Eight numbers from six dashboards, collected before you wake up

What is the exact prompt?

The outline is yours. Write it once and reuse it every cycle. The prompt wraps around it:

"Draft this month's investor update using the outline below. For each metric, open the named source in my session and take the current value; write (source: name, date) after every number. Where you cannot reach a source or the number is ambiguous, write [CHECK] and say why (never estimate, never carry forward last month's figure. Outline: 1) Headline metrics) MRR and net revenue from [billing dashboard], cash and runway from [bank/finance tool], signups and activation from [analytics]. 2) What changed since last update: read the last update in [doc location] and diff reality against what we said we would do. 3) Lowlights first, then highlights (one paragraph each, plain sentences, no adjectives. 4) Asks) leave as bullets for me to fill. Put the draft in [Notion page / doc]. Publish and send nothing."

Section 2 is the quiet workhorse. A companion diffs "what we said" against "what happened" line by line, and that diff is the part boards actually read.

Why lowlights first, and no adjectives?

Drafts drift optimistic.

Left alone, every one of them reaches for "strong momentum", and experienced investors discount the whole document the moment they smell it. Ordering lowlights first and banning adjectives forces candor at the prompt level.

It also speeds your editing pass. A flat, factual draft is easy to punch up where warranted; a hyped one has to be deflated line by line. The voice you want matches the board reporting playbook: numbers, causes, decisions.

Schedule the draft three days before it is due

Schedule the draft three business days before the update is due, which leaves slack to chase the [CHECK] marks. The routine holds the outline, so the only thing that changes month to month is reality. If your update lives in Notion, the draft lands there through the native integration, documented on the Notion integration page.

The [CHECK] list becomes a metric of its own. Month one might have five unverifiable numbers. If month four still has five, fix the dashboard rather than the prompt. Teams feed a weekly reporting routine into this monthly draft, and handle the between-updates work with keeping your investor CRM warm.

Verify before it goes to the board

Every number once, but the (source, date) annotations turn that from an hour into ten minutes: open the named dashboard, confirm the figure. Pay double attention to derived numbers like runway, where cash can be read correctly and divided by the wrong burn definition. State your definition in the outline if it is nonstandard.

Then delete the annotations, write the asks, and rewrite the one paragraph that needs a founder's voice. The draft is scaffolding. The [CHECK] marks are what keep a number nobody verified out of the finished update.

Frequently asked questions