How to get a meeting with a business angel
Hi everyone! In this article, we will deal with a difficult situation: how do you get a shot at meeting someone who is both super busy and sought-after by all your entrepreneur comrades? In other words…
Before we start, we are going to assume that you are ready for your seed round (your pitch, exec sum and BP are clear to go), and that your business meets these basic requirements:
- The V1 of your product is live and used by end customers
- You have signed your first 2–3 paid clients / you are experiencing a growing user base
- Your company has been accepted by a (good) accelerator or incubation program and is followed closely by 1–2 relevant advisors
Now is the time for you to go a step further and raise your seed round. But how do you do it?
For the purpose of this article, we’ll take an example: our company, “Date-a-CEO”, is a selective dating app for busy CEOs, and we are willing to raise a seed round of 500k.
Let’s say that we really want to include in the round Mr. Adam Angel, former entrepreneur of this industry and notorious business angel. We decided that email was the best way to contact him since he rarely shows up at start-up events. So what kind of message should we send him?
Mailto: adamangel@gmail.com
Object : Date-a-CEO seed round
Dear Mr. Angel,
I founded Date-a-CEO two years ago with Guillaume (CTO) and Nicolas (CMO). Our application was released in January 2015. We are looking for €500k for our seed round to get to the next stage, and would like very much to have an opportunity to present to you what we have done so far.
We are available for a meeting or a call at your earliest convenience.
Best regards,
Someone who won’t get a meeting
Mailto: adamangel@gmail.com
Object : Contact via A. and B.
Dear Adam,
Our advisors, Advisor A. [partner in notorious accelerator program], and Advisor B. [successful serial entrepreneur] recommended that we contact you.
I founded Date-a-CEO two years ago with Guillaume (CTO) and Nicolas (CMO). Our application was released in January 2015. We are looking for €500k for our seed round, in which A., B., and several other highly relevant individual investors have confirmed their participation / have expressed a strong interest.
In this prospect, we would like very much to have an opportunity to present to you what we have done so far. We are available for a meeting or a call at your earliest convenience.
Best,
Someone who has already a way better chance at getting a meeting
ps: it’s even better if you get the other people to write the introduction for you
Mailto: adamangel@gmail.com
Object : Contact via A. and B.
Dear Adam,
Our advisors, Advisor A. and Advisor B. recommended that we contact you.
I founded Date-a-CEO two years ago with Guillaume (CTO) and Nicolas (CMO). Our product, an elite dating app for CEOs was released in January 2015. In 7 months, the app has been downloaded by 90,000 candidates of CEO-dating and attracted no less than 2,700 CEOs in 5 countries.
In order to deploy our model further to new verticals (Date-a-Trader, Date-a-Doctor…) and implement a lifestyle media feature in order to monetize our audience, we are looking for €500k for our seed round, in which A., B. and several other highly relevant individual investors have confirmed their participation.
In this prospect, we would like very much to have an opportunity to present to you what we have done so far. We are available next week for a meeting or a call at your earliest convenience.
Best,
Someone who has a stronger chance of getting a meeting
Object : Contact via A. and B.
Dear Adam,
My advisors, Advisor A. and Advisor B strongly recommended that I contact you before closing our seed round, regarding your experience of the online dating market and your investment track record.
I founded Date-a-CEO two years ago with Guillaume (CTO) and Nicolas (CMO). Our product, an elite dating app for CEOs was released in January 2015. Here is a short description of where we’re at now:
- In 7 months, the app has been downloaded by 90,000 candidates of CEO-dating and attracted no less than 2,700 CEOs in 5 countries.
- We intend to develop our model further to new user segments (Date-a-Trader, Date-a-Doctor…) and a lifestyle media feature in order to monetize our audience
- In order to finance the next steps of our development, we are currently raising a seed round of €500k from A., B., and several other highly relevant individual investors who have confirmed their participation
I would be really happy to meet you, to discuss the current online dating market and our seed round. If you are curious about our business and if it works for you, my co-founders and I are available on Tuesday at 4pm in our Paris offices.
Best,
Someone who will probably get a meeting
Object : Contact via A. and B.
Dear Adam,
My advisors, A. and B. strongly recommended that I contact you before closing our seed round, regarding your experience of the online dating market and your investment track record.
I founded Date-a-CEO two years ago with Guillaume (CTO) and Nicolas (CMO). Our product, an elite dating app for CEOs was released in January 2015. Here is a short description of where we’re at now:
- In 7 months, the app has been downloaded by 90,000 candidates of CEO-dating and attracted no less than 2,700 CEOs in 5 countries.
- Even Xavier N. (CEO of Unicorn) and Pierre-Kévin M. (CEO of Unter) admitted on Twitter that they are heavy users of our app ;-)
- We intend to develop our model further to new user segments (Date-a-Trader, Date-a-Doctor…) and a lifestyle media feature in order to monetize our audience
- In order to finance the next steps of our development, we are currently raising a seed round of €500k from A., B., and several other highly relevant individual investors who have confirmed their participation
I would be really happy to meet you, to discuss the current online dating market and our seed round. If you are curious about our business and if it works by you, my co-founders and I are available on Tuesday at 4pm in our Paris offices.
Best,
Someone who gets a meeting
Last thought: don’t be afraid, go out of your comfort zone, and have fun.
Don’t hesitate to ping people on LinkedIn for instance —as long as you are recommended by someone they know, it works just fine. Regarding emails, the best way to go is to have someone send them for you, but “cold” emails do work as long as you have strong references.
And if it doesn’t work, try to meet new people again and again until someone shows interest in what you do. Or wait a few months, regroup… and try again!
***
At Chausson Finance, we write a lot of emails, but mostly we match smart money with great companies. In 2014, we helped 9 carefully selected companies to raise a total of €26m. In 2015, we have already raised €20m in total:
- Alkemics €5m Series A with Index Ventures,
- Take Eat Easy’s €6m Series A with Rocket Internet, DN Capital and Piton Capital
- Cheerz’s €6m Series A and Habiteo €3m Series A, both with Serena Capital.
Was this article helpful? Please let me know by pressing the recommend button right below or by sharing the link on Twitter! ❤
You can also join around 250 other venture capital enthusiasts and be notified when the new post is out: http://eepurl.com/bjjkiD — See you soon!
