Investor Update – Double the Likeliness of Follow-On Fundraising

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.

Investing in the Stock Market

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.

Creating a Financial Report

A financial report is an official document used to describe your business’s current and historical data, and also to share SMART goals for future performance. It can be a useful tool to help your business improve operations, optimize strategies, and spot trends.

A complete financial report should cover several key sections, including a summary of important statements, such as the cash flow statement and balance sheet. It should also include a section that highlights the key metrics and ratios most relevant to your audience. Finally, a financial report should also incorporate forecasts and projections that draw on the available data to make educated guesses about your company’s performance.

Creating a financial report starts with gathering and organizing all of your original receipts. Once this is done, you can begin preparing accounting vouchers to record each transaction. This is a time-consuming process, but one that is essential to guarantee accuracy. Using a professional reporting tool like FineReport, which allows for real-time data syncing, can help streamline this process and boost efficiency.

The most important parts of a financial report are the summary of income and balance sheet information. The first includes a breakdown of your business’s net income, subtracting non-cash expenses (like depreciation and amortization) from actual cash inflows and outflows. The second part lists all of your assets (cash, marketable securities, inventory, accounts receivable and loans payable), liabilities and equity at a given point in time. You should also include the amount of your retained earnings, which is profit that you choose not to distribute as dividends to owners or shareholders.

What is a Parliamentary Vote?

A parliamentary vote is one in which the members of parliament (MPs) of a polity (either a sovereign state or a republic) cast their votes on legislation that has passed through the legislature. The resulting votes are recorded and counted by the MPs who make up the parliament, which is sometimes called either the House of Commons or the Lok Sabha.

Voters typically choose a political party, and a majority of the parties select their leader to be the Prime Minister, who leads the executive branch of government along with the department ministers that are elected. Some ceremonial executive duties are carried out by a symbolic head of state, either a hereditary monarch in a constitutional monarchy or a democratically elected president or chancellor in a democratic constitutional republic.

The legislative branch of a parliamentary system is usually made up of representatives of political parties, although independents may be elected as well. Some parliamentary systems use plurality voting in multi-member constituencies, while others are single-member – or a mixture of both. In a few of the systems that use proportional means of allocating seats, the boundaries drawn to define electoral districts can have an impact on the overall election results.

If a candidate has more than 50 per cent of the first preference votes they are declared the winner. If no candidate reaches that threshold, the candidates with the fewest first preference votes are eliminated. Their second preference votes are reallocated to the remaining candidates, and this process continues until a candidate has more than 50 per cent. Up to and including 2023 elections for Mayors in England and Police and Crime Commissioners in England used Single Transferable Vote (STV).

Startup Funding – The Fuel That Powers the Rocketship of a New Business

Startup funding is the fuel that powers the rocketship of a new business, providing the capital to keep things going until revenue kicks in. However, it’s difficult to secure and manage funds while also meeting investor expectations. This challenge is exacerbated by the highly competitive startup financing landscape, in which startups are required to prove their value in order to attract investors.

Typically, the earliest stages of startup funding involve friends and family. This pre-seed funding can help a company develop a minimum viable product, find and test a market niche, and establish a strong team. Friends and family are usually willing to invest in startups, especially when they feel that the founders have passion and optimism. However, it’s important to be honest and realistic when discussing the risks of their investment. If you decide to take on friends and family funding, be sure to treat it like a professional transaction by putting everything in writing, establishing clear terms and conditions, and communicating openly and honestly.

Later-stage startup funding is often provided by angels and seed funds or venture capital firms (VCs). These are professionals that aggregate investment funding from various sources, investing in high-growth startups that they believe will make a substantial return on their investment. In exchange for their investment, VCs require solid proof that a company has scalable operations and is set up for success, such as consistent revenue and positive cash flow. Occasionally, government grants and subsidies may be available for select startup businesses that meet a specific criteria.

Best Practices for a Summit Meeting

A summit meeting is an important event that brings different perspectives together to discuss high-stakes topics and perceived future directions for a profession, industry, or cause. Designed to be a catalyst for change, a successful summit is energizing and reveals new pathways forward. But, a summit also requires a strategic plan to harness and channel all that energy for the long haul of implementing new ideas.

Whether in person or online, summits are a powerful way to connect members and expand their professional circles. They’re also a chance to share the benefits of your association’s work with the broader industry—which can lead to increased trust and credibility. Providing summit-based resources, like presentations and handouts, is an easy way to expand your reach after the event. Plus, when attendees attend a virtual summit, the value of that engagement can be extended even further using video to connect with new and existing participants.

While summits can offer a range of perks for attendees, it’s also important to consider the limitations and downsides. For example, a narrow event agenda can limit exposure to more general industry topics, while a limited audience might make it hard to engage in meaningful conversations with others. Fortunately, with the right tools, summits can be a positive experience for both participants and organizers alike. Embrace these best practices to ensure your next summit is a successful, impactful, and engaging experience.

