For founders winding down from a challenging year and planning for the new year, this is an excellent time to reevaluate your relationships with the investors you work with.
I am fortunate to be able to work with almost a dozen early-stage startups directly and get to observe the interactions between several dozen investors and founders. From all this, I have seen some founders do a better job than others tapping their investors’ strengths and wisdom while watching out for trouble.
What can founders do to revitalize their relationships with investors? Here’s a short list of dos and don’ts gleaned from what I’ve learned over the years:
As in any long-term relationship, knowing who you have chosen to work with is vital.
Investors, like all people, have distinct personality traits and sometimes associated shortcomings. This can be hard to gauge initially, but make sure you don’t ignore it.
Here are some examples of personality traits I have seen and how founders can learn to work with them:
Be ruthless about how you spend your time, especially with your investors.
If you have an investor actively investing and engaged with their portfolio, they will be well versed in market and industry trends.
They can be a valuable source of information for questions such as:
However, founders may want to have deeper conversations with their investors. Here is a typical example of a deep topic and some practical dos and don’ts:
Source @TechCrunch
