Tips From The Professionals To Entrepreneurs In Need Of Venture Capital Funding

By Donna Hayes


If you are an entrepreneur whose business took off like a bullet as soon as you started it, you probably want to grow it as quickly as possible, and that takes capital. It can be difficult to get traditional financing without tangible assets, and an angel investor may not have the kind of money you need. At this point, what you need is venture capital funding.

First of all, they say entrepreneurs have to understand the difference between venture capital investors and angel investors. Angel investors are individuals or firms that fund new businesses in the form of loans or equity in the company. Friends and family often become angels for entrepreneurs. Rapidly growing businesses in need of additional funds to expand often approach investors willing to on take high risk projects, usually in exchange for a certain percentage of equity in the company.

These individuals and firms operate at the highest levels. It won't be easy to convince them that the value you place on your company is realistic or that the company will continue to grow at impressive rates. You will have to do plenty of research to find the firms that invest money in the type of business you run and are willing to offer you the kind of sums you need for expansion.

Not matter where you go on the internet, you will find questionable companies offering quick solutions to difficult problems. You might come across one that offers proven leads with private emails and phone numbers. They may be selling databases guaranteed to get you in the door of a leading investment firm. As always, if it seems too good to be true, it certainly is.

You can't mass email investors either. They have seen all too many of these kinds of pitches and don't even open them. Not only will you have wasted your time creating an ineffective marketing tool, you might end up losing a potential investor who you could have interested if you had approached him differently. The best idea is to target the best matches for your situation and go after those.

There is no substitute for effective networking. You need to scour your resources in an effort to find people who have had some kind of contact with a potential investor. This could be someone mutually involved in an alumni association or a co-worker. If a decision maker, in a firm that interests you, is speaking at an event, you should make sure you are sitting front and center, then introduce yourself once the talk is over.

You may only have a few seconds to catch the attention of a busy investor. They see proposals all the time. You should have an intriguing tag line for your email introduction and a quick video that sums up your vision. If that gets you in the door, you have one last chance to impress with your pitch.

Great businesses, that start fast and grow quickly, fall by the wayside every day because the entrepreneur didn't get expansion plans in front of the right investors at the right time. It is not enough to have big ideas, you have to know how to turn them into reality.




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