Skip to main content

How to Encourage Angels to Invest - Advice for Entrepreneurs

After a fairly short but traditional crawl through big company management structures, I decided someone else's rat-race wasn't for me. I wanted to try my luck at creating my own. So at the age of 29 I became an entrepreneur. How hard could it be? Think of an idea, borrow some money, make lots, pay it back, invest in more ideas. Several decades later I can look back and compress my experiences into precisely that chain of events, but oh boy it was neither as easy nor as fast as I ever imagined. But in a way, if I'd been more prepared, I either wouldn't have bothered or I wouldn't have experienced the pitfalls that helped me meander my way to where I am today.  

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

This post is not about how to come up with ideas that stand a chance. I've written plenty of posts discussing that - click here to read them. After a series of decent successes (and some failures), I reached 50 and decided to start investing in other people's start-ups as well as continuing to explore a few more of my own ideas - but this time recruiting others to run them as soon as possible. Why do all the really hard bits again if you can afford to pay others to do them?

So I became a professional business angel (professional because I've done a lot and don't have time for much else I can call an occupation). Recently I was appointed the chairman of an angel network and as a result see a large number of pitches from ambitious entrepreneurs, some of whom I now own (it's a somewhat revealing habit of investment people who talk about 'owning' a company, implying it's all theirs, whereas in fact they only own shares in it).

But the vast majority of pitches I see, perhaps 95%, don't attract my money. Why do I reject them, and what persuades me to buy into others? This post looks into the mind-set of a typical business angel (hopefully typical) with a view to helping entrepreneurs achieve better chances of investment - or perhaps not bothering at all and settling down to a safer career instead.

What many pitching entrepreneurs I meet fail to understand is that they have two markets they have to work equally hard. There are of course the customers for their products and services (as well as all the influencers they need to win over to attract those customers), but there's also the market of investors - another group of people who need targeting, marketing communications, lead acquisition, lead management, requirements qualification, objection countering, sales closing, and especially after-sales management. So entrepreneurs not only have to develop a clear sales strategy for their business output, they also need one to sell their shares. And the way to develop a sales strategy for both cases is the same.
  • Who are your targets? 
  • How do you find them? 
  • How do you attract their interest? 
  • How do you develop their interest? 
  • How do you close the sale?
  • How do you keep them interested (because you're probably going to have to ask them for more money before you run out)?
The key point to remember about potential investors is that THEY DON'T HAVE TO INVEST. Unlike, for example, a house buyer who needs a house, my wife who always needs new clothes, or someone who needs to eat something, an investor can just as easily sit on his/her money and not bother. There's no compulsion and it's not about choice. So the entrepreneur needs to work a lot harder to sell shares - especially because angels are typically cynical, suspicious and cautious. We've seen it all before and we know entrepreneurs always predict faster and larger sales than they can possibly achieve. It's known as the 'hockey-stick' - the sales projection that shows virtually no sales today (fact) but magical exponential sales just around the corner (fantasy) - all achieved using your money of course.

Tip #1. Be realistic. We'd prefer to see achievable projections proving viability, not wildly optimistic targets proving naivety.


These are the things that attract me:
  • Professional, passionate, confident people who look smart, communicate well, listen well, and with whom I can see myself having an enjoyable personal and business relationship.
  • Comprehensive research - and convincing me, as someone from outside their sector, why I should believe it's comprehensive.
  • Who else thinks they're great, especially...
  • ...Customers. 'Traction', as it's known, from the market is hugely compelling.
  • Realistic sales projections (see Tip #1 above). Better to over-perform and impress, than under-perform and disappoint.
  • Practical sales channels. Too often I'm shown business plans where "5% of all of the millions of SMEs in the country" are going to buy their stuff. Selling to SMEs is the hardest thing in the world unless you've got an army of very tenacious sales reps on every high street... which they haven't, and I'm not going to pay for.
  • Explanation of why not only is there a gap in the market but what's their evidence for a market in the gap. Otherwise it's called 'wishful thinking'.
  • And finally proof of tenacity, which they're going to need buckets of. They will need it to sell their products, so show me they have tenacity in selling me their shares. Answer all my questions and then keep asking me if I'm still interested. They shouldn't assume if they don't hear from me that I've lost interest. I've probably lost momentum and become distracted. I need reminding and they need to be persistent without becoming annoying. Read my signals carefully.
This final point is where most entrepreneurs get scared of wealthy angels. They're probably worried we might behave like the dreaded TV Dragons and not be polite or fully supportive. No one likes being told their idea is weak or totally bonkers - and a few of us will be blunt. It's business. Man-up (can I say that these days?). But most of us are normal courteous people waiting to be sold to and we need cajoling just like anyone else buying an indulgence.

But equally don't be pushy. Remember we don't only want a return on our money (a big return for such a high risk. At least 10x what we invest), we also want to help.

Angeling for me is about 'buying seats at the tables of the future'. Continuing to make a difference to the world, well after our 'careers' are no longer defined by others. We not only want to put some of our wealth back to work, but also our experience, our connections and our moral support. And we will only do that with people we like, and with people we believe will last the course and not give up.

It's never easy. If it was, everyone would be doing it and there'd be no need for angels.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Phillips screws - yes I'm angry about them too

Don't get me wrong. They're a brilliant invention to assist automation and prevent screwdrivers from slipping off screw heads - damaging furniture, paintwork and fingers in the process. Interestingly they weren't invented by Mr Phillips at all, but by a John P Thompson who sold Mr P the idea after failing to commercialise it. Mr P, on the otherhand, quickly succeeded where Mr T had failed. Incredible isn't it. You don't just need a good idea, you need a great salesman and, more importantly, perfect timing to make a success out of something new. Actually, it would seem, he did two clever things (apart from buying the rights). He gave the invention to GM to trial. No-brainer #1. After it was adopted by the great GM, instead of trying to become their sole supplier of Phillips screws, he sold licenses to every other screw manufacturer in the world. A little of a lot is worth a great deal more than a lot of a little + vulnerability (watch out Apple!). My gromble is abo

Introducing Product Relationship Management - it's what customers want.

Most businesses these days have Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems which store and process vasts amounts of information about us. They use this information to generate communications, amongst other things, which target us to buy their products and services. CRM is all about how a business relates to its customers: Past (keeping them loyal through aftersales and service), Present (helping them buy through bricks and clicks channels) and Future (prospecting). Most businesses will at some stage have declared themselves 'customer-centric'. They will probably have drawn diagrams on whiteboards that look something like these: But there's a problem with this whole approach of keeping the customer at the centre of your world and the focal point for everything you do. Is it what the customer wants ? Of course companies who ignore their customers eventually go out of business. And those who treat their customers well, tend to thrive. But is it really in the best inte

The Secrets of Hacker Golf

Social media is awash with professional golfers selling video training courses to help you perfect your swing, gain 50 yards on your drive and cut your handicap. They might help a few desperate souls, but the rest of us hackers already know everything we need to complete a round of golf without worrying the handicap committee or appearing on a competition winner's list. What those pros don't realise is that for us hacking golfers who very occasionally hit shots that if you hadn't seen how they were hit, end up where the pros might have put them, we already know everything we need to know - and more. Unlike pros who know how to time the perfect swing in order to caress a ball 350 yards down the centre of a fairway, we hackers need to assemble a far wider set of skills and know-how to complete 18 holes, about which pros have no comprehension, need, or desire to learn. Here are some of them: Never select your shot until after you've hit it. A variation on this is to alway