You’re a startup and you’ve just secured capital. First of all, congratulations! It might feel like you’ve just run multiple marathons. Yet, it’s probably dawned on you that you’re just getting started.
Delivering on promises
Once you’ve secured funding, it’s crucial to deliver on promises you made to investors.
“There is the delivery of value, and then there is the communication of those wins to the people that matter,” Bespoken Managing Director Sarah Morgan said.
“You need to demonstrate to the people who backed you that their investment was a wise decision, especially if you will require future funding rounds.
“Keeping the momentum going post-funding is like a game of ‘keepy-uppy,’” Morgan said, referring to the game made famous by cartoon character Bluey, where a player needs to continually tap a balloon upwards, keeping it in the air for as long as possible.
“You keep the metaphoric balloon in the air with strategic milestones.
“What’s next on your agenda? Are you presenting at an industry event? Launching a strategic marketing campaign to attract customers? Landing strategic media placements as thought leaders or demonstrating your Unique Selling Proposition?
“These activities help maintain visibility for you and your organisation, demonstrating ongoing progress to your investors and the market.”
Essential communication tactics for your toolbelt
- Share milestones and progress on your website and LinkedIn (personal and company pages). This might include product launches, meeting customer acquisition targets, signing a new commercial partner, or significant research and development (R&D) breakthroughs.
- Pick up the phone to deliver news or updates to your significant backers.
- Send a semi-regular update email (monthly or quarterly) to investors.
- Gain media attention around your commercial wins (strategic partnerships, or the capital raise itself) to engender optimism among investors. Capital raises of significant financial value are a favoured topic of the prestigious Australian Financial Review, as well as the business pages of The Australian.
- Presenting a webinar to investors at a critical moment, allowing for question time afterwards, can also be valuable.
“For key stakeholders, an individualised report – either verbally or written – can go a long way to cultivating trust and securing a long-term relationship,” Morgan said.
“It shows transparency and progress towards key promises you made during the attraction stage.”
Transparency
Challenges – such as a likely delay in achieving a key milestone – should usually be communicated early with investors, so they can assist if necessary, or at least have realistic expectations.
These conversations can be difficult in the short term, but they are essential for healthy long-term relationships.
Attracting staff
“Following a cap raise, you will probably need to expand and attract new staff,” Morgan said. “How will potential employees find out about you? And how will you attract top talent if you’re unable to provide a top wage? What are you doing about your EVP?”
‘EVP’, your Employee Value Proposition, provides a clear outline of what you stand for, what you hope to achieve and importantly what value you provide your team members.
It’s essentially the list of reasons why people would love to join, and stay, with your company.
It can include career growth opportunities, company culture, perks like a coffee machine or ‘bring your dog to work day.’ In the case of many scaleups, a meaningful company mission also holds a lot of sway with potential employees.
Further to this, a lot of scaleups provide the opportunity to be at the forefront of something new and ground-breaking, as well as an agility in stark contrast to the rigid rules of large corporates.
Again, communication is key. Just like investment relations (above), open and transparent communication is vital to keep staff engaged and enthused about the bigger project.
Your EVP can be communicated internally and externally in a variety of ways:
- A dedicated and comprehensive page on your website.
- Through authentic “Meet the Team” posts on social media.
- A strategic onboarding program.
- Attendance at industry events – not just by the founder but the wider team.
- Encourage blogs and articles to be written by key members of the team.
Where to from here?
A successful capital raise marks the beginning of your next chapter.
The work now lies in delivering on promises, maintaining momentum, and strategically planning for the future.
And throughout all of this, a communications strategy is essential for keeping investors, attracting customers, and appealing to new talent.
