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Serial Entrepreneur and Go BIG
Founder Wil Schroter's Blog!
How to Prep for an Investor Meeting
Author: Wil Schroter
Thursday, October 11, 2007

Most entrepreneurs have never raised capital before (why would you have?) so they don't really know what investors want to see.  As such, they typically walk into investor meetings totally unprepared for what investors want to see.

Aside from a great presentation, there are some basic documents you should always have ready if you expect a deal to get closed.

A Good, Short, Executive Summary

A good two page doc that quickly outlines the problem you're solving, how you solve it, and how you'll make money doing it is perfect.  If people don't care about those three items then the history of your life won't matter much.

Great Due Diligence

If you can show that you've interviewed key clients, conducted market research, and done a comprehensive competitive analysis, then you're in great shape.  Investors waste most of their time trying to do their due diligence to find out if what you're saying is true.  The more ammo you can provide (in a concise manner!) the faster you'll get a deal done.

Organizational Docs

You should have all of your organizational documents available, including your Articles of Incorporation and your Operating Agreement.  These sound far more complicated than they are.  If you use any service like MyCorporation.com to incorporate your company they will give you a template for these docs by default. 

Financial Plan

At the very least you should have a 3 - 5 year financial plan for your business, detailing not only your sales and expense projections, but more importantly the assumptions that you've used to reach those projections.  Investors will put more focus on the validity of your assumptions (i.e. "We will convert 10% of all site traffic to paying customers at $20 per month") than anything else.  If they believe your assumptions, the numbers speak for themselves.

... the obvious points beyond this are a Business Plan and a Marketing Plan, but I'm guessing you've figured that one out.  Most of the high points of the Business Plan and the Marketing Plan will be fleshed out in your presentation.  What will speed up the negotiation AFTER the presentation is having your documents in order and ready for a hungry investor.

If there is one thing you never want, it's an investor waiting on you to finalize a deal!




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