Fundraising? Investors don’t care about your product. Internalize it.

I hear it so many times from founders who are unable to raise money. The story goes something like this: “I’m tired of pitching to investors who can’t understand my product or don’t know anything about my space.”

Getting one “no” after another isn’t easy to digest.

But here’s the thing. The repeated “no” you’re getting isn’t because they don’t get your product. It’s likely because you didn’t crystallize the process you’re going to transform.

This is the thing founders must remember when pitching.

Process transformation is scalable, products are not.

The scalability of your company comes from the process transformation that can be repeated in your vertical among as many companies as possible.

The old saying, “we have a scalable product”, is wrong!

Your product is not scalable. Your product can be expanded, sure, but it isn’t scalable.

That’s why investors don’t care about your product. That, and the fact that they know from a gazillion other startups that the product you start with will be totally different to the product you’ll have five years down the road.

Scalability is the change that happens in volume. The process transformation is your scalability.

If you want investors to dig into your vision and buy in on it, sell the process transformation that can be repeated.

And, more importantly, show how you can drive your audience to act for this process transformation.

Your product is secondary. Your prospects will only buy your product after they truly understand the need for it. And the same goes for investors. They’ll only buy in on your product after they understand why the process transformation is necessary.

That must be your key approach to fundraising.

Slack is the ultimate example of process transformation

Why isn’t your product the main pitch?

Let’s face it, everyone else can copy your technology, everyone else has more resources than you.

But, everyone else is not focusing on solving a problem you identified and are passionate about. That’s where you’ll be successful and everyone else will fail (despite their resources). And that is what investors are looking for.

Let’s look at Slack for a second.

Seemingly, Slack has the easiest technology on the planet to mimic. In fact, before Slack, there were so many instant messaging solutions. When it came along in 2009, millions of people around the world were already using tools like WhatsApp, MSN, and Facebook Chat (the precursor to Facebook Messenger).

So why would investors put their money behind technology that has pretty much nothing proprietary about it?

The reason Slack works is because it’s 100% focused on transforming the process of workplace communication. That’s why, today, pretty much every company uses it.

The vertical the company was aiming to transform was left untapped for many years. Lengthy emails, lost files and conversations, and endless face-to-face meetings were a burden that cost companies a lot of time and money.

Transforming the way companies communicate daily is the process they were going after. And because that transformation was so compelling to investors, they invested in a chat company with the simplest tech on the planet.

The focus and uncompromising desire to transform the process is your way to win investment.

Culture tips the balance in the eyes of investors

By making process transformation part of your culture, you’re showing investors that you care more than anyone else on the planet about making this change happen.

Why?

Founders who are driven by process transformation will always drive better outcomes than people who are driven by business opportunities.

It’s all about your ability to create conviction in your investors minds that no one else on the planet cares about it more than you do.

Now, how do you create the belief?

Well, there’s no course for that. But there is a simple question that you have to ask yourself: “Am I in it to make money or am I in it to transform the way things are done?”

And answer honestly.

If you’re in it to make money, investors will sniff you out in a second and you’ll struggle to raise a dime.

But if you’re in it to transform the process, losing sleep at night with ideas to make it happen, you’re on to a winner.

Be process obsessed!

Final thoughts

If you want to build a scalable business that wins investment, you need to put process transformation at the heart of your company culture.

This will focus your target audience, give you a roadmap to unicornism, and show investors that you have the conviction to make it happen.