Business First Family Business, Accounting, Finance, Investing, Marketing And Management
There are many ways to attract investors to fledgling businesses. When traditional funding sources become difficult to access, small businesses often attract investors to receive crucial funding that helps them stay afloat. Funding sources such as venture capitalists, angel investments professionals, or corporate investors typically evaluate businesses for specific characteristics before investing. As an entrepreneur, there are several methods for building relationships with investors and getting them to invest. Read on to discover sure fire ways to attract investors for your business.
Investor Research
Researching individual investors you know you’ll be contacting is a great way to strengthen relationships right off the bat. find out as much as possible about their past investments, their interests, and whether they’ve invested in similar projects to yours. This way, you’re more prepared for your meeting, and indirectly evaluate the investor’s fit for your business. However, you’ll typically not be able to find all this information on all your potential investors, so find out as much as you can. Surely, researching potential investors prepares you for your meeting and evaluates their fit for your business.
Networking And “Soft Selling”
Networking and “soft selling” practices often allow you to pitch your business ideas in a less formal setting. In fact, many business owners note that many of their investor meetings were results of social networking at industry events. While these interactions are often awkward, people interested in your business will continue the conversation. Typically, previously-established relationships also have a significant impact on your investment-securing chances. Absolutely, networking and soft selling your business ideas enables established relationships to net you investors.
Startup Incubators And Accelerators
Startup incubators and accelerators are a great way to secure investors and funding in exchange for business equity. Incubators and accelerators offer seed money, mentorship, supplies, and space, but you must give them partial ownership. While accelerators focus on mentoring and refining, incubators focus more on making profits. There are many business incubators and accelerators across many industries, and are often competitive due to their wide range of benefits. Certainly, startup incubators and accelerators provide large amounts of funding and other benefits, but are very competitive and require equity in exchange.
Online Fundraising And Crowdfunding Platforms
Online fundraising and crowdfunding platforms have become a prevalent source of investors in recent years. In fact, they’re quite popular with angel investors, banks, and other financial institutions looking for innovations in capital deployment. Many of the major platforms run as peer-to-peer lending sites that offer business loans to various crowdfunding portals. These portals can be donation, debt, or equity-based. Additionally, even if you don’t get many investors or funding from these platforms, they are often powerful tools for exposure among crowdfunding experts. Definitely, online fundraising and crowdfunding platforms provide innovative methods of securing investors and funds, as well as exposure.
Elevator Pitch
Elevator pitches are short, concise summaries of business ideas that significantly impact your ability to secure investors. Your goal with these pitches is to attract someone’s interest enough for them to find the idea interesting, no more, no less. Ideally, this should be done within a length of time comparable to an elevator ride. Often, keeping them this short entails cutting out extraneous details and requires you to boil the idea down to its most basic level. Once you’ve piqued an investor’s attention with one of these pitches, set up a true meeting so you can discuss the omitted details. Of course, elevator pitches are one of the quickest, most efficient methods of attracting investors to your business ideas.
There is a myriad of ways to attract investors to your business. One way is to research individual investors, strengthening your business relationship and indirectly evaluating their fit for your business. Another is to engage in various networking and soft selling practices to harness established relationships. Business incubators and accelerators often provide investors as well as other significant benefits in exchange for equity. Online crowdfunding and fundraising platforms offer innovative ways of securing investors as well as increased exposure for your business. Finally, elevator pitches provide an efficient method of communicating your business ideas to potential investors. When searching for ways to attract investors to your business, consider the ways described above.
