Convincing people to invest in you company is a sales process. This is good practice for the stage when you sell a product or service to customers, because the principles are the same.
The “prospects” in this case are not users of your product or service; they are either venture capitalists or angels (high net worth individuals who invest in high-risk startup ventures).
There are, of course, many books written on sales. But to keep things simple, a sales process requires that you:
- Generate awareness (that’s called Marketing)
- Develop the right sales tools
- Qualify your customers so you don’t waste time on unqualified prospects
- Manage your “funnel” of VC opportunities (you’ll be “working” and “tracking” quite a few prospective VC investors before you’re done, so you need to keep track of where each one is in the sales process). Get a CRM!
- Understand your customer’s needs before the first meeting
- Get the first meeting
- Generate enough interest to get the second meeting