Looking for an Angel
You have a great idea for a product or you might even have started a business. You recognize that you need capital to make it work. You can’t grow on the resources that you have. That means venture capital or, in your case, angel capital.
You should try to be wherever there are angels. Make your face, your business name and your product familiar to them. Don’t bother wasting your time on introductory letters and definitely don’t send business plans. Angels are inundated with letter proposals, and business plans don’t come into play until you’ve made their short list. Identify angels if you can, and become familiar with their names, but remember there are only 2 ways to approach an angel and they’re both face–to-face. The first, and probably the best way is by personal introduction. The next is to be in attendance at a venture capital seminar where you can make face-to-face contact.
Understand that angels don’t have the same sense of urgency
or passion about your business as you do, that rejections are commonplace, and
that rejection today doesn’t mean rejection tomorrow.
If you’re going to succeed you have to persist.
Different deals (investment opportunities) come up at different times.
There are times when an angel has more deals on their plate than they
have time to review them, and there are times when they go looking for deals.
Because one angel investment group turned you down doesn’t mean that you’re not
the best deal going for another investment group.
Keep going! Persist!
Sometimes an angel investor won’t be able to take advantage of a certain
deal, but will spread it around to other groups that they feel can benefit from
it. You just have to keep going. If
they see you often enough, recognize your name and feel your passion you will
eventually succeed.
Angels will tell you that they’re willing to take bigger risks for bigger returns, but there’s always a hierarchy of risk, and they are always looking for the best start-up deal with the least risk. Your job is to convince them that your business will give them the best return with the least risk. They’re buyers shopping for a product. In essence they’re shopping for a conversion machine; a machine that will convert their present investment dollars into a much larger number of future dollars. You want that machine to be your business.
Angel investors are always looking for the right deals. When they look it’s like looking at the display windows in a shopping center. If nothing catches there “eye” they move on. If there’s something of interest they look a little longer. If there’s something that they think they might want to buy they’ll go into the store. It’s exactly the same when presenting deals.
You are a talking display window. If you’re lucky you’ll have about 10 seconds to grab the attention of the angel and, if you do, about another 50 seconds to explain the rest. Impossible! Not at all! In fact, it’s an excellent exercise in productive presentation.
Angels have limited time, a lot of deals to look at, and they want the most in-depth look in the least amount of time possible. To help them along in this process they have conventions and seminars directed at teaching you how to abbreviate and format your presentation so that you both get the most out of it. They attend, and usually select attendees to make group presentations, but most importantly, even if you’re not selected to make a group presentation you’ll get face-to-face time. Make the most of it. Be brief! If they like what they hear they'll be back for more.
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