Investors Lieutenant Schmidt, or how we gave up the $ 2.5 million investment
Hello friends!
Today I will tell you the story of how we are looking for investment for our website rentalist.me, what we have encountered in this search and what may follow the offer of $ 2.5 million to a startup manager who has embarked on the path of attracting investment.
We intend to attract investment in our project, to convey to millions of people the idea of ​​how useful a thing is hire. But how to do it, if the project founders do not have money for promotion and advertising? As we went for investments and dispelled the myths about state support for business, you can read in our article .
Now we have decided to attract investments from individuals and companies. The first thing we did was register for the IIDF training and investment program. They were asked to fill out a questionnaire for a program participant, which included a very detailed description of our business, possible ways to monetize, descriptions of direct and indirect competitors, market calculations, and so on. Very useful questionnaire, with a training and explanatory video, with diagrams and tips to fill out. Filling out this form will be useful for every businessman, even if you do not plan to participate in their program. One, in my opinion, a minus is a very large number of Americanisms in their colloquial speech, which is most likely due to the specifics of the project. We did not pass the selection into the IIDF program, because at that time it was not clear enough to imagine the future of our project in numbers. But on how to count the market and what issues a potential investor might be interested in, we clarified for ourselves, corrected errors and shortcomings and placed our ad on the websites: start2up.ru and investclub.ru.
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A couple of weeks after publication, a letter came in with a proposal for funding, followed by another.
Below is a story about what happened next and what nuances may arise in the process of negotiations with “investors”.
So, we received a letter saying that a certain person had read our announcement on the site and would like to be an investor. The letter was in English, and all correspondence was also in English. He wrote that he was a businessman, now working in Libya, Benghazi, who familiarized himself with the project, asked what we plan to spend investment funds on, and after receiving a response from us (the answer was the most schematic, it was compiled with the aim of establishing contact and " test the ground ”), happily calls himself a partner and offers $ 500,000 for 20% in a new company.
Collecting information about investments, we read that with venture financing, Western investors do not accept a condition below the 65% co-ownership of a joint business. The most common rate is at least 76%. Otherwise, the investor may lose control over the expenditure of his funds or over the activities of the joint venture.
Naturally, we agreed. We rewritten some more, asked questions to each other, and then the most interesting part began. Our potential investor, instead of being interested in our plans for opening a joint venture in detail, for some reason began to tell that his money is on deposit in London and in order to receive them, he needs to fill out a document form and indicate the person addressed which he plans to transfer this deposit. But the attached form, for some reason, turned out to be the second page of the document on the requirement of the will and in no way corresponded to what we discussed in the correspondence.
On reasonable questions like “what's the testament and why do you need my personal account information?”, Our potential investor was upset, and, referring to the fact that he could not deal with a person who does not understand basic things, he proudly refused to cooperate.
Probably knowing the bank details, and other personal information, you can somehow get access to the account. Having decided that we are not so naive and greedy for money to give ours, we stopped the correspondence. Who was it: a Russian hacker or a Libyan cheater? And what's the difference? The main thing is that we continue to work, and still intend to attract investments.
The next "potential investor" wrote to us that he is the manager of a major London bank, in which accounts are $ 2,000,000 people who died in a plane crash of flight MH-370 missing over the Pacific Ocean. The heirs, allegedly, did not request this money, and he has the opportunity to dispose of them without the knowledge of the bank's board, namely, to invest as an investment in our business. Calling us to observe the strictest secrecy, this person did not even ask for any information about the project, and at the same time announced the need to subsequently “roll back” two percent of the amount to a reliable lawyer who would help transfer this money from a London bank to Russia. Already in the experiment correspondence continued. Asked the question: what to do next? An exact copy of the letter of the first comrade comes with the same form attached to the will ... We will continue correspondence with the "investor". How it ends we'll write a little later.
So, we are still looking for a real investor. Wish us good luck!
PS
While I was writing an article, I received a letter from another British bank, HSBC.co.uk. Offer investment. And what is interesting is this:
- I open the letter there to the addressee investments@hsbc.co.uk (I think it's cool! Can not the crooks write from the domain of the bank)
- shake "answer", and there investmentshsbc@gmail.com - deja vu ...
The final stage of these negotiations was my request to the “bank employee” to write me a letter from corporate mail, not from gmail.com - no answer.
