Storytelling for fundraising is about painting a compelling future for investors, regardless of the amount being raised.
Storytelling for fundraising is about painting a compelling future for investors, regardless of the amount being raised. It's crucial to make investors dream about the journey and the growth they can experience by investing now, rather than focusing solely on past or present achievements.
The storytelling side of it: basically, when you are at an early stage, specifically, I don’t care of you’re raising $200,000 or if you’re raising all the way up to, let’s say, 50 or even 100 million dollars from sophisticated investors. Historical is very important, but what they want to know is that there’s a very compelling future that is waiting ahead of you, that there is a really incredible company, product team, and market that they can capitalize on and that by making an investment right now, they’re going to be able to ride that wave of growth with you all the way to the finish line, which comes in the form of an IPO, an acquisition, or maybe a secondary sale where existing investors sell some shares to new investors coming in. Storytelling is all about the future. It’s not so much about your present or the past. What you want to do is grab whatever you have going on and push it
forward—fast forward and try to have them dream as to how that journey is going to be by sharing that journey with you. The next thing is going to be the process. When it comes to the process, you need to understand what it’s going to take from Point A, where you’re getting the introduction to that investor, to Point C, which is closing the money, sending the offering documents, which are the documents where all the terms of the investment are going to be outlined, and then also for wiring the money. From A to C, what you’re looking at is first, there’s an introduction. Then there’s going to be a follow-up call. Then there are going to be additional meetings. In-between, there are going to be all types of Q&As and interactions where they’re going to be asking you questions if they have further interest on perhaps making an investment on your business. The third and probably the most
important pillar when it comes to raising money for your startup, or business, or whatever that is, or small business, is that you need to master the art of listening. When I say listening, it’s not listening for questions; it’s not listening for looking good; it’s not listening for “What can I say to make sure they get it?” It’s listening for concerns. What separates you on the money are the concerns in-between. What you want to do is try to get as many meetings as possible with that investor because every meeting, every interaction that you get with the investor, is just one step closer to the money. What you want to do is use every meeting to make sure that you let them speak. That’s why it’s all about listening. It’s not about talking. You want to keep it simple on your end. You want to answer it specifically what they are asking you, but really always focus, focus, focus on the
pattern of concerns that are ultimately driving those questions that you’re receiving because if you’re able to nail it on fulfilling concerns, you’re going to be able to increase your chances and your closing rate by a mile.