3 Things Investors Love & Hate

Be it an Angel, VC, Private Equity, Family Office, or Corporate investor, in my experience they all seem to be turned off and turned on by the same three things.

Three Things Investors Love:

1. Revenues

• I have never met an individual or institutional investor who did not love a company that was driving revenues.
• The "Founder's Fatal Flaw" is that they spend a disproportionate amount of time building their product/service rather than selling and scaling it. Investors often refer to this flaw as working "in" the business vs. working "on" the business.
• In the minds of investors paying customers de-risk their investment, justify valuations, and make it easy to say NO to other investments not driving revenues.

2. Short, direct answers to questions

• If asked for a number, say the number.
• If asked for a date, say the date.
• If asked to elaborate, provide only the details related to the original question.
• Don't stray, say less, and be precise.

3. Total and complete preparedness

• You MUST know all your numbers.
• If you are not a human spreadsheet, make sure you bring one to your pitch.
• Investors love Founders who can provide every detail of their financials including; customer acquisition costs, the landing cost of goods, and gross and net profit.

Three Things Investors Hate:

1. Arrogance / Know-it-alls

• People invest in people, not companies.
• Nobody likes arrogant know-it-alls.

2. Excuses

• Never offer an excuse about anything.

3. Tardiness

• On-time is LATE, early is on-time. Always arrive 10 minutes early.