Tuesday, September 28, 2010

8 reasons why Investors won't invest in my startup

I have been doing some soul searching lately about the future of my startup. Things like where I am in the lifecycle of my startup, if and when I should spend time and energy to raise funding, or how viable it is for my startup to follow 37signal's way to growth and profitability.

To keep things real, I have compiled a list of reasons why an investor would not want to invest in my startup. Here it goes,

1. I am building "yet another" project management tool. See Dharmesh's post on "Onstartup" about this.

2. My startup is in the B2B space (which takes longer and costs more), when all the craze is in the consumer space. 

3. I'm a 41-year-old, first time entrepreneur, and not charismatic. These days, most entrepreneurs are in their early twenties. Stats are stacked against my generation.

4. I don't have a great elevator pitch, nor do I have a great deck.

5. I don't have a great UX expert, nor do I have a great Customer development / Inbound marketing expert on my team.

6. I don't have a popular personal or product blog. In fact, last time I checked, our product blog had a blogger grade of 26 (by the way, I love the graders tools by Hubspot.)

7. I don't live in the Mecca of startup- Silicon Valley, for that matter, not even in Silicon Alley, or Boston.

8. I'm a first generation immigrant without any "social proof." Stats are again stacked against me.

Oh, well! I won't let this list get to me. I keep this list to remind me of things I need to do everyday to neutralize these forces. I also have a list of reasons why investors should invest in my startup. That's for another day.

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