3 Things Investors Love & Hate

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.

Tyler Baldridge

Startup Evangelist

2 年

Great insights. Another item on the LOVE list: a well organized data room!

Savannah Paschen

Behavioral Therapy | Guiding & Supporting

2 年

Solid advice. Thanks!

Angel Ribo II

Your Channel Partner Game remains an enigmatic maze to most, a labyrinth of missed opportunities and misunderstood dynamics. When will You do something about it?

2 年

Robert Vera, MBA, this is a valuable post! It is a kind of insight I would not normally come across on my timeline. I'll definitely check out this article to know more. Looking forward to this. Thank you for sharing. If you are an Investor or want to start Investing seriously, you might want to look at Keiretsu at https://bit.ly/2Zful6i, one of the largest Angel Investors networks in the World, recognized by Pitchbook.

Excellent advice!

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