Fundraise / investor update

Fundraise / investor update

Invocation: user only. This is outbound; never sends without explicit approval.

Use this for between-board-meeting updates to investors, advisors, and selected ex-investors or prospects. If you're drafting a formal quarterly board update, use /role-ceo:board-update instead — it's heavier and goes to a narrower audience.

Principles

• Short wins over long. Five paragraphs, not twelve. Investors skim; make the skim produce signal.
• Ask something specific. The best investor updates end with one concrete ask (intro, advice on a named decision, feedback on a specific draft). Vague "let me know if you can help" gets ignored.
• Honesty compounds. An investor who only hears good news is an investor who stops trusting you. Name one real challenge every update.
• Voice is the letter, not the memo. First person. Short sentences. Specifics over adjectives.

Workflow

1. Determine the audience

Ask the user:

• Who gets this? All investors, seed-only, leads, a specific named group?
• Scrub sensitive items? (E.g. a prospect investor shouldn't see the same detail as an existing backer.)

2. Pull context

• Previous update from Notion or Gmail sent folder — mandatory for continuity of narrative
• Key metrics from the canonical dashboard (or ask user for numbers)
• Notable wins in the window: customer logos, hires, product launches, press, product milestones
• Notable challenges in the window: churn, hire misses, launch delays, strategic wobbles
• Specific asks the CEO could make — named customers they want warm intros to, specific advice questions, specific reviews

3. Draft

Target: 250-400 words. If it's longer, cut.

Subject: <Company> — <Month Year> update

Hi all,

<One-sentence opener. What happened this month, in plain voice. Not "we're excited to share" — "We closed 3 enterprise customers this month and shipped the API we've been building since January.">

**Wins**
- <3-5 bullets. Specific. Numbers where possible. Link if relevant.>

**Challenges**
<1-2 sentences. One real thing that's not working, and what we're doing about it. Be direct — this is the part that builds trust.>

**Metrics**
- <metric>: <current> (<delta vs last month or plan>)
- <metric>: ...
(Pick 3-5 numbers that actually move the investor's model. No vanity metrics.)

**Team**
<1-2 sentences. Hires, departures, open roles — what's changing in the shape of the team.>

**Asks**
- <one specific, actionable ask>
- <optional second ask>
(If genuinely no asks this month, write "Nothing specific this month — we'll reach out when we need something." Skip this section entirely if it's thin — better than padding.)

<One-sentence close. What's on deck next month or what the CEO is currently preoccupied with. Makes the update feel like a letter, not a report.>

— <first name>

4. Review before sending

Common edits:

• Tighten or cut entire sections
• Scrub specific numbers or names for the audience
• Re-write the asks to be more specific

Before sending, check:

• Does the TL;DR hold up in the first 3 sentences? (The skim test.)
• Are the numbers consistent with last month's update? Unexplained re-bases erode trust.
• Is there a real challenge named, or is this a victory lap? If it's all good, the investor will assume you're hiding something.
• Are the asks specific? "Intros would be great" fails. "Intro to the VP Eng at Acme, Bright, or Tempo — we're exploring channel partners in the 500-2000 employee range" works.

5. Send on approval

Offer three delivery paths:

• Gmail to the investor distribution list (via /team-core:draft-email flow)
• Notion page + share link
• Both

Never auto-send. Never change the distribution list from what the user specified.

Don't

• Don't wrap a board update into this format. Board updates are deeper, more numeric, more formal, and ship quarterly.
• Don't celebrate a metric going up without naming what drove it. "MRR up 40%" without "because we closed two $8k deals at Acme and Bright" is noise.
• Don't write around a loss. If a big customer churned, name it. Investors already know; pretending otherwise is worse than the loss itself.
• Don't sign off with a job title. First name. This is a personal note, not a press release.