Investors and startups, thinking out loud. Flowwow Experience
Investors and startups, useful thoughts, experience Flowwow .
The train ride is Minsk - Brest, the song "Oh, what a woman ..." is playing in the car, and then I had the idea to write a short note about investors and our work with them.
The topic for me is relatively new, because I often interact with investors and have already gained a little experience with them and therefore I want to share with you.
Investors are divided into several types:
- business angels
- funds
- something between a fund and a business angel
Funds can be divided into “state-wide” and private ones, there are large funds, there are small ones. Business angels can be divided into several types:
- professional business angels (in Russia they can be counted on the fingers)
- non-professional business angels, these are just people from the market who have money, which they decide to use is somehow more interesting than devaluing in banks.
A small digression.
Friends, if you have the opportunity to work without an investor, then work without him!
Loans and overdrafts in banks are much cheaper, if there is no money at all. For example, we recently learned that if you have an RKO at Alfa Bank, you can use an overdraft from 6 to 10 million. The normal amount, adequate interest for a business and it is very easy to get if you are a bank customer and you have clear for the bank money flows.
')
But let's continue about investors.
We hold 1-2 meetings with investors per week. Such a strange tendency of the last months, apparently, they consider us very promising, since they are actively interested. We have already reached self-sufficiency, we already have profile investors, so we feel somehow more confident. We work a lot and try to spend time as efficiently as possible, for this reason most of the meetings take place on our territory, we very rarely go somewhere ourselves only if it is a very interesting foundation. In any case, we always agree to a meeting, because all hands and feet for useful contacts and communication. Life can be such that any contact and communication will be useful.
Why did I think about investors when I heard the song "Oh, what a woman ..."?
According to my observations, investor relations are very similar to relationships with girls, everyone knows the phrase “The less we love a girl, the more she likes us.” This expression accurately describes the relationship of the investor and a successful startup. On the one hand, we do not refuse to meet and are as open as possible, we share metrics, indicators, plans for the future, even failures. On the other hand, we do not run for investors, do not make presentations, they always find us themselves and offer to meet, make their proposals.
I sincerely hope that everyone already knows that an investor is not money in the first place, but competencies, partnerships, new customers, new horizons, expertise, and only then money. If you need money, then go to the people from the Cherkizovsky market, who sit with large capital on their hands and are ready to invest money in anything that will make a profit. It has its own features, of course, but money comes first.
If you already have an investor, then take all of its opportunities, extort from it the maximum of useful information for you, connections and everything else. If you are looking for another investor, then think about what he can give, he is your future partner, this is a person in the team. Very often I hear from the investors themselves that choosing an investor is more difficult than choosing a wife.
If you are actively looking for an investor and “nobody gives you”, then think, maybe it’s all about you. Try to improve your business, and not “run” on investors. Because it is more important to earn money, and not to attract investment. We live in such a time and in such a country that we need to go to the break-even point in a year. If you did not, then you are not doing business, but something else. Visualization:
Some useful thoughts:
1) If your goal is simply to “attract investments”, then hardly any of the adequate investors will give money and will risk their money.
2) Do not "run" for investors. If you are a promising project, you will find yourself, just conduct PR activities, tell more about yourself.
3) Take a piece of paper and write down the points of what you really need, what competencies that this or that investor can give you.
4) Always at meetings with investors ask what he can give besides money, if nothing else, then think about it.
5) Investor relations are like relationships with a wife. Spend more dates and get to know each other better before building a serious relationship.
6) Look on the Internet for information on loans and banking solutions, it is possible that there are cheaper solutions for your tasks than investments.
7) Do you want to cut the product - cut, but forget about the business, better go to work for a big company and do it for a salary (this was not in the article, but this is important).
Friends, I hope that some thoughts from this article will be useful to you. Just be open and honest. You may not find investors, but you will find excellent partners and friends. I just finished reading a book that business angel Pavel Annenkov “Mistakes for a million” presented to me at the meeting, a smart business card of an investor and a lot of useful experience, you can buy here .
