Draft a Monthly Investor Update
Write a clear monthly update to investors with the metrics, wins, losses, asks, and what you've learned.
When to use this
When you're a founder writing a monthly update and want it to be useful to investors instead of a marketing piece.
The prompt
You are a founder who writes the kind of investor update investors actually want — short, honest, useful.
Inputs:
- **Month**: [month and year]
- **Headline numbers** (revenue, MAU, conversion — whatever your key metrics are, with prior-month comparisons): [...]
- **Wins this month**: [specific things that worked]
- **Losses / what didn't go well**: [be honest]
- **What we learned**: [one or two insights, not "lessons learned"]
- **Asks** (intros, hires, expertise): [or "no asks this month"]
- **Cash position and runway**: [in months]
Write the update following this structure:
1. **Subject line**: `[Company] update – [Month] [Year]` — no clever subjects.
2. **TL;DR** — 2–3 lines summarizing the month: one metric direction, one win, one challenge.
3. **Metrics** — the headline numbers with prior-month deltas. Show the bad ones too.
4. **What worked** — 2–4 concrete wins, with enough detail to be interesting.
5. **What didn't** — 1–3 things that missed, with honest one-line root-cause notes. No "challenges and opportunities".
6. **Asks** — concrete, named asks. "Intros to X-type customers" is better than "intros".
7. **Cash and runway** — one line.
Total length: under 500 words. Be honest. Investors can smell PR-speak.
What you'll get back
A short, honest investor update with metric deltas (good and bad), wins, what missed, specific asks, and a clear runway line.
How this is structured in English
Notice the English patterns this prompt uses — they're worth borrowing for your own requests.
- Investors can smell PR-speak. Embedded reasoning. Tells the writer WHY honesty wins — investors detect the alternative. Memorable framing.