Brett Hurt
Sep 9, 2018 · 2 min read

Thanks for sharing, Chris. I know Joe and have talked with him about this too. I applaud what he is doing and I know Eric Simone at ClearBlade was working with him on that front awhile back. The key is that if you are going to do it, you need to really commit. If you decide on weekly, stick to weekly; monthly, stick to monthly; etc. Never stop until you have to (as we did at Bazaarvoice when we were close to going public, as I described in the post). Julia Cheek at EverlyWell does it monthly, and I’m always happy to receive her reports as an investor. We decided to do it weekly here based on the ambition and velocity of what we have been building at data.world. I’m sure some of our investors think it is too much (as a matter of fact, I polled them on that front and I know some do). But most do read it weekly and I find that the responses we get are very helpful and it helps them really feel the overall momentum of the business. Some investors tell us they absolutely love following along weekly and that it is a highlight of their week. Just know, as with all things in life, you aren’t always going to make everyone happy no matter what cadence you choose. But I can guarantee you that it won’t make your investors happy if you only contact them when you are raising another round — unless your performance was even better than expected and you are in a very competitive fundraising situation round wise (which happens when you really outperform). I’ve had some investments like that (one just returned 17x), but they are rare. The majority of the startups we’ve invested in that decide to only communicate when they need money are not our best performers and often times they are our worst. I believe this is indicative of a lot of things — maybe they are “too afraid” to share any critical news, maybe they got behind their investor reporting cycle and are “too embarrassed”, maybe they just aren’t that collaborative overall, maybe they don’t trust their investors to keep it confidential. All of those things are examples of problems that can get magnified over time. If you truly respect your investors and advisors, then you would naturally want to keep them in the loop so you could get their help. Otherwise, why bring them on board in the first place? The bottom line is that you should be strategic about how you choose your capital sources and leverage them by practicing The Golden Rule.

    Brett Hurt

    Written by

    CEO, data.world; Co-owner, Hurt Family Investments; Founder, Bazaarvoice and Coremetrics; Henry Crown Fellow; TEDster; Dad + Husband (most important)