How to use Toldie

For founders and fund managers who owe an update, and the investors and limited partners who would like one.

Founders and fund managers

Set up, once

Sign in with your email. There is no password; you get a link and a six-digit code.
Say who reads your updates: investors in your company, or limited partners in your fund. Then its name, what it does (a fund's strategy), the stage it is at, one line, your first name. Under a minute. Stage decides what leads your updates: for a company, proof people want it before seed and the numbers once you are growing; for a fund, the close while you raise, new positions while you invest, and later marks, exits and distributions.
Share your link. Paste it in a Slack message, an email signature, or send the ready-made note to your investors or LPs. Each of them picks weekly, every two weeks, monthly or quarterly.
Approve each investor or LP who comes through your link as they confirm. People you add yourself are on your list at once and get one email saying so, with a way to change how often or step off. Anyone who unsubscribed is not added back; you can ask them back from your Investors page (LPs, for a fund), and they return only if they confirm.

Every week, under 90 seconds

Toldie emails you one question, with up to two things your investors or LPs most want to know.
Reply from your phone with a sentence or three. Numbers, names, one ask if you have one.
A draft comes back within a minute. Tap Send, or Edit, or Skip this week. Or reply "send" to the approval email and never leave your mail app.

That is the whole job. Toldie delivers to weekly readers right away and rolls updates up for monthly and quarterly readers, so nobody gets more than they asked for.

Guidelines for a good reply

Lead with the most material fact. A signed customer, a number that moved, a hire that started; for a fund, a new investment, a follow-on, an exit. Toldie puts it first either way, but you will write it better.
Write the numbers yourself. Toldie never adds or computes a number. If you want your readers to see it, type it.
Answer the questions you were asked, in a clause. "Four sites are paying" is enough. Your answer goes into the update as a plain fact: the question itself is never shown, and no reader learns that another one asked it.
One ask, when you have one. Start a line with "Ask:". Offers of help come straight to your inbox, with reply-to set to whoever offered.
Hard week? Say so. Investors and LPs respect a short honest line far more than silence. Toldie will never dress it up.
Let it give your win its weight. Founders and fund managers undersell. Toldie states the win as the outcome it is, in your facts, and asks the one or two questions your readers would ask next; for a company, what it does for the business, what it means for revenue, whether it lowers risk or adds growth. Answer in a clause and the update gets much stronger.
Do not paste a deck, or the quarterly letter. Long replies get cut at a sentence boundary. Short is the point.
Skip when you must, but reply when you can. A skipped week is fine. Two skipped weeks and Toldie asks a softer question. It never stops asking unless you pause it from your home page.

Investors and LPs

Open the founder's or fund manager's link, pick how often you want to hear from them, confirm by email. No link yet? Invite them: the founders you backed, or the funds you invest in.
Wait for them to approve you. You get an email when they do.
Reply to any update with a question. Toldie bundles questions across readers and puts the most-asked ones to the founder or fund manager, so they answer once and everyone hears it.
One question a month each keeps this useful for whoever is writing. An offer of help ("happy to intro you to...") does not count and reaches them directly.
Change cadence, say whether an update was useful, or unsubscribe from the links at the bottom of any update, in one tap.

Reader etiquette

Ask the question most readers would want answered, not the one only you care about. Those get asked; niche ones may not.
Forward a founder's update to another founder you know who has gone quiet. The link in the footer invites them in one tap. An LP update is confidential to the fund's limited partners, so invite a quiet fund manager from For LPs instead.

Why this works

You never write an update again. You answer a question. That is a different, much smaller task, and it is why founders and fund managers keep doing it.
Investors and LPs stop chasing you. Questions go to Toldie, not your inbox, and the answer goes to everyone who asked. No more one-to-one threads.
Each reader gets their cadence. Weekly readers get every update; monthly and quarterly readers get one clean rollup. Nobody is over-emailed, nobody is forgotten.
It keeps you honest. The draft can only contain what you wrote. No invented numbers, no filler, and nothing sends without your tap.
It makes the update better, not only easier. Wins stated as outcomes, hedges gone, and the questions that matter asked before your readers ask them. When something goes unaddressed, readers assume you have not thought about it. You have; you were busy. Toldie closes that gap in a clause.
A streak. Every week you reply, it grows. It shows on your home page, and Toldie notices four in a row.
Your list. Toldie sends updates only to the investors or LPs you add or approve, and each update's link can be forwarded by whoever holds it. There is no public feed.
Who reads. Each update carries a tiny image that tells you when a reader opens it, and how many times. Your Investors page (LPs, for a fund) ranks your readers warmest first, lists anyone who has stopped opening so you can take them off with one tap, and shows you who to call when you raise. Readers are told that opening is how they stay on the list, and any of them can turn it off; you then see only that they don't share opens.
Free for founders. Always.

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