For ordinary property investors… It will not turn out well.
They will trundle out into the real world trying to attract finance at London Business Angel style networking events & end up destroying any chance of walking away with private finance.
The second worst mistake to make is to go to business angel investing events in the ring and pitch.
The first worst mistake is not to go. Where else can you meet so many millionaire investors under one roof?
{Type ‘business angel event’ into Google; you’ll see}
As much as the heavy weight investors are there to invest, many of the pitches in the LBA format are weak and you are very exposed. As soon as they know you want their money, they don’t want it
Yes it can be all so overwhelming at first: hi/new tech companies. Pitches 8-12 minutes long: in and out like branded cattle and thrown into the fire for questions from the Vultures.
But you don’t play by their rules, you play by yours
We never pitched (scared to at first!) and it helped us get in the ‘inner circle,’ of investors quicker as we had the right ‘badge.’ Experience has taught us that the best strategy at events like this are the following:
Go (regularly), and get to know as many of the investors as possible. This is easy because they will have the right badge, and they are familiar with the organisers.
They don’t know what you’re thinking. They can’t smell the lack of experience you (think you) don’t have and it’s not tattooed on your forehead…
So just go and listen to people.
Network with them and get them talking. Build some familiarity and exchange cards. That’s all. Now you have that person as a contact, you haven’t pitched, and you haven’t publicly ‘dropped your trousers.’ The goal should just be to have them want to speak to you again.
That’s all.
Then later, and more comfortably, build a relationship outside the business angel environment (as they will always look at you with the tinted glasses of the environment).
Once they are isolated from that environment, then it becomes about you and them: your relationship and you don’t get compared.
If you think about this; it’s actually not rocket science.
You are simply highlighting events that have the right grade and quality of people, getting to know them in an amicable and professional way, being careful not to pitch too soon or in their ‘living room,’ and then when the time comes and the relationship is forged, things start to happen naturally, in a different, more comfortable environment
This is actually how most partnerships are unconsciously formed anyway: we’re simply (reverse) engineering the process.
Thoughts on this?
