Day: September 12, 2025

Investor updates are a critical piece of your fundraising communication strategy that help you maintain transparency, build trust and ultimately raise capital more effectively. They typically include recent wins and losses, financials, team updates, customer wins, core metrics, and a request for help. Having regular conversations with your investors can double the likelihood of receiving follow on funding.

When your investors have a clear understanding of the current state of your business, they’re better equipped to use their experience, network and resources to support you. Investor updates provide a platform for you to step out of your day-to-day execution and reflect on the business on a high level at a consistent cadence.

The investor update outline can be as simple or complex as you like, but it should always include an overview section, a performance/economics section, and a needs/asks section. The overview section should start with a quick summary of the company health, including key metrics like daily active users or recurring revenue. It should also cover a couple of highpoints that happened during the month, whether it be new team hires, new customer wins or major milestones. Finally, the last paragraph should include any lowpoints (e.g. lost deal, slipping performance on a critical metric).

The final section of the investor update should be a call to action. This could be a request for help such as finding a COO, identifying a more reliable vendor or any other operational or tactical issue that you want your investors to help with. Having a regular conversation with your investors is one of the best ways to identify and tackle these issues before they become a bigger problem.

Are you tempted to invest but find the stock market is like a foreign language that you want to learn but can’t seem to grasp? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Investing in the stock market doesn’t have to be complicated but there are things you should know before getting involved.

The stock market is a marketplace that matches up investors who want to buy a company’s shares with those who want to sell them. It does this through exchanges and electronic trading systems that facilitate the transactions almost instantly. Prices are maneuvered based on supply and demand for the stocks, which in turn are determined by the overall economy’s health (tax cuts can boost the market, for example; high unemployment, the opposite).

You can purchase individual stocks through a licensed broker or advisor who makes trades on your behalf. Alternatively, you can invest in what are called mutual funds or exchange-traded funds, which include the shares of multiple companies so that you don’t have to hold a single stock. The funds can track a particular sector or an index, which is useful for reducing risk by diversifying your portfolio.

When you start investing, it’s a good idea to consider low-volatility stocks, which are those that have historically experienced less dramatic price movements. These stocks are often referred to as “blue chips” and tend to belong to recession-proof sectors, such as utilities, consumer staples or healthcare. They also include such iconic American brands as Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola and Hershey.