Elizabeth has two key thoughts on this question.

Thought #1 – Investors want to invest in a business for growth.

No investor wants to hear about how you need X dollars to be able to survive 18 months. That's not the narrative you want to paint.

Here’s how to reframe your narrative that will make investors excited to fund you.

“If I had X dollars, I'm pretty certain I could get to Y. I know this because I’ve validated the market–[paid ads, cold email strategy, existing customers, etc]–and we consistently get Z results.”

Of course, you would need to have tested your process enough to share with confidence that you can replicate the results at scale. Our point is that investors want to invest in businesses to help them grow, not keep them from sinking.  

Thought #2 – VCs may not want to invest even if you have a great company

We’ll be honest: there are a lot of ideas that investors are not that excited about. But that doesn't mean you have a bad business.

For example, US investors are not excited about hardware or consumer apps right now.

A lot of VCs have zero expertise in hardware and it costs a lot of money to produce. So VCs would rather sit out even if you have an amazing business.

Or if you're building the next Instagram, VCs can't tell if it’s going to be a breakout success. Or they simply don't have much experience using consumer apps. Remember that VCs tend to be older and they don't really quite get it. Which leads them to also sit out here.

There are certain industries that are harder to raise money in than others simply because investors just don't understand. Or they don't want to put their capital into that thesis because it's not their area of expertise.

Unfortunately, B2C education is one of those categories.

Elizabeth has backed some amazing companies in neglected industries and other investors don't want to get involved. It's been a real struggle for some of our portcos to raise money even if they have phenomenal traction.

Elizabeth’s general advice would be not to rely on investor capital (if you can).

At a certain point, you may have enough traction to be able to raise from angels because they love you, believe in what you’re doing, and you've shown some level of execution.

But it may be a different story for VCs. If you still want to go down that path, get some light feedback from VCs around your idea. But we've warned you here first.