# Your monthly investor update

Write it in twenty minutes. Send it by the fifth. Follow up on every ask.

This guide comes with every edition of the investor update system: Notion, Airtable, Google Docs, Word, and plain text. They all share the same three parts and the same email.

## The three parts

• Updates: one record per month. The numbers live here (MRR, net burn, and cash), along with the email you sent. Runway is cash divided by net burn. Growth compares MRR with the previous update.
• Asks & Intros: every ask you make, the update it appeared in, who helped, what came of it, and whether you thanked them.
• Investors: everyone who gets the update, their role and check, and the last time you really spoke. If it has been more than 60 days, reach out. The update is not a conversation.

Every edition starts with Fieldnote, a fictional company, so you can see the system working. Delete the example records when you're ready, and keep the blank update.

## The email

Six sections, always in this order. Keep it under 400 words.

### TL;DR

Three lines: the headline you want remembered, the number that matters most and why it moved, and what happens next.

"MRR $34.1k (+14% MoM). Four new mid market teams, zero churn."

### Numbers

MRR, net burn, cash, and runway, each beside last month. Use the same definitions every month:

• MRR: monthly recurring revenue. Count an annual contract as a twelfth each month. Leave out one time work and unsigned pipeline.
• Net burn: cash going out minus cash coming in during the month. Leave out money you raised.
• Cash: cash in the bank at the end of the month.
• Runway: cash divided by net burn, in months. If you're not burning cash, say so instead.

### Highlights

What went right, with a number attached. A customer, a launch, a hire.

"Kestrel Freight went live at $2.4k a month, now our largest account."

### Lowlights

What went wrong, and what you're doing about it. Investors trust founders who share bad news early.

"Onboarding still takes 9 days. Our target is 3. A new import flow ships in October."

### Asks

Two at most. Name exactly who you need, why now, and what a great intro looks like, so an investor can forward it without rewriting it.

"Heads of Ops at logistics companies with 200 to 1,000 people. A 15 minute call to show them what we're building. No pitch deck."

Log every ask in Asks & Intros.

### Thank you

Name the people who helped and what came of it. Then mark their ask as thanked.

"Maya, for the Kestrel intro. It's now our biggest account."

## Your monthly routine

• During the month: jot wins and misses straight into this month's draft.
• By the 1st: duplicate the blank update, add MRR, net burn, and cash, and link the previous update.
• Write top to bottom: TL;DR, numbers, highlights, lowlights, two asks, and your thanks.
• Send by the 5th. Set the status to Sent, and mark everyone you thanked.

## Before you hit send

• The numbers match your records.
• Every ask names a specific person, role, or company type.
• Everyone who helped is thanked by name.
• The bad news is in the email, not buried.

## If you report quarterly

Keep monthly records and write one update for the quarter. Use MRR and cash at the end of the quarter; don't add months together. Say whether burn covers a month or the whole quarter.

## If a figure was wrong

Keep what you sent. In the next update, give the old figure, the corrected one, and the reason.

Fieldnote and everyone in these examples are fictional.
