Delivering and responding to bad news and challenges with poise builds board member confidence in your leadership abilities. No board wants bad news but every company will have to cross this bridge at some point, likely multiple times each year.
The ability to deliver the difficult news, adapt to improve processes and return the following quarter with solutions and proof of effective outcomes reinforces your capabilities through positive and transparent interactions.
Don’t sweat your next meeting. Make a plan, engage the board and involve members to solve your issues and design positive action steps that benefit the company as a whole.
Product Development Board Meeting Prep
Your product development fell off track and now it’s time to face the music. Prepare for this meeting to control the narrative without stumbling over the content. Building a presentation with the most important data, positive and negative, will set a truthful standard for the entire meeting.
Avoid going down rabbit holes and use clear graphics and data to reach each point quickly. While the challenges you face are important and worth addressing early, don’t let them set the entire tone. Incorporate the wins and positive news to deliver a holistic vision beyond the temporary setbacks.
Sample SaaS Board Meeting Presentation Structure
Modify, manipulate and use this structure however it best fits in your business model and presentation style. The overall presentation is short, leaving room for discussion and interactions with board members.
Slide 1 – Product Updates
- How’s it going?
- Any major things to note?
- Churn, big wins, what’s working / not working
Slide 2 – Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- KPI Dashboard: What are you tracking? MRR, Engagement, Burn, Money in bank (Runway)? When is your next raise? See KPIs below.
Slide 3 – Quarterly / Annual Milestones
- 30 customers in 3 months
- $1M ARR in 6 months
- 10 new hires
Slide 4 – Resources needed
- Strategic – Where do we need help? Internal/External resource options?
Slide 5 – CTA
- What, if anything, do you need your investors to do when they leave?
Slide 2 discusses KPIs and these are often the data points board members really want to know. Deliver performance metrics in detail to show growth while offering a visual understanding of trajectory. Board members want to know and understand the bottom line and this is your chance to highlight critical KPIs.
- Runway – Show how much cash is in the bank, the current monthly burn, and how much runway you have.
- Growth – How fast is revenue growth, month over month? If you sell annual contracts, use ARR as the key revenue metric. If you sell monthly contracts, use MRR.
- Net Revenue Breakdown – Demonstrate how churn and expansion, as well as new sales, are contributing to your top line number.
- Cohort Retention – Look at revenue retention by cohort to understand whether your subscriber base is growing or shrinking over time.
- Engagement – Traditionally a consumer metric, user engagement also has relevance for bottom-up SaaS companies. Show engagement for your top 10 customers.
- Capital Efficiency – Customer acquisition cost (CAC), feature revenue.
Remember, board members like the visual content to see what is happening. Pull this data into graphics and avoid overloading them with long text blocks and complex spreadsheets.
Tackle the Problem Head-On
Beating around the bush and hiding details does not benefit anyone so jump right in and hit the problem head-on early in your presentation. Missed deadlines, postponed features that were designed to grow revenue, failures in development and pending code patches are all common issues. When you approach the board, ditch the somber tone and let them know exactly what is happening.
- Describe the Problem
- Acknowledge Mistakes
- Outline Setbacks
- Show Your Plan Moving Forward
At this point, you have everyone’s full attention and it’s time to involve the board. Engage the members, ask for advice and tap their expertise. Offer a means of communication after the meeting ends to seek private feedback and suggestions. Turning the negative news into a positive, interactive experience helps everyone push past the initial frustrations while brainstorming solutions.
Incorporating regular interactive meetings with allotted open session time is ideal for many SaaS companies. Board members can insert advice and constructive criticism in a scheduled timeframe.
Should You Send Materials Ahead?
Delivering materials ahead of the meeting is a productive strategy in some situations. For minor setbacks, it’s not always necessary but anytime the board is anticipating a difficult meeting, preparing them with homework helps leadership approach the problem with more depth. Board members also have the ability to read and digest complex topics before entering the meeting.
Before sending off a pile of material ahead of your meeting, ask these important questions:
- Will this ease tensions and anxiety for board members?
- Can they understand and process this information independently?
- Is the material important and relevant?
- Will this decision be productive?
Make this decision based on the board and how you expect them to interact with the materials. Highly involved boards will appreciate the extra reporting while hands-off boards might prefer the meeting as a standalone. Know your board members before sending off anything in advance.
Find a Positive Spin
Delivering the difficult news isn’t where your story ends at the next board meeting. Follow the delivery with a positive spin by using failures to improve processes and strengthen the company in the future. Learn from mistakes, plug holes in your team and build a system to better manage expectations and meet difficult deadlines. Learning to love R&D can lead to smoother rollouts and positive news for your next quarterly SaaS board meeting.
The next time you build a new feature or make new tech decisions, use our Technology Scorecard Tool to assess the benefits and downsides before making the final call. When you’re ready to build out new features and accelerate the R&D and development processes, visit our PlatformPlus page to see how we can help.