How to find a needle in a haystack? The customer I want to serve, where are you? Except in my heart

Objectively speaking, startups have many channels to find angel investors. Whether online or offline, it depends on whether you are looking for them with your heart. A truly dedicated entrepreneur will never let go of every way to find investors. Whether it is email or contact information, whether investors vote for your project is one thing. The most important thing is feedback. Investors see more projects than you eat. Of course, not all investors are right, but in some places, investors may look at it from different angles.

On the road of starting a business, thousands of entrepreneurs are scrambling to find angel investment every day, but how many actually get the investment in the end? Let's take a look at the overall situation of "20 18 China VC/PE Market Data Report":

There were 6052 financing cases, a slight increase of 5.09% year-on-year.

There were 5438 award-winning projects, of which 559 projects entered the next round again.

There are 4 164 VC/PE institutions participating in the investment.

The total financing scale reached US$ 85.2 billion, up 62.9 1% year-on-year.

The average financing amount reached $65,438+04,075,300, a year-on-year increase of 54.86%.

From the superficial data, the activity of financing transactions in the venture capital market seems to have steadily increased last year. However, we can find that although the total scale and average amount of financing increased by nearly 60 percentage points year-on-year, the number of financing cases only increased slightly. What does this mean? Explain that the VC/PE market has fully entered the reshuffle period. While the demand for fund-raising is increasing, the competition for funds is becoming increasingly fierce, and the Matthew effect is becoming more and more obvious. In other words, the financing amount of hot projects and star projects in the head field is rising, while the financing amount and quantity of long tail projects are gradually decreasing. In addition, the number of invested projects is also increasing, and 5,438 enterprises have successfully obtained financing for the first time. However, only 559 enterprises entered the next round of financing, accounting for only 10% of the investment. The remaining 90% enterprises did not get the next round of financing, that is to say, they either died or were in a state of barely maintaining cash flow during the transition period.

It is precisely because of the extremely high project mortality rate that investors are very cautious now. Getting investment is really not that simple, because investors have a steelyard in their hearts. Whether a project can get investment is not only related to the industry and track where the project is located, but also closely related to its business model, founding team, founder background and many other factors. Just like the college exam, the final grade is scored according to the comprehensive evaluation of usual+final+other aspects of performance.

Objectively speaking, in the cold winter of capital, investors are willing to invest, which shows that your business model of the project is acceptable. So on the one hand, we must find channels for investors. The key is to strike while the iron is hot. 65,438+000 startups invest in BP. The final investor may choose below 10, and the possibility of deciding to invest is about 2-3. Of course, these are all stories. The premise of all this depends on whether you can find it. And give him your entrepreneurial speech, so the first step is to think about where angel investors usually appear, and how do they find potential entrepreneurial projects? Here are a few ideas that we can think about together.

Passive channel

1. Recommended by acquaintances

First of all, no matter what VC/PE is in the investment field, there must be a circle to exchange news with each other, just like a star club. However, investors who have a certain reputation in the circle have more resources around them than you think. Successful people in various industries, such as executives, CEOs, product managers, directors, etc. I know thousands of people, but I don't know tens of thousands of people. The most important thing is that this acquaintance recommends endorsements with strong trust. If your friend happens to be a big shot and then he approves your project, this big shot happens to have a good relationship with a well-known VC of an investment company. He only needs to mention it to investors conveniently, which is more useful than any financing method.

2. Functional suggestions

I believe everyone is familiar with the law, commonly known as the investment and financing intermediary. That is, the middleman between entrepreneurs and VC. If they help VC find a good project and successfully raise funds, they can get a commission, and the amount is not low. Like the real estate agent, it belongs to the kind that either does not open for business and has been open for three years. Because project promotion itself is a way with extremely low success rate, FA does not cooperate with all projects. Basically, FA thinks that the project is reliable, and then it will be slightly packaged in the hope of entering the investor's sight. Of course, there are also many individual FAs, that is, individual investment and financing intermediaries different from institutional identities, engaged in industries related to contacts and entrepreneurial services, and have many resources for entrepreneurial projects at hand.

3. Follow-up of 3.Star project

It is no longer an open secret in the circle that star projects follow investment. There are not many good projects themselves, and then the good projects found may be of interest to many investors, that is, the so-called star projects, such as the brand name of the founder, or the soaring interest in the project. This will affect the mood of investors. What if it's not enough? So there is a situation of following the vote. Now a lot of financing news will write about the lead investors and investors of XX project. Of course, there is another situation where many investors are optimistic about this project, but the risk is quite high. No one dares to be the first person to eat crabs, so simply investing together is equivalent to reducing the risk, that is, hanging up or at least pulling a cushion.

4. Incubator, creating space internally

At present, many incubators run by venture capital media are in cooperation with investors, such as Krypton Space and Hunting Cloud Network Incubators. In fact, the development of the project side is the clearest, so investors will have in-depth communication with the incubator, including reports on some projects inside the incubator. When the time is ripe, good projects will be pushed to investors together, so if conditions permit, incubators with investor channels or backgrounds will be given priority.

5. Mailbox receives BP

Looking at BP by email is the most common way for investors to look at projects, but it is also the way with the lowest success rate, because investors' emails are open on all major platforms, and they receive tens of thousands of BPs every day, just like the boss's recruitment and resume screening. Investors are very busy, and all kinds of BP come into view every day. How can they look at each other carefully? Basically, they look at the industry, read the title, simply browse the business model, and continue to look at what they are interested in. If you are not interested, just throw it aside. There are many entrepreneurial projects that are not bad, but the BP level is very poor, and even the expression is problematic. So it's a pity that investors just put it aside. And now many projects are sea investment, which is tantamount to looking for a needle in a haystack.

