Investors, How to Find Them?

It's extremely difficult. Watch Dragons' Den  - it's not entirely realistic but gives you an idea of the sort of thing people are looking for and will ask you.

The key thing is that an investor wants to make money, most of them want  a reasonable return at low risk. A few want a huge return in exchange for high risk. Banks ask for interest (ie no share of the business or profit) for NO risk. (ie they will want a guarantee that the the money will be repaid - which might be your house.)

So number one is work out if you have  a banking proposition (ie so little risk you don't mind betting your house) or an investment opportunity.

Work out a  business plan and prove that it can make money and pay back the investment.

Are you sure you know enough to design it , make it, sell it, etc - if not then all these things have to be added. If its an amazing idea and unprotected most investors won't want to know - they want IP with some kind of protection (mostly patents).

Every time you show it to some one you run the risk that they'll steal your idea or leak it accidentally. You can get people to sign NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreements) but it's not clear that these are worth the paper they are written on (are you really going to sue MegaCorp for stealing you plan ?).

Or you can try Kickstarter - it works for some but it requires different marketing skills and you need to have all the stuff in place to make something.

The next bit is (possibly) prejudice:

If you came to me with something based on a PI I wouldn't care if you are using the Pi just as a prototype platform (although that means you are a long way of production)  - but if you mean to use the Pi in your production design I would not be interested - why - because the existence of your business is dependent on the RPI people going on making the thing. I would be looking for a critical key component to be sourced form a company with a  track record of business to business supply.

MK

It's extremely difficult. Watch Dragons' Den  - it's not entirely realistic but gives you an idea of the sort of thing people are looking for and will ask you.

The key thing is that an investor wants to make money, most of them want  a reasonable return at low risk. A few want a huge return in exchange for high risk. Banks ask for interest (ie no share of the business or profit) for NO risk. (ie they will want a guarantee that the the money will be repaid - which might be your house.)

So number one is work out if you have  a banking proposition (ie so little risk you don't mind betting your house) or an investment opportunity.

Work out a  business plan and prove that it can make money and pay back the investment.

Are you sure you know enough to design it , make it, sell it, etc - if not then all these things have to be added. If its an amazing idea and unprotected most investors won't want to know - they want IP with some kind of protection (mostly patents).

Every time you show it to some one you run the risk that they'll steal your idea or leak it accidentally. You can get people to sign NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreements) but it's not clear that these are worth the paper they are written on (are you really going to sue MegaCorp for stealing you plan ?).

Or you can try Kickstarter - it works for some but it requires different marketing skills and you need to have all the stuff in place to make something.

The next bit is (possibly) prejudice:

If you came to me with something based on a PI I wouldn't care if you are using the Pi just as a prototype platform (although that means you are a long way of production)  - but if you mean to use the Pi in your production design I would not be interested - why - because the existence of your business is dependent on the RPI people going on making the thing. I would be looking for a critical key component to be sourced form a company with a  track record of business to business supply.

MK