Thursday January 21st, 2016 – ZIONSVILLE, Ind.

Small businesses and entrepreneurs all need access to capital to grow.  But what is the best way to get capital when a business is still “young”?  Angel Investment has gained more and more front page views with shows like Shark Tank and The Profit.  However, small businesses and entrepreneurs must first consider how to prepare for an encounter with angel investors (and if they are ready for it).

On Thursday, Frank Dale, Director of Scale-Up Initiatives with Indianapolis based Techpoint, shared his insight into angel investment with entrepreneurs at zWorks, the Zionsville co-working space.  As a successful entrepreneur and business leader, Frank shared his insights and experiences in the tech industry.  Here’s what we learned:

Three key questions to answer in any investment pitch:

  • What problem are you trying to solve?
  • How big is the market?
  • Who are the other players in the market?

Answering these questions gets to the core considerations investors have:  how will I get a return on my investment?   Confidence in the product and its opportunity to affect the market is critical to any investor.  On that note:  if investors don’t know about the industry or product, that should be a red flag for entrepreneurs!  Uninformed investors could be more of a burden than a blessing.

It’s also important to share a story – narrative is much more powerful at delivering a concept or product than a stale powerpoint slide with stats and bar graphs… However, you will have to know and have the financial data too so that projections can be backed up by hard data.

This was the first of our Business and Brewskies series and the Boone EDC looks forward to hosting several more of these types of events in 2016.

Interested in attending our next event?  Contact me (bworrell@booneedc.org) and stay tuned to our social media (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn).

 

Ben Worrell

Business Development Manager