Today I will tell you the story of how we are looking for investment for our website rentalist.me, what we have encountered in this search and what may follow the offer of $ 2.5 million to a startup manager who has embarked on the path of attracting investment.
We intend to attract investment in our project, to convey to millions of people the idea of ​​how useful a thing is hire. But how to do it, if the project founders do not have money for promotion and advertising? As we went for investments and dispelled the myths about state support for business, you can read in our article .
Now we have decided to attract investments from individuals and companies. The first thing we did was register for the IIDF training and investment program. They were asked to fill out a questionnaire for a program participant, which included a very detailed description of our business, possible ways to monetize, descriptions of direct and indirect competitors, market calculations, and so on. Very useful questionnaire, with a training and explanatory video, with diagrams and tips to fill out. Filling out this form will be useful for every businessman, even if you do not plan to participate in their program. One, in my opinion, a minus is a very large number of Americanisms in their colloquial speech, which is most likely due to the specifics of the project. We did not pass the selection into the IIDF program, because at that time it was not clear enough to imagine the future of our project in numbers. But on how to count the market and what issues a potential investor might be interested in, we clarified for ourselves, corrected errors and shortcomings and placed our ad on the websites: start2up.ru and investclub.ru.
')
A couple of weeks after publication, a letter came in with a proposal for funding, followed by another.
Below is a story about what happened next and what nuances may arise in the process of negotiations with “investors”.
So, we received a letter saying that a certain person had read our announcement on the site and would like to be an investor. The letter was in English, and all correspondence was also in English. He wrote that he was a businessman, now working in Libya, Benghazi, who familiarized himself with the project, asked what we plan to spend investment funds on, and after receiving a response from us (the answer was the most schematic, it was compiled with the aim of establishing contact and " test the ground ”), happily calls himself a partner and offers $ 500,000 for 20% in a new company.
Collecting information about investments, we read that with venture financing, Western investors do not accept a condition below the 65% co-ownership of a joint business. The most common rate is at least 76%. Otherwise, the investor may lose control over the expenditure of his funds or over the activities of the joint venture.
Naturally, we agreed. We rewritten some more, asked questions to each other, and then the most interesting part began. Our potential investor, instead of being interested in our plans for opening a joint venture in detail, for some reason began to tell that his money is on deposit in London and in order to receive them, he needs to fill out a document form and indicate the person addressed which he plans to transfer this deposit. But the attached form, for some reason, turned out to be the second page of the document on the requirement of the will and in no way corresponded to what we discussed in the correspondence.
On reasonable questions like “what's the testament and why do you need my personal account information?”, Our potential investor was upset, and, referring to the fact that he could not deal with a person who does not understand basic things, he proudly refused to cooperate.
Probably knowing the bank details, and other personal information, you can somehow get access to the account. Having decided that we are not so naive and greedy for money to give ours, we stopped the correspondence. Who was it: a Russian hacker or a Libyan cheater? And what's the difference? The main thing is that we continue to work, and still intend to attract investments.
The next "potential investor" wrote to us that he is the manager of a major London bank, in which accounts are $ 2,000,000 people who died in a plane crash of flight MH-370 missing over the Pacific Ocean. The heirs, allegedly, did not request this money, and he has the opportunity to dispose of them without the knowledge of the bank's board, namely, to invest as an investment in our business. Calling us to observe the strictest secrecy, this person did not even ask for any information about the project, and at the same time announced the need to subsequently “roll back” two percent of the amount to a reliable lawyer who would help transfer this money from a London bank to Russia. Already in the experiment correspondence continued. Asked the question: what to do next? An exact copy of the letter of the first comrade comes with the same form attached to the will ... We will continue correspondence with the "investor". How it ends we'll write a little later.
So, we are still looking for a real investor. Wish us good luck!
PS
While I was writing an article, I received a letter from another British bank, HSBC.co.uk. Offer investment. And what is interesting is this:
- I open the letter there to the addressee investments@hsbc.co.uk (I think it's cool! Can not the crooks write from the domain of the bank)
- shake "answer", and there investmentshsbc@gmail.com - deja vu ...
The final stage of these negotiations was my request to the “bank employee” to write me a letter from corporate mail, not from gmail.com - no answer.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/292960/
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