Sending investor updates is a surefire way to tap into your current (or potential) investors' knowledge, capital, and experience. Investor updates keep your company top of mind and improve your odds of getting help with fundraising, hiring, strategy, and other issues that arise as a founder.
However, sitting down and writing an update can be challenging for many founders. By leveraging AI, you can get over the cold start problem and get a head start on your next update with just a few data points. Integrating ChatGPT can further enhance the reporting process by adding depth, analysis, and narrative context to the raw metrics. Here’s how founders can do it.
Related Resource: AI Meets Your Investor Updates
Data Preparation
Begin by exporting the key metrics and data points you want to share from Visible. This could include charts, graphs, or tables related to sales, customer growth, churn rate, financials, etc.
Ensure your data is well-organized and accurate so you can share the results with your generative AI model of choice. Have specific numbers on hand for quick reference, such as revenue growth, churn rates, user acquisition costs, etc.
Prompt Tips
Review & Personalize
Take the insights and analysis from ChatGPT and integrate them into your investor update. Adjust the language or depth of analysis to match the preferences and knowledge levels of your investors.
Incorporate Visuals
Visible already offers compelling visual data representation. Ensure that the written context provided by ChatGPT complements these visuals. For instance, a chart showing revenue growth coupled with a ChatGPT-derived narrative can provide a comprehensive view of financial health.
Fact-Check & Verify
Always double-check AI-generated content for accuracy. Ensure that the insights and interpretations align with your understanding and are factually consistent with the data from Visible.
Feedback Loop
After sending out the investor update, gather feedback. This will help you adjust the depth, tone, and content for future communications. By integrating ChatGPT's narrative capabilities with Visible's data representation, founders can create rich, insightful, and highly contextual investor updates that not only inform but also engage stakeholders in meaningful ways.
Related resource: How AI Tools are Reshaping Venture Capital: Tools to Know
Benefits of Using ChatGPT for Investor Updates
Utilizing ChatGPT or other advanced AI language models can significantly enhance the process of crafting investor updates in several ways:
Data Interpretation
- Insightful Analysis: AI can quickly process and analyze large datasets, highlighting important trends, anomalies, and patterns that might be missed with manual analysis.
- Contextual Comparison: By comparing your metrics with known industry benchmarks or historical data, AI can provide contextual insights into the company's performance.
Narrative Creation
- Cohesive Storytelling: ChatGPT can help craft a narrative around raw data, turning numbers into a compelling story that communicates the company's journey, challenges, and triumphs.
- Consistent Tone: AI ensures that the tone of the update remains consistent throughout, whether it's formal, friendly, or somewhere in between.
Time Efficiency
- Quick Turnaround: Drafting updates can be time-consuming. ChatGPT can rapidly generate well-structured drafts based on provided data, which founders can then review and adjust as necessary.
- Multi-version Generation: AI can generate multiple versions of an update, tailored to different investor personalities or preferences.
Content Suggestions
- Comprehensive Reporting: AI can suggest relevant content to include, ensuring that critical aspects are not overlooked. This might include operational updates, financial highlights, or market trends.
- Personalized Updates: ChatGPT can generate updates tailored to specific investor groups or individual stakeholders based on their interests or investment focuses.
Error Reduction
- Grammar & Syntax: ChatGPT ensures that the language used is grammatically correct and professionally composed.
- Fact-Checking: While AI isn't a replacement for manual fact-checking, it can help identify inconsistencies or potential errors in data presentation.
Feedback Analysis
- Interpret Responses: If founders receive feedback or questions from investors, ChatGPT can help interpret and suggest appropriate responses or clarifications.
- Iterative Improvement: By analyzing feedback over time, the AI can refine the style and content of updates to better meet investor expectations.
Scalability
- Handling Volume: For founders managing multiple ventures or reporting to a large number of stakeholders, ChatGPT can scale the update creation process without sacrificing quality.
Template Generation
- Standardized Reporting: ChatGPT can help create templates for regular updates, ensuring consistent reporting structures while still allowing for customization based on the period's specifics.
While ChatGPT and similar AI models offer numerous advantages in crafting investor updates, it's crucial for founders to remain actively involved in the process. The authenticity of the founder's voice, combined with the analytical power of AI, can create powerful and impactful communications.
Prompts for Crafting an Investor Update with ChatGPT
There are a few ways to approach ChatGPT as a source to help with your investor updates.
Individual Section Prompts
On one hand, you can enter each individual update section into ChatGPT and use a prompt for each section. For example, let’s say you have the following highlights from the last month:
- Hired 2 new sales reps — Brett & Amanda
- Grew 50% quarter over quarter to hit $1M in ARR
- Launched Big Product X
You can enter the above into a prompt like this example "Briefly recap our company's highlights..." and carry on with this approach for each individual section of your update. Check out the most common content sections in Visible Updates below:
One Prompt
On the other hand, you can take any individual data points, qualitative or quantitative, from the previous period and enter them into ChatGPT with a prompt like the following:
"Turn the following into an investor update with additional context around the month-over-month KPI data and an intro of 40 words or less [Copied in Update Contents]"
Before ChatGPT
Using the prompt above, we took the follow update points and turned it into an Update
Highlights
- Hired 2 new sales reps — Brett & Amanda
- Grew 50% quarter over quarter to hit $1M in ARR
- Launched Big Product X
Lowlights
- Blake, our lead developer, has quit
KPIs
Product Launches
- Big Product X has been a success.
- We have signed up 1,000 users in the first week and $10,000 in revenue
Asks
- We are looking for users for Big Product X. Ideally they are a marketing professional with a team of 5 or more
- Looking for a lead developer that is based in Chicago with 8+ years experience
Fundraising Efforts
- We are kicking off our seed round. Need intros to SaaS, Seed stage investors in midwest.
Thank Yous
- Thanks to Kelley from Venture Fund X for making introductions to Big Company Y, our biggest customer yet.
After ChatGPT
In October, our journey marked significant achievements amid a few challenges. Let's delve into the details:
Highlights
- Team Expansion: Welcomed Brett & Amanda to our sales team, enhancing our capabilities.
- Impressive Growth: Achieved a 50% QoQ growth, hitting $1 million in Annual Recurring Revenue.
- Product Success: The launch of Big Product X was a triumph, securing 1,000 users and $10,000 in revenue within a week.
Lowlights
- Talent Loss: Unfortunately, our lead developer, Blake, departed.
KPIs - A Closer Look
September 2023:
- Revenue: $100,000
- Cash Balance: $1,000,000
- Gross Profit: -$10,000
- Headcount: 12
October 2023:
- Revenue: $150,000
- Cash Balance: $1,100,000
- Gross Profit: $100,000
- Headcount: 14
Asks
- User Acquisition: Seeking users for Big Product X, particularly marketing professionals with a team of 5 or more.
- Talent Search: In pursuit of a lead developer based in Chicago with 8+ years of experience.
Fundraising Efforts
- We are launching our seed round and would greatly appreciate introductions to SaaS and seed-stage investors in the Midwest.
Thank Yous
- Our heartfelt thanks to Kelley from Venture Fund X for the introductions that led to Big Company Y becoming our largest customer to date.
Your continued support is invaluable, and we look forward to sharing more accomplishments in the months ahead.
Sincerely,
[Your Name] [Your Title] [Your Contact Information]
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