Reporting
Write the update before the month ends
A practice that makes every monthly investor letter calmer and clearer.
If your monthly update arrives a week late, the problem isn't the writing. The problem is when you started.
Most founders open the letter on the first day of the new month, look at numbers that just closed, and start composing. By that point the team has moved on. Memory is fading. The letter writes itself in past tense, mechanical and tired.
Open the doc on the 25th.
On the 25th of every month, open the doc. Don't write yet. Just open it. Add a one-sentence reminder of what felt big. Add a screenshot of one chart that surprised you. Drop a link to the customer story everyone forwarded.
By the 1st, the doc has bones. The numbers fill themselves in (Donum does this for you). All you do is sequence what already exists.
“A monthly letter shouldn't read like an exam answered last night. It should read like a conversation that's been going all month.”
Why this works.
Investor letters fail when they try to manufacture narrative after the fact. The 25th gives you five days to catch the story while it's warm. The first reads better. The third is twice as fast.