On Echelon 2011, one of panel discussions talked about investors. The theme is always interesting or at least can bring a good discussion.
What’s in investor’s mind became the main question, especially for startup that needs funding and been wondering how investors think of a startup and what are the considerations before they fund any startup.
Panelist of Willson Cuaca – East Ventures, James Chan – Neoteny Labs, Tuff Yen – Seraph Group dan William Klippgen – Tigers Capital exposed many interesting things, and there are at least two things that interested me, data and research.
Data
This article will work better for startups looking for funding, in need for investors, and will work even better for startups who’s been in the game for sometime.
After your service is working, at least version ‘version 1.0′ , you will get statistic data. Tuff Yen said that providing existing data is always the best way, and if the data is not as good as expected, explain to the investors what you get from the data and work on what you are planning to do to fix the situation.
James Chan added that measuring is also important. That means startup should be able to measure what one has done related to number of users, strategy, vision, and business milestones.
What happen if the startup has no data at all or even if they have, it’s not enough? Willson Cuaca said that they can do benchmarking, monitoring similar service and calculate estimated data, traffic or other data needed as a mean of judging a service/product and implement it to the service in question.
Research
What I mean about research in this case is different than what I said in other article, more into small survey startup founder or owner should do on investor they are meeting with, to whom they will pitch.
Like William Klippgen said, it plays important part because not all investors are available for pitching, which means there are certain product/service/application that can be pitched to certain investors, not every investors. Indeed some investors or incubation provide opportunities for all startup segment, but some choose to have their own preference in funding or incubating startup. So instead of spending your time pitching for your startup with out any significant result, it won’t hurt to study investor’s profile, portfolio and other aspects before you pitch.
This also works for startup pitching incertain competition, like Echelon Startup Launchpad. Even though the products and services cannot be altered based on judges’ profiles (whom likely are investors) and it is unlikely to alter service just to suit judges’ profiles, startups can alter thier course like providing images/pictures, video or other approach that can attract judges’ attention.
Those two things, I’d say, can become additional information for you, startup owners or those who are in process of finding investment and approaching or choosing investors.
Other things said as investors’ preference in choosing startups to fund among others is, (for James Chan) startup’s technology. Other factors are chemistry and congruence between startups and investors, and vision. Not only vision on the developed products or service, but also their business objectives. The others said that they take startup’s focus on product and technology seriously.
Disclosure: DailySocial is one of Echelon 2011 media partners.
