Originally written by Matthew Cushen on Small Business
The last two columns I’ve written were about showing investors you have an irresistible team and then some thoughts on how to build up a team on the back of raising funding. To close this ‘team trilogy’, how about looking beyond the day-to-day team for expertise?
Being an entrepreneur can feel lonely. Particularly for a someone founding a business by themselves. But even for a pair or threesome, discussions can soon get stuck in a rut.
So it’s super useful to tap into objective external input and support. But there are watch-outs. Often as an investor I see a page of a pitch deck full of headshots and names, sometimes with a brief biography, under the title ‘advisors’. I know the entrepreneur hopes to impress with all the expertise and experience they have gathered around them. But very often it’s a turn off, as I cannot see any thought given to what is hoped to be achieved by each individual, and only see the risk of:
a pointless list of people without commitment, time or proper understanding of the business (sometimes just on a vanity project to burnish their own credentials)
a minefield that slows down decision making
and/or
confusion