IPitch Articles Archive
Pitching Business Ideas to Investors: Tips for Startups
By Guest Author on Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
Written by Irina Belsky
Finding the right investor
It’s important to find the right investor for your business. Not every investor is going to be interested in investing in your idea so you should decide on which type of investor to approach.
Considerations for choosing an investor:
- Industry: Usually an investor will focus on funding businesses in few select industries. For example tech investors will typically fund digital businesses, while another investor may only be interested in retail businesses.
- Amount of capital: Make sure you target an investor who is willing to invest the amount you need. Different investors will commit to spending different amounts on startup funding.
- What stage of business they invest in: Some investors specialise in early (seed) stage investments while others will only fund later stage, more developed businesses.
Approaching an Investor
The best way to approach an investor once you’ve found the right one, is through a third party referral.
If you’re new to the entrepreneurship space and have little knowledge about investors you could simply do an online search for investors in your category. Events like Silicon Beach and SydStart can benefit in that regard, allowing you to network with others in similar circumstances who can inform you of different investors and different groups.
It’s wise to get a good understanding of your chosen space and how it works, prior to coming in and trying to approach any investor. This means you will be able to put together a better offer, get a better approach and find a more suitable investor.
Growing Entrepreneurship Education Will Produce a New Generation of Entrepreneurs
By Guest Author on Tuesday, October 11th, 2011
Written by Irina Belsky
Teaching entrepreneurship can benefit both budding entrepreneurs and early stage investors. Knowing how to avoid the obvious pitfalls can allow young entrepreneurs to make better decisions and come up with successful ideas, while investors may place more trust in entrepreneurs with a specialised business education.
“The whole point of teaching entrepreneurship is to help students avoid some of the obvious mistakes, so they don’t have to fail quite as often or quite as fast” says Dr. Martin Bliemel, the director of the UNSW Centre of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Dr. Bliemel says common mistakes made by entrepreneurs include “pursuing an idea just because you feel its a good idea but not seeing if the market is ready for it, if the financials are ready for it, if you’re making enough revenue to offset the costs or if you’ve missed some assumptions.”
