How to attract investors for your startup in the Czech Republic and most of the Europe? We spoke to many investors and summarized their points and thoughts to give you the best chance to generate excitement for your projects, and grabbing the funds that help to scale up your startup!
1) Nail the Pitch Deck
Quality of your pitch deck really matters – don´t hesitate to put what you want to achieve straight on the first page. Investors also want to hear about your proposition, financial planning and opportunities, scaling, and to see your team. If you add audio or video presentation you will get some extra points for increasing investors’ comfort and better understanding.
2) Be visible and active!
Most of the startup representatives just contact investors with their pitch deck and occasionally visit a networking event. You need more. Be active on events, even organize by yourself, and do your homework! Its key to learn prior about the attendees whom you want to attract for your project.
Consider production of valuable content such as articles or vids about your industry, trends, or make a podcast interview with experts related to your area. Swift organic exposure may also work, e.g., polls on LinkedIn, as these are wildly popular these days for the element of interactivity. Consider joining startup incubator programs too!
3) KEEP IT SIMPLE – your idea must stay clear
This one is pretty self-explanatory!
4) Don’t pretend
Avoid complete mess and chaos in your actions, but also don´t pretend, and keep away from making up numbers and facts about your project! Investors understand you are a startup, be professional and honest.
5) Strategy for your team
Have a team structure and strategy for your human resources growth and development. To do this helps significantly increase trust in investors and brings confidence within your team. This is a real challenge for startups as each member usually handle multiple roles.
Arrange a meeting with your team and try to divide responsibilities regarding to strengths, personalities, and interests. If you struggle with this part, you can always hire an HR professional for few hours task who help you to build a solid foundation for your team journey and increase your effectivity.
6) When to release a pilot product
Wondering when to introduce the pilot? This is generally when your product development is at 70% or more, this being usually the best moment to start with testing or even presenting to investors regarding the cost management.
Less than 70% is generally not enough for understanding to your product.
If you want to do presentation and testing after your product is 100% developed, you spend much more of your resources on changes.
7) Avoid empty talks
Remove popular but empty startup presentation words such as AI or Blockchain if your project is not based on these technologies. On the top of it If you don´t have a real insight, it will be huge embarrassment when investors who commonly hear about AI and Blockchain see a presenter with the expression of a mouse seeing a big cat, eyes full of dismay, when asked for some details.
AI or blockchain are interesting (albeit often overused now!), and definitely not the must.
8) Plan B
Plan B is the part of the master plan preventing stress and panicking. It also demonstrates stability which will be very much appreciated.
Comments