What are the key things we need to prepare for raising investment?
Karan Parmar
10 replies
If a company is looking to raise investment, what are the steps and any key resources you would like to share?
Looking for knowledge on raising investment!! Please share your learnings 🙏
Replies
André J@sentry_co
Make sure you have 1. traction. 2. A great USP and 3. big potential market to grow in.
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The MOST important thing is to set the tempo. Heard someone saying "your main investor target should never hear about you from you". You need to creata huge FOMO by going for a quick closing with a lot of confidence.
Having pitched several times and raising investments, I've learnt first things first is your own conviction in the product you are creating, and then everything secondary or process if you were to say.
- Good market research to understand Target market, competition, and industry trends
- Investors invest in founders first and products next… As much as your conviction counts, your team is also equally valuable.
- Have a realistic and practical financial projections that include income statements , cash flow statements, and balance sheets over the years that you have been active.
- Know that investors will conduct due diligence before committing funds, be prepared with necessary documentation like legal agreements, intellectual property, patents, etc.
- an awesome and brief pitch deck along the lines of Simon Sinek’s golden circle and a vision of the future of your product.
- Start networking with investors six months ahead of time
- Get customer feedback, traction, MVP demo, and sales
- Team introduction slides, pitch deck, and punch lines
- Why are you different?
- Make sure you network with a bunch of them, FOMO works in the Investment world.
Develop a solid business plan that outlines your product/service, target market, competition analysis, and growth strategy.
From my knowledge it depends on the development stage of the product and the type of funding any founder is looking forward to
1. Create a list of investors you want to speak to + portfolio founders they've invested in. Reach out to the portfolio founders for introductions.
2. Join founder communities of any size, shape, and network. Be an active contributor and ask for intros.
3. Prepare a one-pager, a teaser, a full deck, and a memo (if you can) explaining the ins and outs of your start-up. Good documentation reduces time spent on calls. Great docs avoid it completely.
4. Redirect investors to your documents when asked questions. Show them you've thought through things.
5. Always have a demo ready.
Don't start raising until all your prep is in order. If you start too early, you'll spend a lot of time playing catch-up and creating custom documents according to the investors' wishes. It's a complete waste of time.
There are a few important considerations you must make when getting ready to raise money. You must first have a strong business plan in place. This comprises a distinct growth strategy, a market study, financial projections, and a clear vision for your business.
Why can't you do the same without raising funds?
Why you?
Why do you want to be an entrepreneur?
What personal experience you have experienced that helped you become more resilient?
Investors know that MVP, Businn plan and roadmaps mean nothing.
They want to invest in people, a team, a synergy of people that will find A way.
I've been working with different startups for over a year now and i had this insight form people that raised a lot of money.
I hope this can help @twinr_team
Just raised our last round in the middle of the bear market for crypto and the most important thing for us was VALIDATION. If you are early stage it is nice to have a pretty MVP and an interesting idea, but you need to prove that people will purchase your product.
I would split validation into 2: soft validation and hard validation.
Soft validation: activities that show interest but low effort for the potential user (waitlists, emails, surveys, simple commitments from businesses like LOIs)
Hard validation: activities that prove interest form potential users (legally binding MOU, users utilising beta product/MVP, people spending money)
If you can get a good blend of the 2 to prove that the capital will be utilised appropriately then you have set yourself above a lot of other early businesses.