Quora Answer: How Can I Find Investors for My Projects?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “How can I find investors for my projects?” 

First, you must have a project that is worth investing in.  Venture capitalists are looking for the next unicorn.  What is the total addressable market you intend to serve?  This is the market you can reach, and gain market share.  If that market is significant, you have potential.  Is this a grey market, one that is unrealised by competitors?  Or, is it, at least, a blue ocean, which affords you a lower barrier to market leadership?  What is your potential exit?  No one puts in money without considering this.  How many rounds of funding do you think you will require to reach self-sufficiency or, at least, significant revenue?  At the most, it should be four with a 50% dilution for first mover investors. 

Secondly, who is your team?  Investors do not invest in the product or the company.  They invest in the team.  If you have a great product idea, but you have an inadequate team, you constitute a risk.  We want to know what sort of risk keyman risk we are undertaking as well.  Your team dynamics, your relationship, your values, they all matter before we consider investing in you. 

Finally, once you have all that largely sorted out, there are incubators, accelerators, even pitch events that you can consider taking part in.  You can also consider qualifying possible investors by searching online and through your network and reaching out to them.  That means you need a pitch deck, and an executive summary to be sent.  Should any be interested, they will give you a meeting.