SecondPen.aiTemplates · Operating cadence & reporting
Monthly investor update template
Origin: Y Combinator / Silicon Valley norm for startup founders.
Sections
- TL;DR
- Key metrics
- Highlights
- Lowlights
- Asks
- Cash & runway
- Thanks
How a tough reader scores it
When you score a draft against this format, the Critic evaluates this investor update. The weights add up to 100; the fixes for the weakest criteria arrive as cards in the editor.
| Criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| TL;DR states the real trajectory | 15 |
| Consistent, standard metrics with MoM change | 20 |
| Lowlights are candid and specific | 20 |
| Asks are concrete and easy to act on | 20 |
| Cash and runway are explicit | 15 |
| Brevity — readable in 2 minutes | 10 |
How it works in SecondPen.ai
Open the template and the editor writes the blank once, with a line of guidance under each heading that you delete as you fill it in. Write your abstract and the editor names the format it reads like. Ask for a document with a slash command and it offers to start from the matching format. When the draft is ready, the Critic scores it against the criteria above, the way this format's toughest reader would, and the three highest-leverage fixes become Editor cards.
More in Operating cadence & reporting
- Amazon WBR (Weekly Business Review)Amazon's weekly metrics review; a deck of charts showing trailing 6 weeks and 12 months with YoY lines, walked page by page
- Monthly / Quarterly Business Review (MBR/QBR)Standard executive review cadence at Amazon, Microsoft, and most SaaS companies
- Board pre-read memoBoard governance best practice (narrative pre-read sent 3–5 days before the meeting)
- Annual shareholder letterWarren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway letters; Jeff Bezos's 1997 Amazon letter
- Metric definition sheetData-governance practice underpinning WBR-style reviews
- 5-15 weekly reportAttributed to Yvon Chouinard at Patagonia: takes 15 minutes to write, 5 minutes to read