Progress, Plans, and Problems

In November, we got some great feedback from people who helped us recognize a great pivot to our idea for Customer.io. By February, I had failed to send an update to those people from whom I was so grateful to receive advice. As time went on, it was harder for me to frame the update to each of them. That's terrible. But I have a solution!

An old boss of mine recommended sending a monthly update on our Progress, Plans and Problems. It's a great hack that I wanted to share.

It works like this. Figure out the top 3-5 things in each category. For example:

Progress

• Signed 30 customers
• Hired 2 engineers
• Solved our scaling problem

Plans

• Raise $Xm in an A round
• Hire a graphic designer
• Use our data for a hyper-local daily deals product

Problems

• Need intros to great VCs
• We're outgrowing our office space
• Running into issues with internationalization. Would like to speak with people who have done it before.

Send this email to your current investors / potential investors / trusted advisors with a short summary. You can cast a wide net to get help with your problems. They are then fully up to date on how you're doing, and they know what your next efforts will be.

Updating people any other way takes time and effort away from what really matters: building your company.