Investor reporting is one of the most important things managers can focus on to improve investor confidence and help fund future investments. A great investor report tells a concise and compelling story about the state of a business at any given time.
These reports typically cover the core KPIs of all of the departments in your business, including:
- 金融
- Sales
- 营销
- 产品and engineering
- 客户成功
- 著名的里程碑和胜利
We asked 40+ experts what KPIs should you include in an investor report as well as the best ways to use this type of business report to build a better relationship with your investors and ultimately increase funding.
您应该在投资者报告中包括哪个KPI?
Here are some KPIs our contributors consider important to include in business reports to inspire more investor confidence. These are the same KPIs and metrics you could include in a comprehensivefinancial dashboard。
Customer Retention Metrics
Are customers sticking around for a long time? If retention is high, this means that your product is sticky and can help inspire investor confidence.
“The KPIs that our investors pay the most attention to arecustomer retentionand month-over-month sales and revenue,” says Katherine Brown ofSpyic, “Unlike viral media publications, investors look into factors that are crucial for the business’s success and what folds into the company’s more significant goals. It is likely financial gains and losses are the stems of our investor’s judgment of success though there are other factors to consider.”
Net Profit Margin
Charting your top-line revenue going up and to the right might look great. However, if customer retention or profit is low, then you are in for a rude awakening.
Brian Donovan ofTimeshattersays, “Our investors care about the profit we are making (and how that is increasing), and they also want to know that our clients are satisfied enough to refer us to new clients, which is one of our main ways to secure new leads.”
预计与实际收入报表
This conveys to investors how your business is progressing.
“Reports to investors should include projected income statements and balance sheets, followed by the actual statements vs. the projected after every quarter,” says Brian Dordevic ofAlpha Efficiency。“This will show investors how your business is progressing based on projections. The projections will already show how profitable your business can be, but knowing your actual numbers will prove to your investors that the projections are achievable.
There’s a big difference between projections and real numbers. Projections can only paint you a picture of what could happen, while actual numbers will show you what is happening at the moment. That’s why it’s key to show both the projected and actual numbers so that investors know what to expect!”
Revenue Concentration
Just looking at revenue and profit numbers can obscure what’s happening in the business. That’s why it is key to share revenue concentration data.
吉姆·彭德加斯特（Jim PendergastaltLINE Sobanco。“Profitability over time lets investors know how your revenue has impacted the company. Those who believe they aren’t making a good investment will pull funding, but if you can convince them that you’ve got proof that their contributions are making a difference, they’ll likely invest more. Revenue concentration lets investors know where your revenue is coming from.
For example, if you’re getting most of your income from one or two customers, there’s a possibility that you could lose revenue if one or both pull out. Investors like to see a diversified revenue concentration report.”
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)
Another revenue KPI to pay attention to isArpu, which is the average amount of revenue generated by a customer in a given time period.
“这是至关重要的你会不知道有多少客户ed each year to stay in business,” says Lynda Fairly ofNumLooker。“The majority of C-level executives rely significantly on ARPU to make daily choices.”
Cash Flow
Revenue and profit are financial metrics that show the health of your business. Cash flow is how much money you have in the bank.
“In what we usually do, we include a statement of cash flows that tells how much money went in and out of business during a specific time frame (e.g., monthly or annually),” says Amanda Royle ofImgkits Studio。“Because this is important to investors because it shows how much actual cash the company has generated. It also measures how a company generates money to pay its debt obligations and fund its operating expenses. And it gives the investors a vision of how much the company needs when it comes to funding.”
运营KPI
In order to hit your revenue, profit, and cash flow goals, you need people. That’s where operational KPIs like resources needed for execution can be helpful.
“Bear in mind that measurements should cover not only traditional marketing KPIs (engagement, traffic, conversions, etc.) but also existing technology, budget, and manpower,” says Tim Absalikov of持久趋势。“The latter is also known as the resources needed for execution. A digital business strategy must be aligned with what the company can handle or prepare it for certain technical assignments. Then, the plan will be put into force with no hurdles.”
Pro Tip: How to Stay on Top of the Financial Health of Your Business
Do you own and manage a small business? Then you know how much of a struggle it can be to stay on top of the financial health of your business on a daily basis. Now you can pull data from QuickBooks and HubSpot’s CRM to track your key business metrics in one convenient dashboard, including:
- Open deals and deal amounts by pipeline stage.Get sales data directly from your HubSpot CRM and track deals, deal amounts, deal stages, and dates from your sales pipeline.
- Key financial data.跟踪毛利率,开的发票金额and by customer, paid invoices, expenses, and income from QuickBooks.
Now you can benefit from the experience of our HubSpot CRM and QuickBooks experts, who have put together aplug-and-play Databox templatethat helps you monitor and analyze your key financial metrics. It’s simple to implement and start using, and best of all, it’s free!
You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.
To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:
Step 1:获取模板
Step 2:Connect your HubSpot and Quickbooks accounts with Databox.
Step 3:Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.
6投资者报告技巧和最佳实践
The other key component of a great investor report is how you actually present the data to your investors.
While there are numerous ways you can go about it, around 60% of our contributors suggested creating a presentation.
