How to Get Great Investor Meetings

0:00 Hi, I'm here today to share with you one of my favorite fundraising hacks. You've probably heard the expression that investors like to invest in lines, not points. And the reason for that should be pretty clear. You see, if an entrepreneur comes in and shares with me where he or she is and it's right here, I have no idea what the trajectory of the business is. Is it going up and to the right? Is it pretty horizontal and flat? Is it even going down?

0:29 but if I get a series of points boom boom boom I can draw a line through them and see what the

0:35 trajectory of the business is and remember as an investor I'm not investing for where you are today

0:42 I'm investing for where you're going to be tomorrow and so having that line will give me

0:47 the confidence and the conviction to be able to pull the trigger write the check and invest

0:51 lines not points but now I want to put a finer point pun intended on it and give you another

0:58 another hack. And the hack is that when you're six months out from raising your next round,

1:03 that's the time to start building the relationships with the investors that you think are prime and

1:09 are the ones going to invest. And I don't mean just because you're going to build the line.

1:13 That's a valuable too. But here's specifically what I want you to do. Don't go out and ask for

1:20 investment. You're going to go out and ask for advice. So you're going to set up a series of

1:23 meetings and ask each of the investors for advice. You know, if you were where I am today,

1:28 your company was where we are today, what would you want to focus on and what would you want to

1:35 see? And what do you think an investor would like to see before the next round? And you take copious

1:41 notes. And here's the trick. When you get back to your office or you get back home, you write a

1:47 really nice thank you email. And that thank you email is going to say, dear investor, it was great

1:53 meeting with you today. I learned so much. And if I heard you correctly, you thought that the things

1:58 that were necessary for us to raise our next round were to be at X revenue, Y number of customers,

2:04 have Z traction, whatever those things are. And you send it. It's a very nice thank you.

2:09 Ideally, they'll reply and say, it was great meeting you too. Either way, this will work.

2:14 And now you bust your butt and try to get those numbers. And when you get to those KPIs,

2:19 whatever they are you then send a reply all to that original email you sent dear investor

2:28 last time we met you said we should be at x y and z well we're at x plus 10 y plus 5 and z plus 20

2:36 do you have time for a meeting and below that because you get reply all is the original date

2:42 and the original email where that transaction was talked about they absolutely have to take the

2:49 meeting. You've laid the groundwork and then you've set the hook. So when you're thinking

2:55 about planning your next round, think about lines, not points, and think about taking it to the next

3:02 step, having early meetings, confirming what the investors are looking for, following up with an

3:08 email right away so that you have that in your arsenal. So that three, four, six months later,

3:14 when you hit those numbers you shoot them an email with that original email in it and they have to take your meeting