Board updates fail in two directions: a wall of metrics nobody reads, or vague optimism that erodes trust. This produces a tight, structured update — highlights, lowlights, metrics, asks — in your voice, by feeding Claude a sample of your real writing so it drafts like you instead of like a press release. Lands in Google Docs, ready to refine.
Who this is for
Founders and operators who send recurring updates to a board, investors, or leadership and want them sharp, honest, and unmistakably theirs.
What you'll need
- The month's facts: key metrics, what shipped, what slipped, current asks.
- One past update you wrote (for voice-matching).
- Claude and a Google Doc.
Capture this month's reality · 10 min
Dump the raw facts — numbers vs. plan, wins, misses, risks, and the specific things you need from the board. Include the bad news; a board update that only reports wins quietly burns credibility.
Teach it your voice, then draft · 15 min
Draft my monthly board update. First, study how I write from this past update and match its voice — sentence length, directness, how candid I am: [paste one previous update] Now write this month's update from the facts below, in that voice. Structure: - TL;DR — 3 sentences a busy board member could read and stop there. - HIGHLIGHTS — what moved, with numbers. - LOWLIGHTS — what slipped, the why, and what I'm doing about it. Don't spin. - METRICS — key numbers vs. plan, in a small table. - ASKS — specific, named requests for the board. Be concise and direct. Flag anywhere I'm being vaguer than the facts support. This month's facts: [paste]
Edit for truth and tone · 5 min
Read it as a board member would. Is the bad news framed honestly or massaged? Does the TL;DR stand alone? Tighten the asks until they're specific enough to act on. Then it's yours.
Burying or spinning the lowlights. Boards trust founders who name problems early. Vague optimism is the fastest way to lose the room.
Skipping the voice sample. Without a writing sample, you get generic investor-update boilerplate. The past update is what makes it sound like you.
Fuzzy asks. "Support would be great" gets nothing. "Two intros to enterprise security buyers by the 15th" gets action.
Do this next
- Keep a running facts doc through the month so update day is assembly, not archaeology.
- Lock your template once the structure works — consistency makes your updates easy to skim month over month.
- Track which asks got answered. It tells you how to frame the next ones.