5 Best tips to find investors for your startup
Are you finding investors to scale up your business? After setting up the business, the most challenging task for every entrepreneur is to impress investors and invest as much money as you can to grow your business. Believe it or not; finances are the backbone of every organization.
By looking at its importance, there is more than one way to approach investors and attract funding to your business. But to get noticed by fundraisers in order to get to the next level, you need to choose different ways that your rivals haven’t imagined yet.
It doesn’t matter whether you have an excellent product or business idea, how big you have already grown, or how good you are growing your business, more capital and financial leverage will almost inevitably be a necessity. In fact, even the hyper-successful billion-dollar startups have been engaging in more fundraising rounds than ever before.
There is no denying the fact, the chances of getting random calls from super-sized business firms or the directors of Shark Tank are pretty small. If you want to attract investors towards your business, you need to make your profile strong as much as you can. Every single day, venture capitalists and angel investors are receiving dozens of pitches and simply don’t have time to meet with everyone. So, as an entrepreneur, you need to identify an ample number of people who could potentially be interested in your company.
In order to achieve your target, if you are looking for the money for your next series, consider these five options and prepare your pitch deck to convince fundraisers. Read it now!
Host Events
The first and foremost tip for finding your startup is to start attending various events as per the requirement of your business. Success in every business and fundraising project is all about visibility, getting noticed by the right investors. Attending events is an excellent way to approach great investors to increase your business bank balance.
But that doesn’t mean that you will attend each and every event without even doing enough research work. Instead of going to every event, it is better to check out the purpose and gathering of that event in order to make it more productive for your business. This opportunity can become your podium for presenting your own business idea and meeting active investors who can actually invest in your business. So, if you are operating an early-stage company, you need to consider this option and start attending events such as-
- WebSummit
- Money2020
- TechCrunch Disrupt
- SXSW
- Collision
In order to get ahead of the competition, you need to take those steps that your investors are not thinking about. In this way, you can approach investors as per your business needs. Think sporting events, charity fundraisers, film festivals, and yacht shows.
- Comb Your Networks
The second tip that you need to follow in order to approach your fundraisers is to leverage your networks. As stated above, investors receive several pitches every day by dozens of entrepreneurs. In order to highlight your organization in front of them, you need to start combing your networks. Investors often favor those companies that are introduced by a common and hyper-successful billion-dollar contact. Before sending your business proposal to any investor, you need to think about the most powerful contact on your friend list.
After that, you need to prepare a list of investors you really want to meet with and then go through it, person-by-person and analyze if you have any mutual acquaintances. If you find it, then it’s great! In that case, you are already halfway ahead of your rivals. All you need to do is to convince that person and show how awesome your company is. You can also send 3–4 sentence pitches on your company so he could include it in the initial introduction email. In this way, you can leverage your networks in order to find the investors for your organization.
Give Investors a Reason to Reach Out to You
Do you know investors also look for great companies where they can invest money and earn a profit? Yes! This is not a myth! As much as your company wants to search for the great investors, the investors are also in need of successful companies. Therefore, make sure that you are spending enough time to market your company.
Whether your product/service is live or not, you can still generate attention for your team members and your company. Your mission is to let your users and investors know that you are embarking on the market with this great business idea. When you start marketing your business, there are more likely chances that investors will choose you.
Blog
What about blogging? Have you ever thought about publishing various blog posts on numerous websites in order to approach fundraisers? If not yet, then you should start now! Blogging is one of the most powerful methods of attracting the inbound attention of potential investors by elaborating on your business story. You can also post your website content and do guest posting for marketing your business. In fact, social media marketing is also a good option for novice founders to attract the attention of investors. LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook would be your best choice in this case.
In addition to these tips, you can also post on the website of the investors that you are looking to target. Generally, these investors read all the comments and posts on their website. And then engage with those entrepreneurs whom they value their money. Therefore, leave a thoughtful comment to get noticed and start building the relationship from there.
Have A Status File
And last but not least, the tip that you need to add in your bucket list is to start preparing the status file of investors. The main reason for having the status file is to keep a track record of them. As soon as you figure out the appropriate investors for your company, you need to have a status file.
In this way, you will have a good idea about the investors, whether they are ready to invest in your company or not.
You can also include basic information about your interested investors, such as the point of contact, similar companies they’ve funded, and any notes from your calls. Trust me, you are going to have numerous meetings and conversations with people. So, in order to keep a track record of everything, you need to stay up-to-date on everything. It is an easy way to organize and remember where you left off with certain investors, who you need to follow up with, or what information you need to send someone.
Conclusion
By now, you have got the most amazing idea for approaching the fundraisers to scale up your business. Ready for the quest of investors in the business market? Great!
As stated above, investors are also in need of successful startups so that they can invest in their company and earn their profit. So, make your company’s image as strong as you can in order to get highlighted in the business market. After listing your startup idea, you need to make sure that you are portraying it excellently. No investors want to invest in a hypothetical business idea. You need to prepare a clear action plan to reach success with established performance milestones along the way.
Even with the best fundraising tips, people were unable to get turned on their desks. Don’t let that happen to you! Be prepared for every worst situation that can affect your business and investor’s decision to put their money in your dream project. But always remember that you also have the right to say, ‘’NO’’ to those investors who you don’t find right for your business plan.
If you have any doubts about setting up the business and finding investors for your startup, please contact Startupr. We are happy to help you all.
