HKSTP TecONE Investment Series Seminar “How investors influence your business development?”

HKSTP TecONE Investment Series seminar named “How investors influence your business development?” was organized by Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) with strategic partner “Hong Kong Business Angel Network” (HKBAN) on 6th Sep 2017.  The guest speaker was Mr. Desmond Marshall (Managing Director, Rouge Ventures) and he shared his experience and view of investor to us.

In the beginning, he introduced himself and he was the founder of Pitch Perfect platform.

I would like to summarize some key points in his speech below.

i)             Business development is related to Psychology.  Founder of startup should have sales technique. Investors would understand the roles of founders/partners of startup first.

ii)            Startup asked investors for money.  Investors would ask “What is my return?” (Fair Trade)

iii)           Investors did give you money based on 5 min pitch.  They would investigate first (Due diligence process)

iv)           Key words: I am the ONLY ONE, UNIQUE, and Professionalism.

v)            If you don’t need money for your business, don’t ask.

vi)           Investors would ask you “How do you use the money?”

vii)         Tips: understand your investors (investigating through LinkedIn, facebook, etc).  Most people fail because of lazy.

viii)        Some questions ask yourself

-          Why your particular clients use their money to buy your product/service?

-          Why you attract those people to pay?  Why people pay you to solve problem?

-          Look at the big picture.  Do you the best?

-          Can we become a good partner? Founder is open-mind?

-          What kind of strategic partner you need in the market?

ix)           Startup size as little as possible

x)            Made decision as quick as possible (After investor advice)

xi)           Strategic partner / investor put you in the better place and more competitive.  (Strategic Value-added)

xii)         How much information gives to investor for money?  Desmond said as little as possible.  Don’t waste their time!  If good one, one page is enough (or one slide, 2 lines of email, etc.)  But it needs “Solid” and “Fact”. Show how solid you are.

Some information could be found through the Linkedin, Pitch Perfect platform or Wechat.

Q&A Session.

Reference:

HKSTP - http://www.hkstp.org

TecONE - http://tecone.hkstp.org/t1_web/