Credibility. Integrity. Trust.
When you think about your relationship with your investors, this is what you want. Yes, you need to execute your plan. Yes, you need to recruit and build your team. Yes, you need to grow your business.
Every startup has problems. And somehow or other, these problems, such as you missing your numbers, or a co-founder quitting, always happen at the absolute worst possible time. Usually it’s when you’re raising money.
Now, the question is what do you do? Do you hide the problem from your investors or should you tell your investors.
However, investors will want to fire you as CEO the second you lose your credibility, or if your integrity is in doubt, or your investors cannot trust you.
That’s why you want to be transparent with investors.
Let me give you another way to think about things. You may believe that your investors are expecting your startup to execute perfectly. The reality is much different.
I can just about guarantee you that you’re going to have stuff go wrong. All through the life of my company, we had all sorts of crazy things go wrong.
For example, when we got the wafers back for our first product, Jeroen, my…
