"For me, it's all about 'no surprises'. Proactive, frequent information is a fundamental requirement for good relationships with your investors."
— Roger Dudler, CEO, Frontify
Key Takeaways
- Visible makes consistency the default. Roger built a seven-year, never-missed update streak by finding a tool that removed every excuse not to send.
- A clean format that your investors will actually read. Visible gives Frontify a structured, repeatable update format that covers business state, commercial updates, product velocity, metrics, and asks, all in one place.
- Know who is reading, not just who you sent to. Visible's engagement data shows founders how often investors open updates, which links they click, and what reactions they leave, so nothing goes out into the void.
- Build a shared baseline before every board meeting. Because Frontify's investors receive a consistent update every month through Visible, conversations go deeper faster.
How Frontify Thinks About Investor Updates
Frontify helps the world's leading brands stay on-brand. Its SaaS platform brings together brand portals, digital asset management, AI marketing automation, and templates in one place, making it easier for global companies and their partners to produce consistent, high-quality brand work at scale. The company has grown from founding to Series C, and counts enterprise brands among its customers worldwide.
But there is something else Frontify has been building quietly in the background for seven years: a monthly investor update that has never, not once, been skipped.
Why Ad Hoc Investor Updates Stop Working at Scale
When Roger Dudler returned as CEO of Frontify in 2019, he had a clear-eyed view of what the company needed to improve. Among the priorities: investor communication.
Updates had happened before, but not with any real consistency. They were manual, mostly sent over plain email, and occasionally displaced by calls or board meetings. There was no fixed format, no defined owner, no reliable cadence, and no way for Roger to track engagement.
For Roger, this wasn't just an operational inconvenience. It was a relationship risk.
"When I got back to being the CEO of the company in 2019, I knew that I had to make it as easy as possible to maintain discipline on certain things like investor updates and other routines. Introducing a tool that helped me do so was an important step for me to establish consistency."
He needed a system that would make consistency the path of least resistance.
Finding the Right Investor Update Tool
Roger's approach to evaluating new tools is straightforward: try it yourself.
"I'm a person who likes to give tools a try by myself. Working in software, it felt natural to give Visible a go. It's a simple tool, which does what it needs to do, and therefore it's pretty straightforward to get started."
No lengthy procurement process. No committee. Just a founder who knew what he needed and went looking for something that would deliver it without getting in the way.
What Frontify Includes in Monthly Investor Updates
Since 2019, Frontify's investor update process has followed a consistent rhythm. The Chief of Staff sources and prepares the relevant data points and narratives with input from across the team. Roger reviews the draft, adds personal commentary, and it goes out. Every month, without exception.
The structure of the update has stayed largely the same from the beginning:
Business state. One to two sentences on the overall health of the company as a quick orientation before anything else.
Commercial update. The biggest wins and losses, notable logos, and commentary on deal dynamics, including competitive wins and the reasons behind them.
Product velocity. Recent releases and what’s coming next.
Marketing. Initiatives that have launched or will be soon.
Asks. When relevant, this section covers hiring needs and intro requests.
Charts. Cash flow, ARR, and FTE, each with forecast and budget lines for the coming months.
The update is intentionally designed to be a bird's-eye view. A more detailed numbers conversation happens separately. The monthly update is about giving every investor a consistent baseline: a quick read that tells them where things stand, without requiring a call to find out.
"It's always about finding a balance between a quick read and depth."
What Regular Investor Updates Do for Relationships
For Frontify, the value of monthly updates is not found in any single data point or conversation that Visible enabled, it’s more structural than that.
Because investors receive a detailed, consistent update every month, they are never starting from scratch. When Roger has a 1:1, a board meeting, or a quick call with a portfolio contact, the groundwork is already laid. Everyone has the same baseline. Conversations can go deeper, faster.
"It's all about 'no surprises'. Proactive, frequent information is a fundamental requirement for good relationships with your investors. It's obviously only one part of the equation — the 1:1s, ad hoc calls and texts, board meetings — but if everyone has a baseline understanding of what happened at any given point in time, that is helpful for further conversations."
How to Monitor Investor Engagement With Visible
Visible's engagement data adds another layer: Roger can see whether investors are actually reading. That visibility has helped Frontify calibrate the format over time, adjusting for depth and brevity based on real feedback.
"I can see how investors engage with the update and therefore know it's relevant for them. I definitely hear back on the content, if something needs more commentary or less."
With Visible, founders can see who's opening their updates, how often they're opened, which links are getting clicked, and what reactions are being used. This insight created a feedback loop for Roger to improve his update effectiveness over time.
Send Your Next Investor Update With Visible
Frontify's seven-year streak didn't happen by accident. It happened because Roger found a tool that removed every excuse not to send.
Whether you're sending your first investor update or rebuilding a process that's gone quiet, Visible gives you the structure, cadence, and visibility to make it happen every month with a clean format your investors will actually read, engagement data so you know they did, and one less thing to let slip.
Start building the kind of investor relationships that make every board meeting, every fundraise, and every ask easier. Get started for free below:
