By The meeting ended well. Real interest, good questions, a warm goodbye. Then, a few hours later, most founders send the follow up email that quietly kills the momentum. Thanks so much for your time, it was great to meet, do let us know if you have any questions, deck attached. It is polite, it is forgettable and it hands all the work back to the investor at exactly the moment you should be doing it for them.
The follow up is not a thank you note. It is the last move in the meeting, played after everyone has left the room. The investor has just seen a dozen founders this week and by tonight your pitch is already blurring into the others. Your email is the thing that either sharpens the memory or lets it fade. And do let us know if you have questions does nothing but wait.
“Thanks for your time, deck attached, let us know if you have questions.” Polite and it moves nothing forward.
A three line recap of what you do and the ask, an answer to the one open question and a clear next step you propose.
Recap, resolve, propose
A follow up that works does three things. It recaps, in two or three lines, what you do and what you are raising, so the investor reading in a rush is instantly back in your pitch. It resolves, by answering the one question you could not fully answer in the room, the cohort data they wanted, the number you promised to check. And it proposes a specific next step, a call with a partner, a follow up on Thursday, access to the data room, so the ball is not left sitting in nobody's court.
The follow up, on a clock
- Meeting endsNote the open question
The one thing you could not fully answer.
- Same daySend the recap
What you do and what you are raising, in three lines.
- Within the weekResolve it
The data or number you promised.
- Proposed dateThe next step
A partner call or a follow up meeting.
Make the next step easy to say yes to
The proposed next step is the part almost everyone leaves out and it is the whole point. Investors are busy and a little passive and an open ended email invites an open ended delay. A clear, easy next step, would Thursday work for a call with your partner or here is the data room, happy to walk your team through it, gives them something small and concrete to say yes to. You are not chasing. You are keeping the thing moving, which is your job, not theirs.
The email that moves things
So write the follow up before the meeting is even cold, while the questions are fresh. Recap tight, answer the open thing, propose the next step. It takes ten minutes and it is the difference between a warm meeting that fizzles into silence and one that turns into a second conversation, which is where deals actually get made.