Why I love Investor Update Emails
At Storm, we mostly invest in Series A companies. But because of that, I spend a lot of time meeting companies that are raising a Seed round or just finished raising their Seed. While invariably, we often end up having to pass on these companies, I like meeting them because it helps give me visibility into what’s coming down the funnel in a few months.
This is the same reason I love going to demo days, pitch days, mentoring companies or helping with deck work. Not only does it keep me up to date on what’s happening in the startup world, but it also has the benefit of keeping my firm — Storm Ventures — top of mind with entrepreneurs. And specifically, when it comes to helping companies with their pitches, my hope is that they find the feedback truly helpful and relevant which helps to build our reputation with founders.
But, the reality is, unless a company has found product market fit and has a line of sight towards a repeatable business model, the fact remains that the business will be too early for Storm. This usually doesn’t mean we don’t like the founders, the team, or the market. It just means the business is too early for us to have the conviction that the company is ready to raise a Series A and scale the go-to-market.
So what are you to do as a founder in this situation? You hear more “No’s” then “Yes’s” throughout your fundraising journey. And sure, some of the folks you will have met just won’t be the right fit from a partner standpoint — after-all you want to make sure you find a venture team you truly feel like you can spend a lot of time with over the next 5–7 years… But what do you do with the folks you actually like?
Add them to your monthly investor emails! This is something you’re likely doing already — if you’re not, you should! Obviously, you can take the email as a template and strip away content you don’t want shared too broadly. But sending out a monthly email about how the business is doing is super helpful, and sets you up to expedite the next round of financing, or better yet, get a preempted term-sheet!