it and can help where needed. Quick Recap Interestingly, Aaron suggests putting the qualitative recap of your month towards the bottom of your investor update. While we often see founders lead with a recap, ending with a recap will ensure that your investors see both your metrics and targeted asks. Make this as short as possible and be sure to only add things that are vital to your success. At the end of the day, investors are busy and you want to make sure they read your entire update. These are just a few elements to consider when deciding on the structure of your investor update. To see these elements in context or create an update yourself, check out our Y Combinator update template below. Check out an example of the Y Combinator Investor Update Here >>>

Point Nine Capital is one of the most—if not the most—sought-after early stage SaaS venture firm in Europe. With a portfolio that includes the likes of Zendesk, Front, and Algolia, the Point Nine team receives countless decks and pitches every day. Part of the reason they receive so many pitches is Point Nine Capital hosts a contact form on their website that allows visitors to begin the pitch process. We’ve scoured their blog to gather what we believe are best practices when filling out the Point Nine Capital pitch form. The Point Nine Capital Basics This is a pretty straightforward section with a few questions about the founder and firmographics. A couple of key questions: Which category/categories does your startup fall into? Point Nine is mostly known for investing in SaaS. However, they’re also interested in “internet startups” specifically marketplaces, AI, and crypto. If you fall outside of these categories, it may make sense to look to other investors. When did you launch? While your specific launch date does not necessarily correlate to what stage you’re at, Point Nine’s goal is to be the first institutional investor a company takes on. They consider this the “0.9 stage” or when you’re “too big for private investors, too small for most VCs – many startups find it hard to raise capital, and that’s when we’d like to get involved.” How much funding are you planning to raise? From the FAQ section of the Point Nine website, they generally invest from a few hundred thousand to 2 million Euros/USD. Point Nine generally has co-investors so if you’re looking raise much more than $3.5M, it may make sense to look elsewhere. To learn more about what Point Nine Capital looks for in terms of general company information check out A Sneak Peak Into Point Nine’s Investment Thesis. The Point Nine Capital Pitch Deck Point Nine has shared plenty of information for crafting and sharing the perfect pitch deck. It is their first filter when sorting through potential investments, and it can make or break your pitch. There is no formula for a perfect pitch deck, but it should always answer this question for a potential investor: “is this company likely to become far more valuable in the future?” According to Michael Wolfe—who is an advisor to Point Nine—a solid pitch deck will consist of the following: Summary – Orient the audience on what you’re doing, what stage, how much money you’re raising, etc. The problem you solve, and who has that problem – Pitch the problem, not the solution. Your Solution – Highlight your product. Show how and why your customers use your product. Customer Traction – Traction metrics and customer stories. The Market – Explain your Total Addressable Market Competitive Landscape – Talk about current market, future market, and your differentiators. Business Model – Talk about your revenue model, pricing, customer acquisition plan, etc. Team – Quick summary of your team and backgrounds. The Plan – Key milestones coming in the next 12-24 months. The Round – How much you’re raising, other investors, etc. If you’re interested in learning more about putting together your pitch deck, check out these posts from the team at Point Nine: A Simple Pitch Deck [Template] How to bulletproof your fundraising deck Why we politely ask for a deck first The Point Nine Capital Financials & Key Metrics Point Nine will ask for a set of your KPIs in the form as well. Don’t fret! They’ve shared content and templates for what they’re looking for. Christoph Janz put together a SaaS example of what they are looking for in this post. The team also put together a marketplace metrics template in this post. The metrics in the templates above can be fairly granular, so a lite version should do the trick. If you’re unsure about the state of your metrics, the team at Point Nine has also put together 6 SaaS metric frameworks to help benchmark against your peers: Revenue Growth: the T2D3 framework – The triple, triple, double, double, double framework. What your ARR should be growing at after every year. Revenue Growth Efficiency: SaaS Quick Ratio – Measures a company’s ability to grow it’s MRR in spite of churn. The LTV / CAC Ratio – How much revenue a customer generates as opposed to how much it cost to acquire them. Churn Benchmark – Benchmarks for SaaS company in different markets and stages. The 40% Rule – The idea that your growth % to profit % should be equal to or greater than 40%. Product Related Metrics – Find a “north star” unique to your business. While great financial metrics are important, they are not compulsory at the early stage for the Point Nine team. Clement Vouillon, Senior Research Analyst at Point Nine, put it this way: “we’re still investing in pre-PMF startups with barely no revenue, what will be important is that you have a huge potential, some early sign of interest from the users (great retention for example, even with a couple of B2B early adopters), or an outstanding team (with a trackrecord).” We hope these tips will help with your Point Nine Capital pitch. Ready to take your fundraising and investor relations to the next level? Check out the Founders Forward Blog to learn more about engaging and attracting investors.

