What’s The Worst Thing You Can Hear When You’re Raising Money?
You will quickly find that raising money is a numbers game. You have to knock on a lot of doors if you're going to raise your funding.
You're going to hear lots of things from the investors you meet. But there's one thing you may hear that's probably the worst thing you can ever hear from an investor.
Watch this short video to find out what it is and what you should do when you hear this. Hint: It's not hearing, "We're not interested." The video is titled, "What's The Worst Thing You Can Hear When You're Raising Money?"
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Read The Video Transcript Below:
Years ago when we were raising money for my company. We had this pitch with a VC that I still remember to this day. And I thought we did a really good job explaining the company, and the investors seemed really interested in what we were talking about. And I thought the meeting went well.
Then at the end of the meeting he looked at us and and he said, "You know, you didn't have me at hello." And I knew immediately when he said that we were in trouble. Then he went on to say, "Your company is very,... " and these are words that you never, ever, ever want to hear when you're raising money. "Your company is very interesting."
Now when you hear interesting, interesting idea, interesting product, interesting company, that means the following. It means, "You know what, the company's good but it's not good enough and guess what? We're never going to invest." That's what it means.
And sure enough now what do you do when you're raising money? You follow up like a mad man. You always are following up because you never know. So I followed up and you know, a couple of days later he wrote me back and said, "Well, we're going to pass on the investment. Wish you the best of luck.
Now, was I surprised? No, absolutely not. By this point in time, we'd pitched to a lot of different investors and when you hear those words, you can tell.
So now what are you looking for when you raise money? It goes back to falling in love. And how quickly do investors fall in love? Instantly or usually they never, ever, ever do. It's the old snap of the fingers test. So either you get there really quickly or you're likely to never ever, ever get there. That's what you learn.
So when you hear interesting, I wouldn't say write it off. Follow up, but don't have high hopes and keep looking. I'm, Brett at www.brettjfox.com have a great, great day.