Look Beyond the Finances Provided

Investors are certainly sought for their ability to finance your business growth. You need money, and these investors will certainly provide you with capital. But the right investor will provide additional resources that are worth more than money in most cases:

• Expertise
• Training
• Hands-on assistance

Investors will be able to, in some cases, assist with overcoming hurdles that are only known and understood when you already have experience growing a startup. If you look beyond finances, you’ll be able to secure funding and work closely with the investor to build the strong relationships that can lead to your startup’s success.

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Set Your Expectations Early On

You’re trying to impress an investor, and it’s often an exciting and intimidating experience. You’ve connected on a startup matching platform and want to do anything you can to impress the investor.

But you should never forget that you’re running a business and that while funding is essential for you at this time, you should have expectations from the relationship.

The goal is to start a relationship with the investor with 100% transparency. When you meet the investor, sit down, and discuss all of your expectations. The expectations that you have should include:

• The vision of your business
• Potential exit plans
• Growth forecasts and expectations

If you don’t plan to exit, explain this to the investor. When you set expectations initially and the investor still provides funding, you’ll be starting a very fruitful relationship.

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Listen to the Investor’s Concerns

You want the investor to listen to your expectations, but you also need to listen to the concern of the investor. Investors are going to put a lot of trust into your business, so they need to also explain their concerns to you.

For example, the investor may be concerned that your product won’t reach the market fast enough or that your growth is too slow.

Why should you listen to these concerns?

You’ll:

• Better understand the point of view from the investor’s standpoint
• Learn about your business’s weaknesses
• Learn what investors are mainly concerned about

When you listen to the investor, you’ll be able to strengthen your pitch for the next investor and you’ll also be able to cull the investor’s concerns.

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Ooze Passion

There are a lot of people with unbelievable talent. You’ll find a lot of people who are whizzes at making apps or coding, but these people lack something that investors seek: passion. You need to be very passionate about what you’re doing.

Don’t seek reassurance from the investor or second guess your business.

Investors want you to take control of the discussion and explain why your business is a good choice for investment. If you look at Elon Musk, you’ll find that every time he takes the stage, he is passionate about each product he releases.

These emotional investments are going to impress an investor.

Explain these passions and your vision to the investor. When you do this, you’ll stay in the investor’s mind and make a great first impression.

It’s important to be very passionate about your business. Passion also means being very picky. You need to not only impress an investor, but you need to also be very picky with the investors that you seek out.

This is a double-sided relationship where you and your investors really need to meld together to help your business grow.

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