Letter From An Investor To Founders

Guys,

You let me down. As you know, I have very high regards for you. You are doing a great job with developing clever technology to make the world a better place, and we are very happy to support your efforts.

However, I was very concerned about your lack of preparation for the Board meeting today. This reflects badly on you. I agree that your technical skills are superb, and we don’t expect you to be financial wizards as well. But we do expect you to have enough self-awareness to appreciate the areas in which you are lacking, and then reach out to plug those gaps.

While there are some areas in which you shine, there are others in which you need to do a better job – and we are happy to help. You do need to take financial reporting very seriously. It may not be something you enjoy doing, but you can’t wish this responsibility away !

We have a lot of respect for what you have achieved, but clever technology is not enough to create a world-class company. There is lots of scope for improvement, and I am very confident that you will be able to do an outstanding job, once you decide to prioritise this.

We don’t want you to feel that we are cramping your style, but the reality is that we are worried that you are underestimating the real world challenges of selling a product, no matter how cool it is.

Also, the funding gap is the elephant in the room, and this is an urgent issue which needs to be resolved so that you can move on to creating a world-class company which we can all be proud of. Once you have more money, so will then have more freedom to continue doing low-cost experiments, and try out various options in parallel, without losing focus on your core competence and key goals.

Please don’t take this as a criticism – after all, we are both on the same side, and we both want the company to flourish. We are very happy to help – after all, we want you to be successful. This requires collaboration and co-operation, which is why I am reaching out to you !

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.