“What should I include in my investor update?” If there’s one question we get more than any other, it’s that one. We hear it so often that we recently built a Template Library and filled it with example updates from well-known investors, industry experts and our own best practices. Some items, however, aren’t so easy to templatize, but they are great for engaging investors and getting them to act on your updates. Remember, the updates you send to your investors are for them, but they’re also for you. If you make it easy for investors to act on the asks you include in your update, they’re much more likely to do it. That means better outcomes for everyone. Related Reading: How to Write the Perfect Investor Update (Tips and Templates) Check out what we mean below: The LinkedIn Search Let’s say you’re trying to hire a senior engineer and want your investors’ help. There are two ways to ask: We’re trying to hire a Senior Full-Stack Engineer. Please let us know if you know of anyone who would be a good fit! OR 2. We’re currently looking to hire a Senior Full-Stack Engineer. Click here to search your network for someone you can recommend. Which option do you think your investors are more likely to act on? If you said Option 2, you’re right! If you click the link above, you’ll be taken directly to LinkedIn, and you’ll have a list of people that may be a good fit for a senior engineering role. By including a direct ask and a link like that in your investor update, you make it incredibly easy for your investors to take action right away, which means you’re much more likely to get the candidate introduction you want. Making that link is pretty easy—just do a people search based on the criteria you’re looking for in your own LinkedIn account. Here’s what that looks like: After doing your search, just copy the URL into your update. When your investor clicks the link, it will do the same search in their account. If you want to get really tricky, this article offers tips on how to build an advanced Boolean search in LinkedIn. You can also add filters based on location, past companies, and more. The more specific your search, the more likely you’ll get an introduction to a great candidate. Quick note: this technique was originally suggested by our friend Wes Winham at Woven Teams. Thanks Wes! The One-Click Tweet Your investors’ networks are an asset. If you want them to spread the word about your company, you should make it easy for them. That’s where the one-click Tweet comes in. Using ClickToTweet, you can create a pre-written tweet for your investors to share with their Twitter followers. Even if they don’t use your suggested text, directly asking them for a share—and making it easy for them to do it—greatly increases the chances that they will. You could use the one-click Tweet to get them to share a piece of content, a press mention, or anything else you want to promote. Here’s an example: We just launched our Update Templates Library! Click here to spread the word on Twitter! See how easy that was? The Bold Question If this one sounds simple, that’s because it is. We recommend putting an important question, written in bold, at or near the end of your update. Why? Because investors are busy people. No matter how much they like you or how supportive they are of your company, they likely aren’t reading every word of every update you send, especially not right when you send it. They may receive your update when they’re on the go, or a few minutes before they get on a call. In those cases, they’re likely going to check your key metrics, skim the text of the update a bit, and plan to come back to the rest later. Whether they actually make it back is dependent on everything from how they manage their inbox to their schedule for the week. When we talk to investors about what they want to see in updates, items like key metrics and progress toward goals come up a lot, but just as often we hear “I want my companies to tell me how I can help.” That’s why you should put a key ask toward the end of your update. Put it in bold so it stands out. If your investor takes away one thing from your update, it’ll be that question, which increases your chances of getting the help you need. The Reaction This last one only works if you’re using Visible for your investor updates. We recently added Reactions to Updates. It’s a simple feature that allows your update recipients to “react” to your Update with a thumbs-up. There are certainly times when an update is just an update, and it doesn’t need a reply or a particular action. In those times, it’s still nice to know that your work is being read and appreciated. A one-touch reaction is a low-effort way for your investors to tell you to keep up the good work. If you are a Visible customer and don’t have Reactions turned on in your account yet, shoot us a message and we’ll be happy to activate it for you. If you aren’t a Visible customer yet, consider signing up for a 14-day trial. Driving action with your updates is a great way to leverage your investors networks and expertise. Why don’t you try including one or more of these items in your next update?