Growth Hacking AngelList for Startups

As a startup, getting yourself out there and spreading the word about your product or service is key. However getting a little cash injection from investors can always go along way, AngelList is our platform of choice at Potential for startups to raise investment on. It also helps that we invest in startups through the platform ourselves. Get yourselves a profile and start promoting yourselves!

My investment syndicate ☺

We have put together a few tips:

Product

• Get some great screenshots of your product in use with simple text overlay if anything needs pointing out and remember to Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS)!
• Another great addition to pictures, is the use of a video to give potential investors a quick run through of your new creation.
• If your product runs across platforms, then provide evidence of this! Investors will see it has the potential to reach a wider target audience and responsive to different customer needs.
• Get the band together, a decent team photo can go along way in bringing personality to your product/brand by showing angel syndicates you’re not all robots.

Founders

Don’t be a question mark!

• Get some decent mug shots, you are trying to raise money over the internet so angels will need to put a face to the people who they are talking too. Don’t be a question mark!
• Highlight any experience you or anyone from your team has within this market, this shows investors that you know your niche and have knowledge of the market rather than flying blind.
• Good example: Fit Gurus startup have some solid profile pictures and commentary to go with them. Check them out!

Fit Gurus profile pictures and commentary

Traction

• Make sure you source some decent reviews and metrics for your product and get them uploaded! This is fundamentally one of the biggest areas startups will fail at, if you can show traction in the market from real customer (who might be your friends or family at the moment) then this will win you mega brownie points. However if you fake this, it can have serious implications down the line, remember you can only polish a piece of sh!t so much.

Big ass traction graph

• Besides written/video reviews of your product, a big ass traction graph goes a long way.

Team

• As mentioned previously, get the team in sync as often angels will invest in people/teams that are smart even if there product is a bit shaky. If the issues with the product are just down to a lack of investment funds, but the team/founders are clever and gel well together then this can add points to your cause.

Projects

• Innovate! Show some interesting projects that you are working on either with your current product or other products and share some knowledge on your market area.

Secret Hacks: go that one step further

• Get a CRM (customer relations management) plan in place for liaising with your current investors or potential ones, as there is nothing worse than having a communication breakdown. Start simple with a weekly newsletter to inform people about developments and if you use a service like Mailchimp you can track if people are actually interested.
• Take the time to nurture the Q&A area or any other questions submitted to your startups as someone is interested in what you’re doing!
• Get to know the AngelList staff and supporters as they may be able to give you some advise or make introductions to key investors for you.

Backroom

• Hiring — Shows commitment to your startup and that you’re thinking about the future even if it’s just interns at this stage. You can also use call for “Submit speculative cv’s” as a way to map future talent for your startup and draft job roles and responsibilities.
• Get social, as mentioned before, pick a few platforms that are right for you and your product. Start to network online and upload relevant content along with the occasional cat video to keep things sweet with your audience.
• If you’re looking to beef up your presence online then get involved in some charity events, upload the photos to social and start making the rounds at events specific to your products market and start photo bombing!
• Integrate platforms for time saving by using products such as buffer or hootsuite. However push messages that are right for that platform. Undertake a bit of competitor analysis to see what others in your space are talking about and see how they are engaging their audience.

Doug

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