Cold call investors

0:03 Welcome to business purpose and clarity with petri I'm your host we talk about startup life insights practical tips mistakes failures and everything between my take on intros nowadays is that and this may not apply to all the places in the world but now I'm mainly talking about the new dicks in europe maybe in the northern europe you need to figure out yourself what works what doesn't work my take is that you don't really need intros to approach investors and I don't think you actually should do that that's my sentiment in post-covet let's take it from my perspective I know a lot of people or at least some people and if I haven't been in contact with them for some years because well look of it happened and then out of the blue I just dropped them an email or whatever.

1:07 Yeah I could do that but what's the value of that because I I haven't been constant contact with them so it's obvious that I'm asking something from and if the whole thing is about you your company your investments so it's not about me me bringing them doesn't actually have much much value I'm just like saying that hey conduct that person how about you do it yourself just directly cold calling sending the emails whatever the means yeah I know there's a lot of spam it's too difficult to get to people but it's the same for me sometimes people aren't responding I don't know why the other thing is that if you want to have like a semi-way I could say and that's what I've been saying sometimes that well you can say hello from me but what does it really do well maybe they read it a bit better maybe it has a positive effect I hope it doesn't have a negative effect that could be the case in some cases you never know what.

2:09 People are thinking so my overall idea nowadays is that skip the intros go directly present your case usually you have a few whether it's like few lines in an email in a message in a in real life situation talking to present your case and if your company is good if you have a really good value prop you have your and you can keep on going it's no different from regular sales are you asking for intros for each and every sales lead for each and every sales contact yeah I know maybe in some industries because you don't have really that many customers you need to do that but oftentimes that's not what's needed so skip the intros don't be too shy I noticed again I know I mentioned this in some other episode as well but in conferences for example startup.

3:13 Conferences which is mainly about matching investors startup founders it's all about talking to people meeting people just having fun getting to know more people intros but just in a personal way directly with people peer-to-peer so to speak so don't stay on your phone and waiting for someone to to help you out there there wasn't one incident it wasn't an incident nope situation where there was two people on the couch I know polio needs of both of them and it was like why you're not talking to each other you're on start a founder looking for money you're an investor looking for good cases why don't you say hello and that's what they did but they could have done it by themselves instead they were just staring on their phones that's what I mean talk to people don't be too shy conferences are excellent for that if.

4:16 You are first-time founder if you don't know anyone the way more important that you just go have a nice few words don't take it too seriously and so I have a good time be curious about the learn what they do listen to them put your expectations at the level that it doesn't really matter if you get a meeting or not because you never know who is somebody who knows somebody or who can help you oftentimes you start to talk with someone and they know someone and they can help you maybe even pull the person to the conversation or do the intro if you want to have that but if you don't specifically ask for that also if you going for conference and um again talking about startup conferences and and those where you are looking looking forward to meet skip the local ones and just focus on those international ones why well it's quite obvious if you think about it the local ones you can just.

5:19 Call any day you can just knock on their doors and and approach them talk to those who are flying in further away so that you can take advantage they're coming there and meeting you in in person later on you can then do the remote thing the google me the zoom do the follow-ups but that's the way I would do it if I wanna meet investors I would even approach them before the event just to make sure that I will actually have a chance to talk with them sometimes you need to be a bit more creative I'll leave it to another episode or you have to ping me directly to ask how to do that and get a hold of those people because investors are so spammed with founders copy pasting they invite or they message to all possible investors that they actually stop responding to those matchmaking tools because it's just too much and you see that the founder hasn't.

6:22 Checked your profile or your wishes or your criteria so it's like massive spamming so you're like why should I bother there are some exceptions and if you customize your message you target on those ones you really want to meet usually there's a ways to do the way to do that and you have to remember that investors are also looking for good there's a mutual benefit of meeting and talking to people but it's just quite a lot another thing about calling cold calling investors and going directly is that it's a sales process trust the process do it every day it takes time it's about building trust it's about building a relationship it doesn't happen overnight if you starting too late you are already kind of a bit of in trouble you have a pressure to do the thing you have to close oftentimes you can tell that and it's not a good sign.

7:26 Because many times founders are coming in and they're saying that well I'm running out of money end of the month or in two months or something that's not what the investors want to hear they don't want to get into cases where they have run out of money and the founder doesn't know what they're doing or that's what it appears because they started the fundraising process too late I know it doesn't always be that it's your fault that the money is running out stuff happens but that's to impress on you you're kind of sending if you if you're doing it that way and because it's a process it's not a hail mary either so if if you're late maybe there's some other things you should do as well maybe quite a bit of the costs and think about extending the runaway or some other means or maybe just do the good old sales selling stuff to your customers if your product is ready what if the message from the investor after the first meeting is kind of hopeful but you don't.

8:28 Really know whether it was yes or no here is a really simple rule of the thumb if it's not clear yes it's no it doesn't what are the words used but it's like they say yes this is interesting come back when this or that happens or whatever the weird ways or nice ways or complex ways they're not saying no but they're not saying yes so if it's not clear yes it's no no in very clear terms like in oh no sometimes it can happen and sometimes that's really good maybe they should do it more often like hey you are out of our focus it's not you it's just us we are not investing on that field and oh no I think that would be a really good message but it's hard to say no people don't like to say no so they rather coast they maybe block or just say some weird stuff that yeah come back when you have 20k mrr or.

9:32 Something like that even though they haven't considered the case like for more than a few seconds and they don't really mean that when you come back and you have 20k mrr we're going to invest on you that's not the message they just say that I don't know I'll come back when you have a bit more money and maybe we'll check it for next 10 seconds and we will see if it's not definite yes it's no and no just means that no nothing is happening at this point maybe something can happen in the future point but I shouldn't expect anything and I should have no hopes of that happening if you take that approach it makes stuff more clear and your expectation management is properly in the level it should be don't just wait for special events to do the sales like I said it's a process you should keep on practicing keep on doing it.

10:36 Every day like sales regular sales the customer you just keep on grinding keep on doing it and it will yield results but if you just wait for the next deck chill latitude 59 or whatever the your favorite event is it's limiting your options is giving you excuses not to do something today and of course that may hinder your progress with the company I guess that's for today's episode so please cold call don't wait for intros be talkative trust the process and good luck.