On this segment of Advice From the Pros, startup expert, George Deeb discusses the steps you should take before pitching your business to a venture capitalist.
Transcription:
You know when you’re pitching a venture capitalist oftentimes you’re leading with your business and kind of what you’re all about. You’re really excited about that because that’s your baby and that’s really the story you want to share.
The reality is the venture capital community doesn’t really care about the product. They care about the proof of concept that you have generated around that product, and proof of concept being defined as how many visitors are you driving to your website, or how much revenue are you driving in terms of proving that people are actually willing to pay money for this product or service, and how quickly is that business growing.
So before you actually reach out to a venture capitalist or the investor community it’s really important you’ve got that proof of concept behind you so that when you walk into that meeting and they start to look at your business yes, they’re going to have an interest in the product, but they have an even bigger interest in the proof of concept that you’re generating around that product so that they can clearly see when they give you the capital for their business…They don’t want to give you money to experiment with something. They want to give you money to accelerate a proven idea and pour kerosene on the fire, so make sure you’re pitching your proof of concept.
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