We just did a late-seed round from a VC firm and didn't set up a board.
Something that has worked for us is doing a bi-weekly Google Hangout that has no agenda. The rule is no one prepares for it, but we just talk about stuff at a high level. So far it's been really helpful. We don't feel unnecessary pressure to prepare decks with stats and metrics on things that aren't important or will be changing quickly (plus I have the key ones memorized anyways), yet we communicate frequently enough that issues can be tracked closely and fixed.
It also works that we had only one firm in the round so coordinating it is easy. Might not work if you have lots of angels or other investors.
Of course we talk metrics, we just don't prepare them formally. And we don't have to because our dashboards are pretty much real time anyways (which we sometimes jump into through screen share).
Something that has worked for us is doing a bi-weekly Google Hangout that has no agenda. The rule is no one prepares for it, but we just talk about stuff at a high level. So far it's been really helpful. We don't feel unnecessary pressure to prepare decks with stats and metrics on things that aren't important or will be changing quickly (plus I have the key ones memorized anyways), yet we communicate frequently enough that issues can be tracked closely and fixed.
It also works that we had only one firm in the round so coordinating it is easy. Might not work if you have lots of angels or other investors.