Early-Stage Investor Questions

Financial investors are inundated with funding requests from entrepreneurs.  As a matter of survival, they focus on “getting to No” before investing the time to “getting to KNOW”  about an opportunity.  Once an investor says No, they seldom revisit their decision.  Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs begin to pursue investors, or spend an inordinate amount of time on pitch competitions, far too early in their journey.  The end result is wasted time and effort.  Instead, entrepreneurs should focus their attention in developing a deep understanding of their business and their target markets. 

This presentation lists a series of questions in several categories that an entrepreneur must be able to answer.  Most of them will be asked by investors as part of their initial “No or Know” decision.

Attendees of this session will:

• Understand the company stage most likely to be attractive to investors.
• Understand the fundamental difference in goals between entrepreneurs and investors.
• Be exposed to a list of questions that should be reviewed.
• Be provided with links to the questions themselves and several related investor preparation online articles.

COMPLIMENTARY ADMISSION

This session will be presented: BOTH LIVE IN PERSON & VIRTUALLY.

You may join us in the training room (seating is limited) or listen/watch virtually.  Please indicate your preference when registering. 

For those attending virtually, a link will be sent prior to the program.

For further information please contact Stephanie Sokenis at the Gwinnett Entrepreneur Center at GEC@GwinnettCounty.com

About Our Speaker: Tom Berger

Tom Berger spent twenty-two years with public companies, including seventeen years at Motorola in a variety of engineering, marketing, and sales positions. He was one of the founders of joint venture between Motorola and IBM that built out and ran the nation’s first wireless data network. He was an Operating Partner with a major venture capital firm and ran seven venture-backed high-tech startups that had combined exists of over $260M. He has Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Electrical Engineering and has nine issued patents. Six of the patents were sold to Google. For the past several years, Tom has been coaching entrepreneurs and startups on a pro bono basis and has created the CxO-Atlas.com website. It contains 693 short articles and numerous presentations and tools covering virtually aspects of starting and running a company. He is an active speaker at multiple local Atlanta startup venues and serves on several advisory boards. Tom is a mentor at the Tech Alpharetta Innovation Center.

Tom and his wife, Nancy, have three children and eight grandchildren. Over the years, Tom and his two Golden Retrievers, Smith and Wesson, made 650 visits to Special Needs Schools. He is an advisor to a non-profit that focuses on addressing human trafficking in Atlanta.