When raising $22M for AppSignal, we technically had every document we needed. Somewhere.

Revenue spreadsheets? Let me export a P&L from Moneybird and massage it in Excel. Contracts? Some were in PandaDoc, others buried in my inbox. Cap table and dividend distributions? Let me track down those PDFs. CIT returns? Logging into the accountant's portal.

Truthfully, a lot of what I needed was where it should be, properly stored in Google Drive by our operations manager or me. But not everything. And when you're under the microscope, being unable to produce a document quickly doesn't look great.

The result was unnecessary stress, late nights, and an embarrassing amount of re-downloading and re-formatting documents I knew existed but couldn't immediately locate. Not because we hadn't done the work, but because we hadn't stored everything as if someone else would eventually need to review all of it.

If you're building something valuable, assume someone will want to look under the hood one day. A little structure from day one can save you a significant amount of work later.

Due Diligence Is a Stress Test You Can Prepare For

Raising capital is about validation as much as vision. Investors will scrutinize your financials, legal agreements, product usage data, and more. They want to know you run a tight ship — and that extends well beyond whether there are red flags. When you're already juggling product, customers, and team responsibilities, you don't want to add a document scavenger hunt to the list.

Knowing exactly where a file lives without hunting across platforms matters more than it sounds, both mentally and operationally.

What I'd Do Differently from Day One

We didn't not have the documents. We just hadn't thought ahead to how someone else would need to view them. If I were starting over tomorrow, here's how I'd approach our document hygiene.

Create a Master "Due Diligence" Folder from the Start

Even if you're not planning to raise funds for years, or ever, create the structure now. This virtual filing cabinet is useful for everyday document retrieval too, so you're not building something that only pays off at fundraise time.

Suggested folder structure:

Corporate & Legal

  • Articles of Incorporation
  • Shareholder Agreements
  • Board Meeting Minutes
  • Cap Table & Equity Documents (including history)
  • IP Assignments / Licenses
  • Contracts & Agreements (customer, partner, vendor, NDAs)
  • Compliance Documents (GDPR, ISO27001, HIPAA, etc.)

Financials

  • Historical Financial Statements (3–5 years: P&L, Balance sheet, cash flow)
  • Forecasts & Projections
  • Tax Filings (VAT, Corporate Income Tax, Dividend Withholding Tax, etc.)

Product & Technology

  • System Architecture Diagrams
  • Relevant GitHub Repositories (links with descriptions)
  • Dev Process & Methodologies
  • Technical Debt Overview
  • Security Policies & Pen Tests
  • Disaster Recovery Plan

Customers & Revenue

  • Customer List (top 10 customers by revenue, anonymized)
  • Churn / Retention Reports (including effects of previous price increases)
  • Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) / LTV
  • Revenue Breakdown (by product, customer, geography)
  • Support Metrics / NPS / Feedback
  • Pricing Models

Team & HR

  • Organizational Chart
  • Employee Roster
  • Employee Contracts / Offer Letters
  • Compensation Plans & Benefits
  • Contracting & EOR Agreements
  • ESOP, SARs & Options
  • Employee Handbook (in our case, linking to the GitHub repository)

Operations & Admin

  • Internal Policies & Procedures
  • Tools Used (e.g., Moneybird, Intercom, Stripe, etc.)
  • Vendor / Supplier Contracts
  • Insurance Policies
  • Lease Agreements

Standardize File Names and Formats

Every document should be easy to understand at a glance. I've opened far too many PDFs only to find everything except what I was looking for. A consistent naming convention — something like 2024-Q4_P&L_AppSignal.pdf — takes seconds to establish and saves time every time someone needs to find something quickly.

Pick a Single Source of Truth

Don't scatter your documents across Gmail, Notion, Dropbox, and random Google Drives. Choose one primary storage platform and stick to it. I'd go with a shared Google Drive folder so selected coworkers can contribute and access what they need.

Tag Key Docs in Real Time

Just signed a major contract? Move it to the correct folder immediately. Closed your year-end financials? Save a clean, clearly named PDF. SaaS metrics and tax filings? Update quarterly. Make this an ongoing habit, not a last-minute scramble.

Use a Diligence Checklist Early

You don't need to fill in every line immediately, but start building a due diligence checklist and treat it as a living inventory of proof points. Use the folder structure above as your guide.

Build Like Someone's Watching

Building a company is hard enough. Scrambling to prove its legitimacy retroactively is avoidable pain. We gathered everything for our raise without missing a single document, but it was still more work than it needed to be, because we hadn't built our house with guests in mind.

That's an easy problem to fix in advance. It's an annoying one to fix in a hurry.