If you were raising funding 25 years ago, you probably called prospective investors on the phone and sent them your business plan via fax or overnight delivery.
As you can imagine, things are very different today. And email is the number one way to communicate with prospective investors, particularly professional investors like venture capitalist.
The challenge, as you can imagine, is getting their attention. As most venture capitalists receive tons and tons of unsolicited email each day. So, the key is having a great subject line on your email to get them to open it.
Before giving you some subject lines that do work, let me tell you ones that don’t. Subject lines such as “Unique Investment Opportunity,” “Please Invest in our company,” and “Great Investment Opportunity” don’t catch investors’ attention and turn them off.
So, don’t use these. Here are some you can use:
1. Your Involvement in XYZ Company
Where XYZ company is a company that the investor has funded and which is in your general space. You would start the email with something such as “based on your investment in XYZ company, I think you will be interested in what we are doing…”
2. New in the “XYZ Space”
Where XYZ is the “space” in which you are operating in (e.g., the financial software space). The first line would tie the subject line to what you are doing.
3. Referred by XYZ
Where XYZ is a referral source that knows both you and the investor. This works extremely well, but clearly you must first get the referral.
Because referrals are so powerful, go on LinkedIn and/or other networks to see if you already have someone in your network that can refer you to the investor.
4. Comment on Your Post About XYZ
Where XYZ is a blog post that the investor recently wrote about a subject. In your opening line you explain what you agree with in their post and then tie it to your company.
Here’s What to Include Next
Importantly, after your subject line and introductory line that ties your company with the subject line, you should NOT tell the investor everything about your company.
Rather, this first email should be a “teaser” email. A “teaser” email is an email that “teases” the investor by giving them a bite-sized amount of compelling information about your company.
The goal of the email is to see if they are interested. If they are, you will follow up with more information (maybe your Executive Summary, full business plan and/or select components of your business plan) with the goal of getting a face-to-face meeting with the investor.
There are two reasons you shouldn’t send your business plan in your initial email. First, you don’t want to “over-shop” your deal. Over-shopping is letting too many investors know about your company. If too many investors know about you, the law of numbers states that many investors will pass on investing in you (remember, most investors passed on the opportunity to invest in Google years ago).
So, if an investor isn’t even interested in your market space or teaser email, they certainly won’t invest in your company. And here’s what can happen — an interested investor asks this investor (the one who isn’t interested in your space) if they’ve heard of your company. That investor says “yes” (since you unwittingly sent them your plan) and that they weren’t interested. And then their disinterest dissuades the once interest investor from investing in you.
The second reason you don’t want to send out your business plan in your initial email is for confidentiality reasons. You just don’t want your business plan out there for everyone to see. Rather, wait until the investor shows that they are at least somewhat interested in your venture before sending it.
So, now that you know that you should start by sending investors a “teaser” email, the question is what to include in the teaser.
Here’s the answer: the teaser email should include 5 to 6 bullets about your company and should be very short (200 words or less). The goal, once again is simply to create a general interest in your venture so the investor commits time and energy to learning more about it (by requesting additional documents or setting up a meeting).
Your bullets should describe what space your company is in and credentials that make you uniquely qualified to succeed (e.g., credentials of management team, customers serving already or showing interest, etc.).
To summarize, send investors a teaser email instead of your business plan to start. And realizing that they receive hundreds of emails every day asking for funding, make sure your subject line stands out and seems like you’re offering them value.
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