Originally written by Matthew Cushen on Small Business
No one should consider launching a product or service without getting into the heads of their consumer, digging into when, where and how often your offer might be purchased and what you are competing against for a share of their purse.
The same principle stands for understanding the motivations of a potential investor. After all you are selling something to them. Here are a few pen portraits of 7 investor personas that you might come across. Whilst you’re unlikely to meet exactly the investors below, you can expect to come across some combination of these characteristics.
1. Passionate Polly: she is intimately involved in your market, maybe professionally experienced or they have some empathy as a potential user of your product or service, for example a mother is more likely to understand baby products.
Tip: be careful in assuming that because someone knows your market that they will understand or appreciate your idea — they may be so entrenched in the standard thinking around the industry they find it hard to see a valuable innovation that could take a category in a different way.
2. Taxed Trevor: there are some highly attractive tax reliefs available for investors