Questions

Where to find potential investors to an early stage startup, being a foreign and living in a third world country?

I have written an article on Medium about how hard is to hire coders in my Country: https://medium.com/@cadu_82285/my-saga-on-hiring-developers-in-brazil-and-what-i-learned-trying-to-be-a-solo-enterpreneur-f4c818e3d4c7 I've made all the project of a website and app: the design, consulted lawyers for legal matters, translated the website for two languages other than my native. Did it all that need to be done but coding. The only thing left to be done and since i don't know how to do it, i hired third party coders to do the job. So long story short, i spent all of money with coders that didn't deliver my product (website and app) and now im suing them (two different people...yeah im that screwed). To get my money back is a long process because the laws here are weak and justice is beyond slow. (even when both contracts that i did had good protection against what happened). So i, now, can only see this money back to my account after 4 to 5 years. I have to start over without any money. My question is how to get funded outside my country, how to get funded being an foreign. Where can i get reunions with people that might be interested? Is there any online place to show your project? A safe place where people show their projects for potential investors? How to do that with other people, from other countries? Where is the best place to find people to partner with? My idea, now, is to present the hole project and move away from where i live to another country. Im doing all the math for costs to present, i have the pitch deck, have the marketing plan with videos that i did too. Where to start?

3answers

Hi,
If you have a good pitch deck and a decent BMC (business model canvas), "all" you need to do is start sending it to investors. There are lots of free, online lists on the internet. The problem isn't finding them, it's making sure that you send the right pitch deck, the perfect emails/contact method, and that you select the right person to send to.
You're welcome to send me your pitch deck after scheduling a call if you want my opinion and advice on how to contact investors and/or my opinion on your idea in general.

I've successfully helped over 300 entrepreneurs, startups and businesses, and I would be happy to help you. After scheduling a call, please send me some background information so that I can prepare in advance - thus giving you maximum value for your money. Take a look at the great reviews I’ve received: https://clarity.fm/assafben-david

good luck


Answered 4 years ago

With other *straight-to-investor* answers taken care here (and by the way I appreciate those straight answers because I am an entrepreneur that lived in the past in Silicon Vally and find myself today in Brazil) I would like to throw a contribution to this thread.

The consideration that crossing that barrier, finding your way from the 3rd-world country towards a remote investor, is yet another test. Of course, there is the question of market, so of course an investor that does not want to invest in Brazil won't be willing to know much about your startup idea targeting Brazil.

But taking that aside, we should remember that a great investor is busy with a network around her, her network is streaming relevant information about possible investments to make.

Therefore the way to get there has to do with climbing the network up. Solving your locality barrier, can be thought as a test similarly to what Marc Andreessen said about pitch, that "the formal presentation is another test" [1].

Beyond this test component, the following assertion in the same interview from Marc really shows one of the most critical things you gotta tackle, that "every other pitch you’re ever gonna make is going to be to somebody who’s going to be much worse than us [investors] right? customers".

In other words, if you are able to convince customers to your solution, you have paved one of the most difficult things for an early stage. Sorry for potential distance from the main question but I feel this is anyway very related.

Other related point is to seek top investment firms that are looking at emerging countries. There are cases of top VC firms, like Sequoia, that are always looking for fresh perspectives about investments, which includes solving this barrier.

[1] https://medium.com/@taboca/how-investors-sees-a-formal-presentation-pitch-6d85df0c7bb


Answered 4 years ago

You can’t, try to talk with the local nearest bank and build a business plan.


Answered 4 years ago

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