Thursday, February 5, 2009

IPFUT - What it takes for an entrepreneur


A brand spanking new entrepeneur comes to the Business Facilitation meeting, looking for feedback and for investment from the potential investors in the room. As the investors look on the process, what things are they looking for? Certainly they are looking for information about the business and the potential plan. They are also looking for ways to evaluate the presenter. In early angel investing, the investment is as much (or more) in the founders as it is in the idea.

What traits of the founders are the investors looking for evidence of? As I have thought about this, I have come up with the following , in order. If these are not evident, the chances of angel investors engaging are greatly reduced:

I - Integrity
P - Passion
F - Focus
U - Urgency
T - Team

Without each of these, getting to the next part of the conversation will be hard. When presentations do not clearly represent a crisp picture of the business and a crips picture of the entrepreneur, it makes the next step difficult.


I have found that my mentoring conversations with entrepreneurs end up devolving into some kind of conversation about one of these topics.

These are the things that are important before the idea is going to get moving.

Are there other things that are common places that need attention for entrepreneurs?


1 comment:

KBK said...

Okay. So: know enough about your business idea and yourself, create confidence in yourself and your idea by evaluating it seriously and tweaking/building. I like.