how do you get investors to find you

turn the tables around

Hey,

Dragos here, from Project Arrow, where we mentor founders about how to build from 0 to 1 and get their startups investable in the process.

Last Monday, I had a discussion with a group of founders about how to find investors for a startup. Good talk and great crowd - one of the things I suggested was that there’s another way of looking at the process: instead of focusing on how to find investors, how about creating ways for investors to learn about you?

Turn the tables around and wear their shoes - how do you get investors to find you and reach out? Three easy ways:

1. get mentioned by people from their circles

2. produce content explaining your startup work

3. create a community around your product

1. Get into their circles

Investors job is to stay on top of who is doing interesting stuff in specific verticals they follow. They do this mostly talking to other investors and to other startup founders, either from their portfolio or folks pitching them. If your name gets mentioned at least once or twice, that will get their attention and they will look you up.

How do you do that? Reach out to founders from their portfolio, not only for asking for advice but also for doing diligence on their investors - are they a good fit for your startup? Founders tend to help each other, and if you do good valuable work, your name will come up in discussions.

2. Write about your startup

Investors also gather intel reading a lot of online materials: research papers, blogs, newsletters etc. That is why producing content about your work can be super helpful - it is context for somebody interested in your space to learn about what makes you special and how you go about building your startup.

Writing a blog about your startup work will make a difference, because not only it creates awareness but also it underlines the way you think and you go about executing your business plan. That’s already half of the selling work done when dealing with the investors trying to get them fund you.

3. Create a community around your product

This one is a no-brainer - nurturing a customer community is a must for any founder building a business. Keep a newsletter, a Twitter and/or a Linkedin account, a Discord channel - those are a great way to engage your users and generate new business. Investors are no different, they’re actually suckers for startups doing that.

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Read and think this through and don’t forget, people do business with each other based on two fundamental principles: awareness and trust. They also apply to investors doing their jobs.

How do you get a stranger to learn about you and trust you with their money? At the very least, they will ask around and look you up on the internet, just like you should do in order to qualify them as fit for your startup. If they don’t find out anything about you, it’s less likely they will engage with you.

Try any of the three (or all!) and you will see results. Let me know how it works.

- Dragos

PS1. some previous materials for the 300+ new subscribers that just joined our community:

• How investors evaluate your idea

• Don’t do these mistakes when raising capital

• Startups guide Germany 🇩🇪

PS2. Don’t forget that helping founders like you is what we do at Project Arrow every week. Regardless of what you’re doing, it’s almost impossible to do it alone - Project Arrow is a community of people around you that want to see you win. Join now.