Investment Memo Template

Here's High Output's template for an in-depth investment memo that's used as a tool to validate decisions and ensure full conviction. These are likely the categories that potential investors will be looking for when making their own funding decisions.

It can be valuable for an investor or a founder to use this template to shape their thinking around an opportunity, or to clearly enumerate why their company should get funding.

🗺 Company Overview
🛍 Customer & Product
🏬 Market
🚘 Traction
🤜🏽 Team
💵 Fundraise
🤔 Decision Sanity Check
📝 Pitch Notes
📞 References

🗺 Company Overview

[What is the company one-liner?]

Mission / Vision

[What guides the organization and team?]

Highlights

Bullet 1
Bullet 2

Key Risks

Bullet 1
Bullet 2

🛍 Customer & Product

Target Market / Customer

[Who specifically is the initial customer]

Problem / Need

[What's the problem or void? How does the team know?]

Product & Wedge

[What is the product? Does it solve the pain point / need? Any dependencies?]

Defensibility

[What is defensible today or in the future?]

Go-To-Market

[What's the go-to-market? Is it feasible?]

Monetization

[How does the company plan to make money in the short and/or long term?]

🏬 Market

Why Now / Macro Trends

[What trends make this company and product possible?]

Market Size

[Is the market large, growing rapidly or emerging?]

Competition

[Who is the indirect / direct competition?]

Advantage

[Why do we like this company relative to the field?]

🚘 Traction

Product

[What has been built and shipped?]

Metrics

[What quantitative progress has been made so far?]

Unique Insights

[What unique insights has the team learned?]

🤜🏽 Team

Core Team

[Who is on the team?]

Super Powers

[What's truly unique about the team?]

Core Traits

Can they ship and build product?

Are they leaders?

Do they understand the customer?

Do they love to experiment / learn?

Do they have tenacity, grit, hustle?

Do they have self-awareness?

Do they have unwavering conviction?

Are they on a mission?

Notes

💵 Fundraise

Round Dynamics

[How much is the company raising, what are the terms, who else is involved?]

Roadmap & Milestones

[What are key business and product milestones over the 12-24 months?]

🤔 Decision Sanity Check

Do I have unwavering conviction?

Will I be proud to be an investor?

Can this be a category creator or leader?

Is this already great/awesome?

Can this be 100x?

Do I deeply believe in the founders?

Is this wedge / GTM feasible?

Can I add value?

Notes

📝 Pitch Notes

[Enter call notes]

📞 References

[Enter call notes]