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What Business Angels Are Looking For In A Potential Investment

We have all seen the TV show "Dragons Den", but how do other business Angels think? Award winning CIO Innovator and Business Angel Phil Young explains what people like him are looking for in investment opportunities.

Business Angels come in all shapes and guises, but the one thing that we all have in common is that the investments we make are likely to yield a financial reward for the entrepreneur and us. But this is not the only thing we are looking at when we are...

...given a proposition, we take into consideration many factors that will make the difference to if an investment decision is right for us. We have in-built risk calculators that set bells ringing very loudly when the pitch that we here does not tick certain boxes.

One such key factor is people; we look to see if the people who have the business idea are credible and open to suggestion for improvement, easy to work with. We look if they understand their market segment and what sort of track record they have had in the past. The reality is that people buy people and this can be a key differentiator. I will give you an example;

Let's say that a postman has decided to start an ice-cream making business, straight away this would set alarm bells ringing. I would be asking myself what this person knows about the market they are entering into, apart from being an experienced eater of ice-cream, have they done their market research, have they produced any samples, do they have any forward orders, are they investing in the business them self etc, etc.

If your business proposition happens to be a start-up, a... continued on page two >

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