The Agile Startup: Quick and Dirty Lessons Every Entrepreneur Should Know

When No Leads to Yes

Entrepreneurs and investors look at the world fundamentally differently. Entrepreneurs are always looking for ways to say “yes,” while investors look for any excuse to say “no.” They’ll take the first opportunity you give them to reject your business as flawed, and move onto the next investment opportunity. This is the nature of the game, so your job is not to give an investor a reason to say “no.” By avoiding “no,” eventually you’ll get to “yes.”

Make sure you don’t make one of these common mistakes that will ruin your chances:

• Not investing yourself, or asking friends or family to invest. If you don’t have any skin in the game, why should an investor?
• Viral marketing plan. If your customer acquisition strategy is to “go viral,” you’re dead in the water. You might as well call it quits.
• A weak or nonexistent advisory team. If you can’t get any heavyweights on your advisory team, the investor will doubt that your startup’s concept or technology is very interesting.

If you can’t check all of these boxes, make sure you have solid reasons why.

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