In the next month, I will be pursuing one million plus dollars in angel investment.

I am Fastlane69 and Futur-E-Scape.
I am MMUSCLE and MAST.
I am Education and Entertainment.
I am spatially in Ohio and temporally here for the last 3 months.

Any advice, pretty please?

So, you want advice on how to pursue investors into investing in your project?

If you know me and my project, you'll understand my advice needs. If you don't, then by all means ask; as the GS forum knows, I love answering questions!

But in short, I will take any and all advice kindly given from any and all angles.

be careful what you wish for.

one who chases two rabbits at the same time will lose both.

a bird in the hand is worth infinity x however many are in the bush. except pigeons and seagulls.

don't go out with the same girl twice, especially if you're the one who broke up with her in the first place.

look both ways before crossing the street.

the right side of the road is not the right side of the ride (unless you live in the US, which you do).

choose your subjects early so you don't have to live with a terrible timetable all semester.

never put your phone in your pocket to do something while a loved one is on the other end -- you WILL forget.

a7 is teh 1337 ub3r rule.

sell lots of copies of futur-e-scape.

that's all the advice i can think of. while i'm in a thought-searching mood, i'm wondering: was i the only one who originally thought "runescape" was "run-escape" and not "rune-scape"? DON'T ANSWER UNLESS YOU'RE GOING TO STICK TO THE FORUM TOPIC FIRST!!

oh yeah, one more piece of advice: DON'T USE CAPS-LOCK!

julz

Hi Fastlane,

1) Simplify your pitch down to the core tech / biz they will be investing in.

2) Show very clearly use of funds.

3) Show even more clearly the payback schedule.

4) Make sure that you have a product that is complete and ready for market at the end of the investment cycle. Or be clear this is phase one funding and phase two will be needed. The multiphase investment is harder to sell to investors.

5) Show distribution agreements, portal agreements, revenue partnerships.

6) Harvest value of IP and exit stratgey for the investors, need to be clearly spelled out.

7) Smile alot, be honest, control enthusiasm.

8) Put yourself in their shoes, and evaluate the oppurtunity and risk, and finally what is a reasonable reward.

Good Luck, been through this many times.

Ken

Excellent list, Nard!

It makes me feel better to know that I'm on the right track!

Is number five what would be labeled "strategic partnerships" or some such?

LOL The day people start googling run-e-scape, I'll be a happy man! LOL

Yea, basically, strategic partnerships is a little bit wishy washy for me. IMHO its more a legal contract term than a PPM or biz plan term.

I would use words that power up that section with terms like "Distribution Contracts", "Sale Mechanisms", and such.

Most investors will not invest in production of a good and not have a sales plan and or agreements in place.

Banks lend money for Accounts Recievable or sales contracts. Since you do not have that yet, your investors need to get as close to this requirement as possible, the farther you are away from this assurance the more its going to cost you in equity.

How many companys have been able to build great products, but failed at finding a way to get the product to market and create a revenue stream.

Ken

Don't mention that you have a crash bug that you haven't been able to fix for over a year.

Seriously though, what do you want to use the money for? I think I remember you saying some time ago that the only thing holding you back from releasing is this bug (I might not remember corectly, though). I can't imagine that fixing a bug costs a million dollars..

Any advice, pretty please?

I'm here because the 3D engine was $900, so my advice would be: ask someone other than us? ;) (Ken excluded, of course!)

I'd approach this the same as for anything else: find someone for whom this is old hat, pitch the idea to them, and listen to their feedback on what you need to do to smack your pitch into shape. If your network doesn't include such people, go on and find 'em! One good place to start might be SCORE ("Service Corps of Retired Executives").