Get angel investors to your business

Funding

Angels are entities that invest in early stage businesses. So if you have a brilliant business concept which is only waiting for validation and the first round of seed funding, an angel can bless your business with much more. They can refine your business plan, help you develop clarity and focus on the key strategies that will veer your business towards success.
Angels bring in lot of experience, great advice and valuable contacts from the industry, apart from connecting you to other investors and even media. They are also known to help startups get their first customers. Furthermore the backing of your venture by an angel investor adds a strong streak of credibility to your startup brand and gets your business ready for the next round of venture capital funding. However you can miss out on the opportunity to bring in angel investment if you haven’t done your homework right. So here’s all what you should check out before you grab your first meeting with the ‘angel divine.’

Are you ready with your business plan? It may not be a perfectly charted out plan, but make sure it has all the elements that reflect your understanding of your business. Angels can tweak your plan to some extent only, say to minimize risks or bring down your costs.

Is your idea capable of tapping a large market and is it scalable to become a big play?

Is your product or service solving a long felt need, addressing a strong pain point? Added to that is your proposition well differentiated?

An angel investor would like to see where your revenues will come from. So you should be clear on who your customer is? Who is going to pay for your offering?

You will be vetted to see a solid delivery system in place. Unless it is there, the angel would not be able to see revenues pouring in the business. An efficient delivery system includes giving quality product at the promised time. Is your business performing that way?

Angels will be willing to give you the money when you have rightly projected your cash requirements. This includes how much money you will need and how and when you would be using it. If you have been able to boot strap your venture, even though partially, that will improve your prospects to a great extent.

Any investor’s aim is to make money. So you will be able to forge a good chemistry between you and the angel only if you are able to show your passion and ability to make big bucks.

Most angels bet on a great team which can make all the above projections work. The team members should have complimentary skills. Say if you are good at product development, you partner is good at business development.

So are you ready to get your seed investment?
I welcome you guys to share your experiences with angels if any…do write in.

Ideation

Ideation


Why do 90% of startups fail within less than two years of starting up? Their ideas are brilliant but they fall sick because of lack of proper guidance. At the outset ideas are raw and need to be processed well before you can get on to business. But the big question is do we have a structured ecosystem wherein people with brilliant ideas can get consultation. In this post I will give you reasons not to lose hope. The last 3 years have seen some organizations coming to the forefront to lend a helping hand to entrepreneurs-to-be like you.

Well if you are to become an entrepreneur, the first thing you should remember is that your chances of receiving help will depend solely upon you. No one can help you unless you have the knack to single out a problem area and own the problem passionately to do business with. Do your homework well. Discuss your idea with a few confidential colleagues, teachers or friends. That will give you some kind of assurance. Next, conduct some research on your business proposition, is your product well defined, where is the market, find out if you can partner with someone?

Now chalk out a business plan (it may be rough but presentable) and reach out to the right people. If you are from a B school with an incubation cell you are lucky. Incubation cells give you a chance to present your business plan before a team of mentors. Experts at the incubation centre will screen your business plan and they may tweak your idea a little so as to make it a profitable proposition. Once your idea is validated, they even provide you the basic infrastructure so that you can operate from the campus itself and be guided by mentors until you are able to operate independently. The National Entrepreneur Network (NEN) works on 300 campuses with incubation centres all over India.

Secondly you can derive immense value from conferences organized by TiE (The Indus Entrepreneur) on Startups. There is a program Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program where you can receive help and guidance from mentors who would be even willing to invest your venture for a stake.

One can also approach people at the Indian Angel Network, Mumbai angels and other angel groups which comprise of experienced people. They can spare time (in a scheduled meeting) to discuss your business plan and make corrections if required. Additionally they give you clarity and direction as to what aspect of business you should be focusing on. Apart from bringing investment angels can also help you with valuable contacts which can help you with your first customers.

Headstart is another organization that organizes monthly meetings called Startup Saturdays on the second Saturday of every month in major cities, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and others. It provides an engaging forum for budding entrepreneurs to discuss, present, network and learn from other counterparts and also find mentors and investors for your business.

Folks, you must have had interesting experiences while ideating and approaching someone for guidance. You are most welcome to share your experiences with other readers.

Are you selling right?

Strategy


When the conversion ration of your sales leads increases, what do you credit it to? To your skill and salesmanship? Conventionally many entrepreneurs tend to think this way. You may be a good sales person yourself and if you are not, you can be only lucky to find a great salesman to join your team. I bet, in most circumstances you would be unlucky and herein I have a solution to suggest you: Chart out a Sales System for the entire process right from generating a lead to closing the deal. Break up the process so that it can be followed in steps. This will enable you to make your sales efforts work, whether or not you are genetically blessed with the required skills.

I have presented my suggestion in the following points.

1. The first question in designing your Sales System is, ‘Do you completely understand your product?’ Write down all the features of your product and the ROI (return on investment) your customer will get out of each feature. There can be a different set of customers for each feature. You might have discovered that often different customers want to buy the same product but their needs can slightly differ. At the same time you cannot come out with a different product for different customers. The solution lies in pitching the product in a customized way (highlighting the required set of features) to different leads.

2. Having understood your product in and out, what is the first thing to do when you come face to face with your customer? Go on and on and on.. about your product? Let me wake you up. He is absolutely not interested in knowing about your product. He is only interested in what is it that you’ve got to offer him. What is it that will solve his problem? So the first thing to do is to quickly engage with him to scoop out his ‘problem area’ which he wants addressed. Once you have discovered the problem, pick up those features in your product which will be relevant to him. Finally present your product as a solution to his problem.

3. Sell your customer a USP. Consider why your customer would want to buy your product when other players in the same area are offering the same product. So unless your product is an innovation in the industry, it is indispensable to crown it with a USP.

4. Back your product with a guarantee. Nothing works better to prove the credibility of your product other than to back your product with a guarantee. Tag your offer with a ‘money back’. And what if you had to pay back to a few customers. That is the most effective way to know about the snags in your system. Secondly the number of leads generated will far outnumber the number of money back claims (if any).

I would further like to know whether you guys are actually following a ‘Sales System’.
What are your ideas on the same?