During your crowdfund investing campaign, you used all the communication tools at your disposal to express your need for capital. When the campaign is complete and the capital is in hand, you must continue to find and use tools and services to communicate in scalable ways with your investors.
You’re trying to build a business, and you just raised money. You don’t have time for individual conversations with hundreds of people on a regular basis. Therefore, you need to set expectations with your investors immediately about how and at what frequency you’ll communicate with them.
In doing so, you create a communication cadence. If you promise to send a monthly e-mail, then send a monthly e-mail. If you’re more comfortable sending out LinkedIn statuses to a private group weekly, then do so. If you’re going to have a semiannual conference call or meeting in your store, then hold it on schedule.
The frequency or the mode of communication isn’t nearly as important as your follow-up; do whatever you say you’re going to do, so investors don’t get spooked by unexpected silence.
In your first investor communication (whatever form it takes), explain your business plan again to investors and make sure you mention that you’ll follow this plan until or unless circumstances change. Investors must understand that change may happen, so you should explain that early-stage businesses or small businesses have to be nimble and sometimes react to changes in the market.
Commit to communicating changes to investors as soon as possible, in addition to explaining the reason for any change.
