How to NOT Sell to Investors

In the last few months we have invited over 600 companies to our accelerator. This article represents some results you might be interested in.

The vast majority of them are seeking funding, and for the most part, they didn't read that we are an accelerator, which is in the first sentence and our tag line of the platform feeding us these leads.

Hint 1: If you are unable or unwilling to read a page of text to determine whether to take the next step, you are wasting your time and mine.

When we accept the ones we accept, we point them to our Web page, a signup page for a free pitch event, and free articles and videos to help them in accelerating their efforts. The home page rapidly identifies the different things we do. Many of the questions we get about the free pitch relate to things that are spelled out pretty clearly in each of these places.

Hint 2:See Hint 1

Our Investment Pipeline

One of the things on our home page is under the key "Investment" and called "Our Deal Flow". If you click on it, it provides details of our processes and how many companies get how far. We also go over this in our first call for companies wishing to be funded or get assistance. Of course most of the attendees who ask questions, ultimately ask questions that are answered at the beginning of the meeting, even though they didn't ask them when I asked if they had any questions.

Hint 3: If you are unwilling to listen to what I say when I talk to you and read the slides I present to you, you are wasting my time and yours.

To be clear, I listen to each presenter, ask reasonably lucid questions, make comments, and try to press them to provide answers to my questions (rather than their pre-planned pitches). So I listen to them, but some of them seem to ignore me.

The Next Step

During our quick pitch call, we explicitly tell some of the presenters we are interested, and we tell them at the start of the call that if we do this, they should get in touch for follow-on. If they do, we offer them free access to our metrics package so they can get us the information we need to go the next step. For other companies who we do not tell this to, they can pay a nominal fee (less than $100) to fill in the form and get feedback and further consideration.

Hint 4:If the investor says they are interested and wants you to fill in their form, do it, and do it in a timely fashion.

There are 52 weeks in a year, give or take. We now do these free quick pitch events twice a month, with an "Ask Anything" a week later. If you don't get back to me within a few days, accept the invitation for the free metrics forms, and fill them in (takes less than an hour) before the next meeting, I will be moving on to the next group and paying attention to the ones who acted in a timely fashion. Think of it this way. If it takes you more than a week to fill in the first form, it will likely take you 6 months to get through due diligence, and if you aren't interested enough to move the process along at better than that pace, I am not interested in spending my time chasing answers to questions you should already have answers to down pat.

I want a meeting - nothing else will do.

What you want is my money or my help. I look at hundreds of companies per month. If I had a 30 minute meeting with each of them, that would take more than 50% of my time. It saves you and me time if you go through my process, because in that 30 minute meeting you think you are going to use to pitch me, I will not find out the things I want to know from you in a form I am able to manage, understand, and process.

Hint 5:If you don't follow my process, I am not going to invest.

Trust me, your brilliant sales capacity will not stop me from requiring the metrics, and with the metrics, I can save you the time and effort if I will not be interested. And if I am interested, I will be doing follow-ups with you.

Pitch pitch pitch

Believe it or not, I am not interested in hearing another hundred or more practiced pitches this month. I am more interested in you telling me briefly, in your own words, who you are and what you do. I may then ask a question or two and indicate my general interest, or save you a lot of time and effort by telling you I am not.

Hint 6:It's about making a meaningful human connection with the investor. Your canned speeches don't do this, but your crisp tag line and some humanity and humility can get it started.

Did I mention that you can learn a lot by listening to the other CEOs give their quick introductions and observing the interactions with them? We need to pay attention to each other if we are going to succeed together. If I wanted an AI to pitch me, I would ask you to send me an audio clip using the voice of the celebrity you think will most impress me.

Complaints?

I get complaints about the fact that we charge fees for some of our services. And I also get complaints that our Web page isn't what they expect. For some reason, CEOs of some startups think that I owe them something. They think I am in the business of investing to get them rich. I am not! Some think they are so magnificent that I would be a fool to not give them my money.

Hint 7:Do you really think that by putting down the investor you are going to get them to invest?

To be clear, we provide more free stuff and opportunities to more companies than almost any accelerator I know of. And to be just as clear, I don't care what you think of my Web site. But if you want to pay me fees, I will do a review of your Web site, not an automated scan with BS output, but an actual human review from the perspective of an investor. We have a series of videos of these online for free, so before you decide to hire me to do it, review the ones we already did and eliminate those mistakes first.

The reason I invest is so I can make money and change the world in ways I think are good. I like helping good people succeed, but I don't owe you anything.

Conclusions

We offer, among our for fee services, a short course on how to sell to investors. You can find it on our Web site and sign up for less than $200. Or you can continue to waste hours of your time, make mistake after mistake, and fail to achieve your goals.

For the ones of you who got this far into this article, I appreciate that you have taken the time to actually read this, and would be happy to help you. I figure I will get 2 or 3 emails from folks who got this far over the next 3-6 months. If you indicate in the beginning of the body of your email that you read this article, even if you tell me you didn't like it, I will likely treat you in a friendly manner... But I won't even think about investing without the metrics...

More information?

Join our monthly free advisory call, usually at 0900 Pacific time on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month, tell us about your company and situation, and learn from others as they learn from you.

In summary

I hope I have outlined some of the things you SHOULD NOT DO if you want to get investors for your company. If you don't like being questioned or critiqued, you should not read my articles, and you should definitely not look to me for investment.