Active channel

1. Industry research

Investors are very sensitive to the information in the venture capital market. Without a sense of smell, how can they be investors? Therefore, investors will collect market information according to their familiar industries and do special research on a certain sub-field. In addition, they will summarize and analyze the financing events in this field in recent years to understand the financing trend of this track, especially those industries that run out of unicorns. If you encounter new knowledge beyond your own knowledge, investors will find colleagues who understand this track or entrepreneurs and executives who are familiar with this field in the circle to eat and chat. Finally, they will analyze the upstream and downstream of this industry and possible opportunities and sort them out.

2. Open investment and financing platform

The public investment and financing platform of venture capital media is a place frequented by investors, such as Whale Zhun in 36Kr and project workshop. The first batch of projects that can be included in these platforms can certainly find relevant information on the Internet, and it is basically impossible for three products to appear. Investors can search for keywords according to their fields of interest, and even find a few well-known head projects and then study projects in other market segments in this field, find ways to contact the media directly to get the founders, and then start communication, so there are exquisite logo and details.

3. Media reports

Media reports of venture capital are actually a source of information that investors are very concerned about. For example, the entrepreneurial team of 36Kr and Tiger Sniff reported it, because since it can report it, it shows that the quality of the project itself is not bad. Of course, the case of paid reporting is not ruled out, but the cost of paid reporting is not low. Even if it is really reported with money, at least it shows that entrepreneurs still have certain strength. Sometimes the projects invested by investors are people-oriented, so it is very important to seek reports from major venture capital media.

4. Entrepreneurial Competition Winning Team

Entrepreneurial competition in cooperation with the government and the media is one of the offline channels for investors to obtain project information. In addition to the support of national policies, it is a good opportunity to participate in these projects. Investors will pay great attention to the players who perform well in the competition, and of course the focus is on the winning team. Does that mean that teams that haven't won prizes have no chance? Not necessarily. It's just that the winning team can make investors shine. Just like the talent show, you will find that it is not the champion who performs well in a few years, but the person who is brushed off in the semi-final.

5. (Familiar with or heard of) Niuren cross-border entrepreneurship

If Niuren's cross-border entrepreneurial projects are favored by investors, it is a typical perceptual investment. The money given by investors is not for the project, but for people, such as Da V, which was once famous in a certain field, or there are excellent successful project operation cases, such as fast broadcast of Xin Wang and Baidu Li called beast. No matter what project they start, investors will watch it if they don't invest. No matter what they hear or are familiar with, the chances of winning the bid in this project are very high.

6. Continuous entrepreneurs with successful entrepreneurial experience.

In fact, the projects done by entrepreneurs with successful entrepreneurial experience are similar to those done by cattle people in cross-border entrepreneurship, and they all belong to investors' emotional investment. Because an entrepreneur has succeeded in starting a business many times, it shows that this person is very capable, so this investment is very reassuring.

7. Dig the project by analogy.

The excavation project is mainly aimed at some well-known (or listed) projects in the head field. For example, the popular * * * music riding, mobike, became popular, so some investors quickly went to find another dark horse in the same field, so Hello bicycles and XX bicycles came out. As long as there is a dark horse or unicorn running out of a track, then investors will explore other potential dark horses in this project field. Pinduoduo is on fire, and Taobao collection is born.

8. Participate in project roadshows, entrepreneurial salons and activities.

There is nothing to say about participating in the activity. Activities, dinners and salons attended by many investors. There are activities invited by friends, business activities invited by government departments, and various exhibitions and exchanges. , also known as the investor platform. If you can meet investors in these places once, you must get the contact information.

9. Find a platform for entrepreneurs to gather (VC suitable for finding early projects)

At present, there are many platforms for online entrepreneurs to gather, including entrepreneurial communities, business schools and senior management circles, some of which are paid. These circles are open to powerful entrepreneurs, such as Zhenghe Island, and the industry threshold is very high, so some unreliable entrepreneurs have been eliminated. But if they are looking for VCs with early projects, they will look for platforms for early entrepreneurship, such as finding partners' love partnerships, entrepreneurial schools and so on. In short, they will be more inclined to find a platform for early entrepreneurship.

Understand the channels for these angel investors to find projects, and then think about how the founders can flexibly use various methods to reach these investors. First of all, some well-known investors, such as Allen Zhu and Xu Xiaoping, can only get in touch with them if they have certain strength, while ordinary founders can't get in touch with them without this circle, which means that your entrepreneurial project can't get into their eyes at all. Do you know why investors usually only leave their email address when they leave their contact information, without leaving WeChat or phone number? Because tens of thousands of entrepreneurial projects are sent by BP every day, if you leave a phone call, it is enough to answer the phone and chat on WeChat every day without working.

Entrepreneurship projects found by well-known investors will not be used by all channels. Basically, they will cooperate with quality channels, and then the channels will come to introduce themselves. I can't see the projects introduced by myself. In addition, some roadshows, venture capital activities and TV programs that need to be attended (such as "Partnership with China People" and "I am a unicorn") are arranged with many activities every day, so there is no need to worry about entrepreneurial projects. Basically, we choose the best quality project to vote.

There are also some lesser-known investors. Some individuals also have institutions. For example, we often see many so-called investment managers of XX company, the director of a venture capital company, appearing in major roadshows, social products and entrepreneurial software. To put it bluntly, a large part of it is deceptive (of course not all). This should be analyzed in detail. Why do you say that? Because many investment companies make money under the guise of angel investment, such as pulling people to do roadshows, paying thousands of dollars first, and then sitting under the stage with several investors pretending to listen. As for whether to vote or not, you are lucky. Most of these are routine money. Think about it, people are angel investors, and they have to pay hundreds of millions. What is the difference? Think with your head. You know everything.