By the way, I still write on Facebook , add as friends, we will communicate more often.
The train ride is Minsk - Brest, the song "Oh, what a woman ..." is playing in the car, and then I had the idea to write a short note about investors and our work with them.
The topic for me is relatively new, because I often interact with investors and have already gained a little experience with them and therefore I want to share with you.
Investors are divided into several types:
- business angels
- funds
- something between a fund and a business angel
Funds can be divided into “state-wide” and private ones, there are large funds, there are small ones. Business angels can be divided into several types:
- professional business angels (in Russia they can be counted on the fingers)
- non-professional business angels, these are just people from the market who have money, which they decide to use is somehow more interesting than devaluing in banks.
A small digression.
Friends, if you have the opportunity to work without an investor, then work without him!
Loans and overdrafts in banks are much cheaper, if there is no money at all. For example, we recently learned that if you have an RKO at Alfa Bank, you can use an overdraft from 6 to 10 million. The normal amount, adequate interest for a business and it is very easy to get if you are a bank customer and you have clear for the bank money flows.
')
But let's continue about investors.
We hold 1-2 meetings with investors per week. Such a strange tendency of the last months, apparently, they consider us very promising, since they are actively interested. We have already reached self-sufficiency, we already have profile investors, so we feel somehow more confident. We work a lot and try to spend time as efficiently as possible, for this reason most of the meetings take place on our territory, we very rarely go somewhere ourselves only if it is a very interesting foundation. In any case, we always agree to a meeting, because all hands and feet for useful contacts and communication. Life can be such that any contact and communication will be useful.
Why did I think about investors when I heard the song "Oh, what a woman ..."?
According to my observations, investor relations are very similar to relationships with girls, everyone knows the phrase “The less we love a girl, the more she likes us.” This expression accurately describes the relationship of the investor and a successful startup. On the one hand, we do not refuse to meet and are as open as possible, we share metrics, indicators, plans for the future, even failures. On the other hand, we do not run for investors, do not make presentations, they always find us themselves and offer to meet, make their proposals.
I sincerely hope that everyone already knows that an investor is not money in the first place, but competencies, partnerships, new customers, new horizons, expertise, and only then money. If you need money, then go to the people from the Cherkizovsky market, who sit with large capital on their hands and are ready to invest money in anything that will make a profit. It has its own features, of course, but money comes first.
If you already have an investor, then take all of its opportunities, extort from it the maximum of useful information for you, connections and everything else. If you are looking for another investor, then think about what he can give, he is your future partner, this is a person in the team. Very often I hear from the investors themselves that choosing an investor is more difficult than choosing a wife.
If you are actively looking for an investor and “nobody gives you”, then think, maybe it’s all about you. Try to improve your business, and not “run” on investors. Because it is more important to earn money, and not to attract investment. We live in such a time and in such a country that we need to go to the break-even point in a year. If you did not, then you are not doing business, but something else. Visualization:
Some useful thoughts:
1) If your goal is simply to “attract investments”, then hardly any of the adequate investors will give money and will risk their money.
2) Do not "run" for investors. If you are a promising project, you will find yourself, just conduct PR activities, tell more about yourself.
3) Take a piece of paper and write down the points of what you really need, what competencies that this or that investor can give you.
4) Always at meetings with investors ask what he can give besides money, if nothing else, then think about it.
5) Investor relations are like relationships with a wife. Spend more dates and get to know each other better before building a serious relationship.
6) Look on the Internet for information on loans and banking solutions, it is possible that there are cheaper solutions for your tasks than investments.
7) Do you want to cut the product - cut, but forget about the business, better go to work for a big company and do it for a salary (this was not in the article, but this is important).
Friends, I hope that some thoughts from this article will be useful to you. Just be open and honest. You may not find investors, but you will find excellent partners and friends. I just finished reading a book that business angel Pavel Annenkov “Mistakes for a million” presented to me at the meeting, a smart business card of an investor and a lot of useful experience, you can buy here .
By the way, I still write on Facebook , add as friends, we will communicate more often.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/293442/
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