7 ways to find Investors while raising money for the first time
A lot of times, entrepreneurs face difficulty in arriving at the list of Investors they should approach while raising money for the first time from outside investors. Because, there is no one place you can find them, most of the time an entrepreneur ends up approaching people randomly that seldom has fruitful outcome.
If you are fundraising for the first time and don’t know where to start, here are seven points that can prove to be a good Headstart, when it comes to finding the “PERFECT INVESTOR”
“Fundraising is more a choice with whom you want to build a lasting business with, than taking money blindly”
- Start with your network: Since you are an entrepreneur, there are high chances of people in your network who have already gone through the experience of fundraising. Approach each and every funded friend you have, tell them about what you have built and that you are raising money actively. Then see, if they can help you with getting through to investors in their network
- Prepare a list: Even before you do number one, it is very important to do proper research of investors(invests in your space,active in the last 1–2 years and in the same geographical area) and come up with a list of 50–100 investors you have to talk to, no matter what. It is only after you have done this, will the effort be a focused one, otherwise it is all shooting in the dark and hoping to hit bulls eye
“You don’t hit bulls eye by shooting in the dark, you hit by knowing your target and staying focused”
3. LinkedIn: Both while preparing the list(to know who are the investors out there) and while approaching(although not advised to approach directly, warm introductions always work way better) LinkedIn is a tremendous resource to be utilized. It is not tough to find out profiles of investors and add them to your list of probables.
4. News: Track down the news of all funding news in the last year that appeared in media over the last year. Take down the names of individual angel investors/VCs that are in your sector and mark it in the probables. This is an exercise that not many people do, but if done properly that odds are high, as you will be approaching investors you have put in money into startups not more than a year back.
5. Platforms: There are scores of fundraising platforms around the world. Register yourself in all of them(if possible), go through the investor section of each and keep marking the one’s you would love to talk. AngelList and gust are only two, there are many more all around the world.
“Never get restricted to a single platform, keep all doors open while figuring out which investors you want to approach”
6. Twitter and Quora: Finding Investors on Facebook, can be a terrible idea. Twitter serves the purpose much better. Figure out who are the investors, most active on Twitter(from all around the world) and keep adding them to your list as long as they are in your sector. Quora has a lot of valuable answers on fundraising for first time entrepreneurs, and also answers scan through them to find gems, there are lots and lots of them on Quora
7. Events: Hate writing this, you “WILL NEVER GET FUNDED DURING EVENTS”. There are events and conferences happening left, right and center all around. A lot of first timers get swayed by the build of people who are invited( read star Investors), and land themselves up there, only to find that you will not even get a minute of face time with these “STAR INVESTORS”. Be very wise, in choosing the conference/event to attend, it is good only till the point of maintaining a continuity of relationship and be on the radar/good books of investors. Beyond that, in terms of fundraising, it is classic waste of time
Events are high on adrenaline, low on value
