Kris Heyndrikx’s Post

Have you ever wondered what makes someone a good investor? The answer may surprise you! The financial media makes it seem like you need complicated strategies and up-to-the-minute market news to have any hope of success, but – despite all the hype – there is no demonstrated correlation between a complex strategy or the amount of time spent studying trends & actual results. The best ways to become a truly world-class investor are so simple that they seem hard to believe.

We all view the world through our own personal lens. When it comes to investing though, could your personal lens be holding you back? A topic I love to discuss, investor behaviour. It is wide ranging and impacts how we invest ourselves, and how we work with our investment professionals. Enjoy this week’s brief dive into investor biases.

Last week was all about sharing insights and thoughts on how to become a better investor. Let's recap that just for a minute, and when you're done you can... check the comments

You WILL NEVER find investors if you don’t know what you are doing / talking about 🫠 I get asked all the time “Where do you find investors?” 🤔 Here are a few of my top recommendations! It’s 🔑 that you are confident in what you are doing and know what you are talking about otherwise investors will see right through you!

Founders should engage potential investors as early as possible. When is that? The second a good first impression is possible. Tell the investors about your progress to date and share your goals. Then when you come back in 6 months, you can share how you achieved the goals you set. This will help build a healthy relationship between founders and investors. Thoughts?

Do you know if you’re sourcing the right types of investors? Here are 3 questions to ask yourself to make sure that you are: Are they articulate? Are they calm, collected, and confident, or always stressed out, rude, or pushy/impatient? Do you trust they have always done the right thing by their past partners and will honor the spirit of the agreement and terms of working together? Once you know the answer to all 3 of these questions, you should be able to provide yourself with a much better understanding of which investor leads you should be focussed on - and which you should probably say goodbye to. What types of investors are you looking to source? Let us know here in the comments!

Don't add an investor to your "list" unless you are clear on these 3 things👇 Without them you'll end up: 🔻 Nervous & unsure going into a raise 🔻 With a wide gap between your estimated low & high # **Here's your checklist** ❇️ 1) Compelling Reason ↳Why your investment (vs their current) ↳ Why now ❇️ 2) Financial Capabilities ↳ How much over 18 months ↳ When is it available ↳ From what type of accounts ❇️ 3) How they make decisions ↳ Who else is involved ↳ What other investments they're evaluating ↳ How they will they evaluate the decision Cheers to better conversations that win! 🥂 If you're seeing this post, holler at me in the comments! 👋 #syndication #capitalraising #salestips

Here’s a secret for founders: Send “investor updates” even before you have any investors. The audience can be anyone you have an existing relationship with who you think might be interested in investing. Investors like to “invest in lines not dots.” Meaning, they like to see how you operate instead of one or two pitch meetings and then investing. Not only is this an exercise that’s useful to your investors, but sending regular updates also benefits you as a founder. Regular investor updates allow you to take a step back from the day-to-day minutia and reflect on trends, opportunities and struggles over the past month or quarter. It’s a necessary reflection when every day may feel like you’re putting out fires.

Reason 23847624 investor updates matter: Pre-seed investing is *very* collaborative, and a ton of communication and reference checking is going on between founder/VC calls. If your committed investors don't have the most current information on your work, it will be hard for them to accurately and enthusiastically represent your vision, progress, and traction. Unfortunately, the reference-checking investor will likely read into a "meh" reference as a data point about you, not your investor.

I have had many conversations with investors lately and one key topic gets consistently brought up.... ➡ Can you guess what that is? The answer is in the video below! I'd love to get your thoughts on the subject!