Dear SaaStr: I am a startup founder that writes extensive monthly report to investors. We are also doing weekly meetings, are they asking for too much of my time?
Yes, that’s too much.
Some rough rules:
- For every 1% of a company an investor owns, they get one meeting / Zoom a year until you are at scale. This includes both board meetings and informal coffee meetings. Until you are past $10m ARR, then you can scale this back in most cases.
- Every investor that owns >=1% should get a monthly update until $10m ARR. Even a little later than $10m ARR, ideally. It’s still early-ish days.
- Every investor that owns >=3-5% should be fully in the loop on what’s happening in the company until you are so big you don’t need any capital anymore, or their capital is irrelevant. They deserve this, and you may get burned if they get out of the loop.
- Until you are at Initial Traction, every investor that can possibly help you should get a monthly update. Even if they only invested $10k. Otherwise, you won’t get the help. Just send the update. And send it on time. Send it the first of the month, really. That’s a flex. One that will impress all your investors. Even if things aren’t humming yet.
A bit more here: