💡 One single characteristic of an entrepreneur that investors look for
Have you guessed it yet?
If investors were asked: "What is the one single characteristic of entrepreneurs that is important to you when making an investment decision?" What would their answer be?
Dedication?
Stubbornness?
Leadership?
It's much more trivial than that. The honest answer: "The ability to make money for investors". That is, purely mathematically, you need to invest in those who have already had a successful exit before. That's it, nothing more.
Okay, exit is a rare thing, not everyone lives to see it. Let's try to simplify the task, what is the answer?
The ability to raise money.
When you set out on the path of startups, venture capital funding is a life-giving source of energy. And if you don't know how to draw water from this source, you're done for.
This is a paradox. We invest in those who know how to raise money. But the answer is not as obvious as it seems. The ability to raise money is a combination of many characteristics:
The ability to build an investment-attractive business (not to be confused with a profitable or cost-effective one)
The ability to conduct a dialog with investors
The ability to close deals
Without all these components, charisma alone will not get you very far. So the "ability to raise money" is the tip of the iceberg, behind which lies the almost perfect entrepreneur.
This is what investors are looking for.