Keep a High Profile

The main problem that every new startup eventually faces is the issue of funding. This just might be the biggest challenge that any entrepreneur faces, and a good company profile is crucial to getting the attention of investors. But how do you write a company profile that will intrigue investors and engage them to take action afterwards? The key to this question is to speak the “language” of the investors. Getting in their heads and thinking the way they do will take all the guess work out of the process. Here are a few tips on how to do that.

Be clear on what you’re doing

A common mistake entrepreneurs make is to not clearly state the problem they are solving in their respective marketplace. They'll talk about the features of the product and get romantically lost in their own brilliance instead of emphasizing the benefits of their solution, who it helps, and how it will help them. Be very explicit about the problem you are tackling, and state exactly how you plan to solve it. 

Don't confuse me with details

Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of putting too much information in their company profile. Overwhelming an investor with tons of useless information will get you nowhere fast. An investor’s time and attention span is very short early on in the game. Limit your profile to the highlights emphasizing the points that make you stand out. Hit hard and lead with your biggest benefits without getting too wordy. Use words, sentences and paragraphs that are short and clear. Long words and technical jargon will make you seem pompous and disconnected. Your potential investors may not know a thing about your industry, so burdening them with words they don't understand is a sure way to lose their attention. So KISS also works for company profiles. Keep It Short and Simple

Speak on your biggest assets - you and your team

A typical startup company scrambles to maximize the effectiveness of the few tangible assets it has. One of the strongest assets of an early-stage startup is the team. A strong team is a valuable selling tool. Talk about your qualifications, skills, experience and background. Your team and what they bring is one of the first things investors will look at. They want the confidence that you can take their investment and turn it into the next big exit. You are your company, your company is you.

So these are three key points that you need to address when writing your company profile. If you don't have the time to invest in this between development, marketing, biz dev, administration and the thousands of other tasks occupying your mind, you can outsource it to a professional copywriter. These web content providers specialize in writing services that can be targeted to different audiences (e.g. investors vs. users), but nonetheless, it's important for you to stay deeply involved in the process. Nobody can tell your story better than you.

Birth of a writing services business

What happened?

It was sparked off by the convergence of two major events in my life. The first was the fact that the technology company I worked in for many years, closed down. Most employees (including yours truly) were laid off (under generous terms, so no need to feel bad), while a few were kept on to tie up loose ends. The second event was my turning 50. Yes...that magical number did something to me.

Why writing services?

I had been toying with the idea of doing something independently for quite some time - and the confluence of these two events presented the opportunity. I felt like “it’s now or never”. So after a brief experiment with an idea I had for a startup (that quickly died in an Excel spreadsheet), I took the direction of writing services. Why writing services? Well, I had plenty of experience writing different texts in the various positions I held over the years. Many of those years were in Product Marketing where I engaged in a variety of writing assignments from web content to technical RFx proposals. I remembered how much I enjoyed putting the finishing touches on a writing assignment - and how proud I was when my submissions to industry competitions won prizes for my company.

Technicalities

So I went about the technicalities of setting myself up as an “Authorized Dealer” or “Osek Murshe” as the term goes in Israel. This meant opening files with the different government agencies - Internal Revenue, National Insurance and VAT. I got myself a great accountant who briefed me on everything I needed, and in fact he handled all the beaurocracy. “Hey presto” - within a couple of days I was ready to do business.

Infrastructure

Or was I? 

Here I am. Come on. Bring on the business. Don’t push. 

So...no. It’s not quite like that as we all know. I need to set up my web presence and let the world know I exist (which is one of the points of this blog of course). So first I got myself a logo designed on fiverr by a great graphic designer called actualreviewnet. He also did the cover photo for my Facebook business page (yes, please go ahead and “like” it).  Then I needed a website. So this was my project for a while. I went with Wix because they provided the best tools and templates, for someone as graphically inept as me, to create something that looked half way decent. And since my business cards were delivered last week, I can now say that my infrastructure is done.

Lessons learnt so far

So I'm ready to go, and already have me a couple of great customers. Even in this short time, I've learnt a few valuable lessons:

• You can get some great quality work on Fiverr. It makes starting a business affordable under any circumstances
• Go to meetups - they’re really interesting, you meet people who are really doing stuff and they’re great for networking
• When out networking, keep your business cards loose in your pocket so that you can whip them out easily. Don’t futz about trying to extract them from ill-fitting holders.
• I’ve got so much to learn.