A monthly or quarterly review sent to your crowdfund investors should be an opportunity for you to look at your long-term goals (which, for a small business, may extend out a quarter, six months, or a full year — but probably no further). Use this monthly/quarterly communication to talk about the progress you made toward those long-term goals.
Your weekly e-mails are giving investors details about company activities already, so focus this monthly or quarterly communication on bigger-picture updates. Examples may include
The status of a marketing campaign.
An update on monthly sales and expenses, year-to-date sales and expenses, and how actual results compare to what you planned to achieve.
Information about the development of a new product or service.
A tally of how many net new customers you added for the month. (This number is particularly important for Internet businesses that have software as a service offering.)
The hiring plan for the next three to six months and what open positions you have. (Feel free to engage your crowd in hiring.)
A request for feedback from investors regarding what they’re hearing about a new competitor in the market.
This review could be presented in e-mail format, it could involve a conference call, and/or it could be an opportunity to have local investors come to your store or office for a meeting after business hours. The format of the communication is up to you because you know your investors better than anyone.
If most of your investors aren’t local, an in-person meeting may not work (or, at a minimum, must be supplemented with another type of communication). If you tend to get the most useful feedback from investors when you’re talking with them rather than via e-mail, a call or in-person meeting may be best.
So, which is better, monthly or quarterly? Again, the right cadence for your business is up to you. You may even decide that you want both monthly and quarterly special updates. Whatever you decide, just make sure you can keep it up — make sure it’s scalable.
