Page 155 - Midas Touch

Your job is to become a great entrepreneur who is worth investing in. That
takes personal growth, because being an entrepreneur is very different
from being an employee. An entrepreneur must have skills most people
don’t have.

Here’s your first lesson on raising money. Let’s call it “Raising Money
101.” First of all, most people have great ideas. The problem is that they
cannot raise money because they are looking at the whole exercise from
the wrong side of the desk. If you want to raise money, you need to look at
the world through the eyes of a professional investor in the I quadrant.
Professional investors don’t really care about your product, although
products do matter. The first thing the professional investor wants to know

is: who you are, your experience, your team, and who else stands behind
you. They want to know who you have as your partners, your advisory
board, your banker, and other investors. A pro looks at the people, because
they know business is about people.

Since most new entrepreneurs have no experience as entrepreneurs, and
professional entrepreneurs will not invest in them or their business, many

start-up businesses raise money from friends and family, betting on
friendship and love rather than on business skills. This is where it all gets
tricky. It’s a catch-22. You want a chance to prove you’re an entrepreneur
with great business skills, but you have to convince people that you are an
entrepreneur before you can acquire the great business skills. This is
precisely why the next type of person is important.

Working with Partners

Some entrepreneurs are solo acts, but many others have partners. Partners
are important because no one can know all the answers or possess all the
skills required at every level of the B-I Triangle. Having a partner can
increase your chance of surviving your first five years, the time period
when most new businesses fail.

The best partnerships are the ones where each person brings
complementary skills, talents, and experiences to the company. For
example, it’s common to see one partner who is outgoing and the other
who excels inside the business operations. In other partnerships, you might
find one partner who loves the big picture and another who loves detail.
You get the idea. A business partnership is like a marriage. If you choose