How to Turn Daily Updates Into a Continuous Improvement Mechanism

Unlike a standard status update meeting, which involves going through every single item on a team’s board and reporting on each one, daily updates allow teammates to quickly report on the tasks that matter most, cutting out unnecessary meetings. They’re also an excellent way to collect feedback on the work being done, turning them into a continuous improvement mechanism.

The best way to offer daily updates is to integrate them with your existing team chat. This way, it’s easier to get up and running and makes sure that your entire team is able to participate in the daily update. You can enable daily updates in your app by enabling the appropriate action in the Checkpoint News menu and configuring it as a triggering intent.

Once you’ve enabled the action, you can prompt users to register for it by adding a mid-conversation or suggestion chip that asks them when they’d like to receive their daily update. You can personalize the daily updates for each user by referencing custom parameters that they enter during registration.

Encourage team members to share their challenges in private daily updates so that you can identify the most common obstacles and help them solve them. This will enable your team to make better decisions about how they can reach their short-term and long-term goals. It will also help them identify the areas that need to be improved so that they can refocus their efforts and regain momentum.

How a Government Shutdown Affects Cities

When Congress fails to pass a full-year spending bill and the government shuts down, federal employees are furloughed and services are interrupted. Unless local leaders can step in with supplemental funding, cities bear the brunt of a shutdown—and so do their residents through decreased consumer spending and missed bill payments. And a longer shutdown undermines the United States’ global reputation, as adversaries see a dysfunctional and divided country that isn’t reliable or stable.

During a government shutdown, most federal departments and agencies close, with the exception of those considered “essential”—including border protection, in-hospital medical care, air traffic control, law enforcement and power grid maintenance. Each agency develops a shutdown plan, based on guidance issued in previous shutdowns and a decades-old Department of Justice legal opinion that obligations necessary to “safety of human life and protection of property” can continue during a funding gap. Mandatory spending (like Social Security and Medicare) and interest payments on the national debt are also unaffected, as are programs that are funded through permanent user fees, like visa fees, and those with multiyear or advance appropriations.

Local leaders should prepare for the impact of a shutdown by working with their congressional delegation to ensure that those considered essential in their communities, such as air traffic controllers and FBI agents, are kept on the job. They should also develop plans to support federal contractors and employees living paycheck-to-paycheck who may lose income during a shutdown, including exploring options for loans or assistance.

How to Write an Editorial

An editorial is a piece of writing that is not a news article or a feature story. It shares a writer’s opinion about a topic and explains why they believe that opinion to be true. An editorial is often used to influence the opinions and beliefs of readers or to convince the public to take action on a certain matter.

Whether you’re writing an editorial to support or criticize the actions of an organization, a political figure, a celebrity or a work of art, it is important that you provide evidence and facts. Just like in a research paper, you should present your arguments and the supporting facts in an organized fashion.

A strong introduction is essential in an editorial as it sets the tone for the rest of your writing. It should include a hook that captures the reader’s attention and a leading paragraph that supports your initial statement. A good editorial will also be concise and clear in its thesis statement. This should be the main argument that guides the rest of your writing, and it is typically the last sentence in your introduction.

A good editorial is contemporary without being populist and attempts to formulate viewpoints based on objective analysis of current events and conflicting/contrary opinions. Editorials are powerful because they can stimulate societal advancements by raising awareness and promoting a discussion of significant issues that can be resolved through critique and persuasion. They can inspire a call to action and encourage positive change through the use of persuasive language that is not too biased or overstated.

Implications of the Trump-China Trade War

While running for president, Donald Trump made no secret of his disdain for many current trade agreements and promised to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States from nations that outsource production, like China and India. After he won, he embarked on a protectionist campaign, threatening substantial fines over alleged intellectual property theft and significant tariffs.

In early 2018, the Trump administration began imposing tariffs, not only on strategic adversaries such as China, but also on long-standing allies such as Canada, Mexico and Denmark. Although Chinese officials have retaliated with their own duties, U.S. levies have had an impact on the Chinese economy, hurting manufacturers and causing a slowdown. In late 2018, the two nations seemed to reach a truce, with each country pledging not to impose new taxes.

However, in recent months, Beijing has stepped up its offensive against the United States by deploying export controls on critical minerals central to global manufacturing (such as rare earths), as well as announcing retaliatory tariffs. While China’s economy is still weak, its leaders have shown they are willing to endure pain to pursue their vision of a self-reliant industrial structure less dependent on property investment and foreign technology.

The escalation in the trade war may have consequences that will be felt by all Americans. However, the biggest costs will fall on those who buy imported goods. A February 2020 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that importers largely pass the cost of tariffs on to consumers, who pay about 3 percent of the price of an imported good when the tariff is fully implemented. These consumer costs are likely to be concentrated among lower-income households, as the US tariff code is regressive.