On this page8
- Why write a quarterly founder letter at all?
- What should a quarterly founder letter include?
- How honest should a founder letter be about misses?
- How do you turn a quarter into a story, not a list?
- What does part four, "what we heard from you", look like?
- Where should you publish and distribute a founder letter?
- When should you not publish a founder letter?
- FAQ
A founder letter to your community is a once-a-quarter piece, written in the founder's own voice, that explains what the team set out to do, what actually happened, what didn't work, and what comes next. It works when it reads like a story of the quarter rather than a feature list, and when the misses get as much honest space as the wins. Publish it in one home, then point every channel at it.
Done well, it becomes the most-read thing your company publishes all quarter. Done badly, it reads like a press release with a signature on the bottom.
Why write a quarterly founder letter at all?
Because your community sees your company in fragments. A tweet here, an AMA there, a partnership graphic, a price chart. Nobody stitches those together for them. The quarterly letter is where the founder does the stitching.
how you communicate w your community, stakeholders, customers, retail users, airdrop hunters, journos is literally everything! Shilika Jain on X, 3 Jun 2025
That list is why a single letter carries so much weight. One document gets read by holders, users, partners, investors and the reporters who follow you. Each reads it for something different, but they all walk away with the same version of the story.
It also does something for the founder. Writing four letters a year forces you to decide what the quarter meant before someone else decides for you.
What should a quarterly founder letter include?
I use a five-part structure. Each part has a job, and the order matters.
- What we said we'd do. Quote or link last quarter's letter or roadmap. Readers need the baseline before they can judge progress.
- What actually happened. The two or three things that moved the story forward. Not every shipped item. The ones that changed something for users or the market.
- What we missed, and why. Every quarter has misses. Name them, explain briefly, say what changes.
- What we heard from you. Specific feedback from the community, and what you did with it. This part turns a broadcast into a conversation.
- What's next, and what we need. The theme of next quarter in one sentence, two or three concrete goals, and one clear ask of the community.
Aim for 800 to 1,500 words. Shorter and it feels like a status update. Longer and the misses get buried in the middle, which readers notice.
How honest should a founder letter be about misses?
More honest than feels comfortable, and more specific than your legal or token team would like. Vague misses read as hiding. Specific ones build trust.
Transparency is the key to successful web3 business Shilika Jain on X, 18 Nov 2022
I wrote that in November 2022, in the middle of a year when a lot of communities learned what happens when teams go quiet. It holds for the small misses too. Here's the honesty ladder I use to decide how to write about each one:
| Type of miss | What to say | What not to say |
|---|---|---|
| Shipped late | The new date, the real reason, what you've changed to protect the next date | "Due to unforeseen circumstances" |
| Shipped, but it didn't land | What usage looked like, what you learned, whether you'll iterate or drop it | Inflated numbers or silence |
| Didn't ship at all | That it's cut or paused, and why that was the right call | Moving it quietly to "coming soon" |
| A partner or integration fell through | That it's not happening, without blaming the partner | Details that breach confidentiality |
| Something went wrong publicly | A short recap, linking to the full incident report | Re-litigating it or minimising it |
The pattern across every row: the reader should finish the paragraph knowing what happened and what changes. If they finish it confused, you've written a dodge.
There's a cost, and you should weigh it. Admitting a miss gives critics a quote. In my experience the community already knows about most misses, and seeing the founder name them first takes the sting out. When it's a serious incident, though, align the letter with your crisis communications plan rather than freelancing in a letter.
How do you turn a quarter into a story, not a list?
The letter is the payoff chapter of your quarter. If you planned the quarter as an arc, the letter writes itself: here's the problem we set out to address, here's the proof we gathered, here's where it landed. I describe that planning approach in the quarterly narrative arc template.
If you didn't plan it that way, look back and find the thread anyway. Before they draft, I ask founders for three things:
- The one sentence a community member should be able to repeat about this quarter.
- The single moment you'd show a new hire to explain it.
- The thing that surprised you most.
Then cut anything that doesn't support the sentence. A shipped item that doesn't fit belongs in the changelog, not the letter. Founders hate this step. It's also the step that makes the letter readable.
What does part four, "what we heard from you", look like?
This is the part most founder letters skip, and the one I'd keep if I could keep only one.
you should be focusing on user expectations time & again & investing on user survey every quarter to align expectations. Shilika Jain on X, 6 Dec 2022
A quarterly letter is the natural place to close that loop. Pick two or three pieces of feedback you received through AMAs, Discord, support tickets or a survey, and say what you did with each one. Something like:
- "Many of you asked for X. We shipped a first version in week 7."
- "Several of you flagged that Y was confusing. We rewrote the docs and the onboarding flow."
- "A few of you asked for Z. We've decided not to build it this year, for this reason."
The third kind matters as much as the first two. Saying no with a reason shows the founder is listening, even when the answer isn't what people wanted.
Where should you publish and distribute a founder letter?
One home, many pointers. The letter lives in one place with a permanent URL, and every other channel sends people there.
| Channel | Format | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Company blog or Mirror | Full letter, the canonical home | Day 0, morning in your main audience's timezone |
| Email newsletter | Full letter or the first two parts with a link | Day 0 |
| Founder's X | A long post or a 5 to 7 post thread pulling the honest bits | Day 0, an hour after the blog goes live |
| Founder's LinkedIn | The lesson from the quarter, written for that audience, linking to the letter | Day 1 |
| Discord and Telegram | Pinned link with a two-line summary, plus a thread for questions | Day 0 |
| Investors and partners | Forwarded personally with a one-line note | Day 1 or 2 |
| Next AMA | Open by answering the top questions the letter raised | Within 2 weeks |
If you already run a newsletter, the letter becomes its quarterly anchor edition. My notes on starting a startup newsletter and on founder Substacks that journalists and VCs actually read cover the channel side.
Reporters read these letters too. A clear, honest letter is often where a journalist finds the angle for a feature months later, which is one reason I fold them into founder profiling work.
When should you not publish a founder letter?
A few situations where I'd hold it or change the format:
- You're in active legal or regulatory trouble. Get counsel to review, or publish a shorter factual update instead.
- The founder didn't write it. Ghostwriting help is fine. A letter the founder hasn't shaped, edited and owned is not. Readers can tell.
- Nothing happened. If the quarter was mostly heads-down building, write a short note saying so and what you're building toward. Don't pad it.
- You can't be honest about the misses yet. Better to delay by two weeks than publish a letter that skips the elephant in the room.
The letter is a promise you renew every quarter. Skipping one is fine. Publishing one that sounds like marketing costs you the trust the earlier ones built.
FAQ
### How long should a founder letter to the community be? I aim for 800 to 1,500 words. That's long enough to cover wins, misses and what's next with real detail, and short enough that people finish it.
### Should a founder letter include token or price commentary? Generally no. Price talk invites legal risk and pulls attention away from the product story. If the community is anxious about the token, address the underlying question, such as vesting schedules or treasury runway, factually and point to official sources.
### Can a co-founder or CEO who isn't the original founder write it? Yes. What matters is that the letter comes from a named leader the community recognises and that the voice stays consistent quarter to quarter. Rotating authors every quarter weakens it.
### Should the founder letter go to the press as well? Not as a pitch. Send it to the few reporters who follow your company closely with a short note, but don't treat it as news. If the letter contains real news, announce that separately first and reference it in the letter.
Writing your first quarterly founder letter and want a sharper structure before it goes out? Book a 30-min call with me.
