Semil Shah wrote a good post yesterday with advice for entrepreneurs raising money. He makes a number of good points and the full post is well worth a read, but if I was to summarise it in one sentence it would be ‘impress investors with the way you execute your fundraising process’.
That means:
- Get a quality introduction
- Fashion your first email well
- Have a good deck
- Follow up quickly
- Turn the pitch meeting into a conversation
- Be on top of your numbers and don’t try to embellish or obfuscate – e.g. avoid cumulative graphs
Turning the pitch meeting into a conversation is worth dwelling on. Conversations are more fun for both sides than sales meetings and they give you a better chance to demonstrate your range and flexibility of thinking, and acknowledge the challenges that you will face.