Here are top 6 tips our contributors shared on presenting investor reports.
- Provide regular investor reports
- Be transparent
- Personalize investor reports
- Share how you are deploying investor funds
- Share business growth forecasts
- Double check your data quality
1. Provide regular investor reports
First things first – you have to make sure your investors stay up-to-date on a regular basis.
那么，您应该多久向投资者报告一次？根据我们的贡献者的说法，最好根据您的业务性质报告每月或每季度。
“When raising funds and keeping in touch with potential investors, it’s crucial to keep them on a loop and send regular reports, either weekly, bi-weekly or monthly,” says Jonathan Aufray ofGrowth Hackers。“In those reports, you don’t want to send too many metrics but rather focus on the most important ones for your business. In addition to those metrics, you can also mention the achievements and the progress you’ve made.”
Gerrid Smith of喜悦有机物同意并补充说：“常规报告建立了积极的投资者公司关系。定期更新投资者建立并保持您与投资者之间的互惠互利联系。”
2.个性化投资者报告
When you keep investors informed, you establish trust and excitement. Rather than delivering a blanket Bcc version to all of your investors, go the extra mile and personalize yourbusiness dashboards。
Joy Organics的Gerrid Smith对此事分享了他的意见：“将您的信息引向他们，并提供针对其投资或利益的信息。如果他们发现自己感兴趣的机会，这将使他们感到特别，并激发他们与您的公司互动。将您的量身定制报告通过安全链接发送给收件人，以便您可以查看他们是否已打开并阅读它们。”
3. Be transparent
One way to build more trust is through radical transparency.
“From our experience, being transparent with their money’s ROI builds trust, which in turn reinforces our investors’ confidence in our company,” says Jake Smith ofAbsolute Reg。“从那里开始，他们会更愿意提供额外的资金，我们可以用它来鼓励其他有关方面也这样做。”
凯尔·阿斯曼（Kyle Asman）Backswing Venturesagrees, “The more transparent you are with investors the more likely you are to increase funding. If you provide financials on a quarterly basis, as well as status reports on each of your investments, that will help to increase funding in most cases. We report on a monthly basis, which keeps our investors very informed and happy.”
4.分享您如何部署投资者资金
A key part of being transparent is showing how their capital is being deployed.
“您的报告可用于教育投资者有关您在项目的进展以及资金到底去向的教育。”Orgain。“For example, if you find success when putting more money into the development of more products in a line, you can show that through your reports. Any trends, good or bad, can also contribute to your pitch and how those numbers will be further affected with more investment. Investors want to see that the deal they are making is safe and will make a return, so proving that as soon as possible is key.”
Matthew Ramirez ofRephraseexplains, “Investors primarily want to know how you intend to allocate capital, which should be clear from your product and company roadmap. When you report figures to your investors regarding users, MoM growth, etc., include a note about capital allocation if you’ve made any significant changes to the plan they last saw and a note regarding what you would love to accelerate if you had more capital available.
In my first company, I found myself seeking capital for product and market expansion, and the best way I found for getting that capital was to have investors as partners in that process, always apprised of and able to my thinking around how best to allocate capital. “
Jonathan Baillie Strong of聚光灯播客补充说：“如果他们陷入黑暗，他们可以开始怀疑自己的投资甚至领导。大多数投资者认为交流良好的组织做得更好，而交流的组织更有可能从他人那里得到帮助。当您的投资者对您和投资组合的表现有信心时，他们更倾向于对未来保持积极，并更渴望投入资金。当投资者信心上升时，他们更喜欢以当前价格进行投资。
When confidence drops, so does spending and risk-taking. When the news regarding the future is good, investors are said to be optimistic. You’re always thinking about the next round of fundraising as a fund manager. Building trust with your investors is essential for securing future investments and increasing the likelihood that they will refer other potential investors.”
5. Share business growth forecasts
Don’t just share the potential growth opportunities that you’ve uncovered. Instead, create actual forecasts describing your business’s trajectory.
“报告应包含预测和对企业未来的任何重要预测，以说服投资者增加资金。”JettProof。“The only way to convince investors to increase their funding is to explain the potential growth of a business. Investors want to invest in a company that will experience growth to increase the potential returns of their money. The report needs to utilize data for investors to believe in its accuracy. You can’t convince investors to put in more money if you don’t show them concrete evidence that your business will experience growth after additional funding.”
6. Double check your data quality
One of the fastest ways to lose investor confidence is to have inaccurate reports.
Brian Corday ofBullBear Partnersexplains, “One of the main reasons that potential investors look at is the effectiveness and quality of a startup’s financial reports. If you want to increase funding, you need to deliver high-quality financial reports. This means accurate numbers backed by solid data from yourbusiness dashboard softwareand presented in a compelling way.
It also means updating your investors regularly. Keeping them informed about your company’s progress and generating positive buzz about your business is a great way to increase funding. In a clear and concise manner, preferably with both the numbers and accompanying graphs/charts which you can print out separately or include directly in your report. You should make sure that all of your data is up-to-date and accurate”
总而言之，您的投资者报告应提供您业务状况的全面快照。定期创建这些报告有助于建立信心，并增加您获得更多资金的可能性。
