If you are considering going into business and believe you have a great business idea, then you will have to be prepared in selling yourself as well as your innovative idea. There are many venture capitalists as well as angel investors who would be interested in hearing all about this wonderful innovation of yours. But first of all, you need to ensure that your idea is well packaged. Then, you also need to get the word out so people can have a look at it and decide to go with you or not.
Research and package
Before you present your best ideas to prospective investors, there is a need for you to do the ground-work. Research and find out if there is any product or service that is anything close to what you intend to offer. The rarer, but useful your idea is, the more willing investors will be in getting involved. Also, how much people will be ready to offer for the service or product you will be offering is one other thing that you need to find out. This, including the target audience, plus other pieces of relevant information should be included in the business proposal to prospective investors.
Create your presentation
You should also create a PowerPoint presentation that showcases all your product samples. That is if this is applicable in your own case. Do ensure that you equally develop a complete business proposal that includes financial data, information regarding you, plus an executive summary. And, write a summary of this business proposal of yours so that busy investors can easily and quickly read what your idea is in a nutshell. Take note that your proposal ought to clearly give details of how much that you require to be invested.
Finding your prospective investors
Discover prospective investors online if you don’t already have at all or if you are searching out for more. Another place to look is via community networking. Search for investors by asking people within your community.
Demo your idea
Be ready to provide a demo. So that investors can have at least a glimpse of what is in the offing. In other words, some kind of practical demonstration. For instance, if you plan to sell a revolutionary computer program, you need to demonstrate how this works. Consider showcasing this in your home or a place that you can get for free. Another possibility that you should consider is meeting up with prospective investors in their offices or wherever they are comfortable with meeting with you at little or no cost.
Be ready to answer questions
Whenever you are doing a presentation before potential investor(s) be prepared to answer all their questions truthfully. Don’t try and play smart. After your meeting with them, make sure that you offer them a handshake, exchanging business cards if you haven’t done this already. Also, impress upon them that you will welcome further questions or clarifications regarding your business idea.
Closing thoughts
Now if you have been experiencing difficulties regarding getting to meet prospective investors, you may consider writing articles and publishing same on relevant websites. You can even go a step further by creating a website or a blog After which you can then leverage on your followership. Take note that soliciting your idea online might not necessarily achieve the same result with what is obtainable offline. But engaging with online visitors as well as your followership can lead you to finding the right investor or set of investors for your business idea.
Jason Phillips has authored this post; he works as a research analyst at market research los angeles. His primary interest leans in writing and blogging.