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Strengthening your relationships with investors

If you want your investors to see you as a priority, you need to work on building authentic rather than just transactional relationships. By keeping them engaged and informed with regular updates and meetings, and finding ways to create value for them, you’ll be far more likely to have their full focus and support.

Allison Myers is Co-Founder and General Partner of Buoyant Ventures, an early stage venture fund investing in digital solutions to climate risk. We sat down with her to discuss what to include in your investor updates, how often you should schedule meetings, and other tips for improving your investor relationships.

Investor updates

As a climate founder, you’ll give three different sets of updates to three different parties - your prospective investors, your existing investors, and your board - and the level of detail you give will ramp up with each of these groups.

1. Prospective investors
With prospective investors, your goal is sales. Since you want to portray your company in the best possible light, you’ll give prospective funders a highlight reel of positive progress, though you might want to include one lowlight for balance. Remember, they don’t have a responsibility to keep things confidential, so don’t send them anything you wouldn’t want made public.

2. Existing investors
For existing investors, updates tend to go into more detail about your highlights, and include more of your lowlights. These updates also serve as an opportunity to lay out any asks for your investors - the more specific your asks, the more helpful people will be.

Within your regular update, you should talk about your sales and pipeline, showing the traction you’re seeing. You should also share any meaningful updates about your team; shining a light on who’s behind the work you’re doing can be particularly valuable if you’re in a sector like software that’s typically more abstract.

You’ll also need to give a fundraising update, including how much you’re raising, and who from. If you need help with introductions to investors, this is the time to raise that. And be very clear about your burn and runway - if you aren’t upfront, it will only make things harder down the line.

Other points to include are any product advancements, impact metrics if you’re reporting on those, and details on your marketing/partnerships/etc.

3. Your board
In your board update, you’ll go into much deeper detail on your product development and pipeline. You’ll also start to dig into specific KPIs, your P&L, trends, and the key risks to your business.

You want your board meeting to be a space to think strategically and tackle the deeper questions, so try to create a culture wherein your lead investors come to the board meeting having read the material, made notes, and asked clarifying questions beforehand. Don’t spend the hour doing a recap - focus on the things that matter.

For more on managing relationships with your board, check out our Insight with Olympia De Castro.

Keeping your updates consistent

The frequency of your updates will change over time. Monthly updates might be achievable very early on, but around Series A you’ll probably need to shift to a quarterly cycle - though you should avoid doing them less frequently than that. Boards require a higher level of visibility, so try maintain a monthly reporting cadence there, despite the fact that you may only have formal board meetings quarterly.

You’ll need to send the update at the same time every quarter, so put aside a day (or more). Don’t take on all the work yourself - have your team fill out their own sections so that all you have to do is edit, compile, synthesise, and tease out any key insights. As well as saving you time, this will elevate your executive team to your board and investors.

Remember the update doesn’t need to be particularly snazzy or well-designed - keep it very simple, and try to stick to the same template from one period to the next. Sticking to the same format will not only make it easier for you, but will also make life simpler for investors when they compare the figures with previous updates.

Investor meetings

1. Setting a cadence
It’s a good idea to put a monthly meeting in the calendar with your lead investor, particularly at the start of your relationship. Make it clear that these meetings can become less frequent if they start to feel excessive, but be intentional and consistent with the first few meetings. They might not be immediately beneficial, but will create the space for you to get to know each other.

After your lead investor, everyone else should be prioritized based on their check size, as well as their capacity to follow-on invest and their value-add in terms of their network or expertise. Don’t be afraid to say no to requests for meetings from investors with small checks and little else to offer - most people will respect that you’re protecting your time.

2. Involve your team
Regarding certain aspects of your business and issues that might spring up, it’ll be more valuable for both parties if your investor occasionally speaks to other members of your team, like your Head of Sales or your CFO. Your job as CEO is to facilitate these relationships, ensuring that both sides derive value, build good rapport, etc.

3. Pre-meeting planning
Part of good meeting management involves planning ahead, so prepare a list of what you want to cover, and send it to your investors/etc ahead of time. The more prep you do, the less time you waste on the call.

Other ways of improving relationships with investors

1. Keep them in the loop (beyond the monthly update)
In the end, investors are just people, like you. If you’re able, share updates of good news as it happens through WhatsApp or a text, which feels more immediate and personal than email. This will keep folks more engaged and feeling like they’re part of your team.

2. Ask for advice
When stuff goes wrong, or you’re planning your next big thing, call your investors and ask for their advice and perspective when you need it - people love helping, and this will help keep you top of mind. Don’t just call when you’re struggling though; try and maintain a cadence of engagement that’s more balanced.

3. Provide value of your own
Look out for ways you can help the investor out - remember what their incentives are and cater to them. Can you talk to their prospective LPs and provide a reference? Do you have the capacity to offer insight on diligence on one of their deals? Can you invite them to an event you're part of? Sharing deal flow will also go a long way - since the investor trusts you understand their thesis, your introduction to another founder will be particularly welcomed.

At the end of your relationship

Maintaining as good a relationship as possible with your investors will put you in the best possible position at the end, whether you’re navigating an IPO or bankruptcy. For instance, if the company’s being sold, it’ll be easier for the investor to make the case for a carve-out for you if they’re convinced you’ve done your job well to date.

Allison Myers is a Co-Founder and General Partner of Buoyant Ventures, an early-stage venture fund focused on digital solutions for climate.

Previously Allison was an executive at Accenture Strategy. Her work focused on business model, and innovation strategies leveraging digital technologies at large corporate clients in energy, mobility, and built environment sectors.