VCs are very lucky in many, many ways. Investors entrust us with piles of capital in multiple ten-year funds, which are essentially open check books. Portfolio companies count on us to help them source/land great recruits, find potential strategic partners, land early flagship customers, etc.

As I’ve blogged before in a series of posts (more here), venture capital is a business completely based on trust. In our case, our investors have entrusted us with two funds. It’s small potatoes compared to firms that have been around for decades and manage billions. But, it means a great deal to us, and it’s a fiduciary responsibility about which we take very seriously.

A key part of creating and building trust with our investors is what we report to them. We strive to tell our investors both the good and the bad about our portfolio companies.

Also, each VC firm once a year gathers together with all of its investors at an “Annual Meeting.” We rent a conference room, our investors fly in from around the country, we discuss how the past 12 months have gone, and we talk how the next 12 months should go.

I’ve not blogged in a few days because our firm is prepping for our next Annual Meeting. But, what’s unique about this process is that Eric, Ed and I craft a presentation, and we don’t micro-manage what we say.

Eric has a bunch of slides to present, as do I. We’ll certainly go over the flow and some high-level points we want to make, but then, we say what we’re going to say. We don’t need to script the presentation.

We trust each other.