In this Ask Evan episode, host Evan Carmichael answers a question from George, an entrepreneur in Halifax, Canada, who is looking for startup investment for his online business. Evan explains that angel investors typically prefer to invest locally because they want proximity to the companies they fund, making it difficult for a Canadian startup to attract U.S. angels. He suggests alternative funding routes such as crowdfunding platforms (e.g., Kickstarter) while noting potential limitations for Canadian companies. The core recommendation is to bootstrap first: build a minimum viable product, acquire early customers, and generate some revenue to demonstrate traction. By showing real sales—even a prototype—founders can differentiate themselves from idea‑only startups and present a stronger value proposition to local angels or other investors. Evan concludes with a call to action for viewers to like, comment, and submit future questions.
Questions this video answers
Angel investors usually prefer local companies, making U.S. angels a hard bet. Consider crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter (though Canadian eligibility may vary). The most reliable path is to bootstrap: develop a minimum viable product, acquire early customers, generate some revenue, and then approach local angels with demonstrated traction.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. In today's episode, I'm going to answer a question from one of my Facebook readers, George, who's an entrepreneur in Halifax, Canada, and wanted my advice on how to raise capital. So he wrote in saying, I just started an online business, wondering where to seek investment. My business is located in Halifax, Canada, and I'm looking for startup investment from a local and foreign investor. "Can you advise me on how and where to seek investment in the States? Investments in online startups in Halifax are very rare. Angel investors here are mostly interested in innovations related to the environment. George." So thanks for the question, George. A couple things for you, I guess. If you're looking for angel investment, usually angels don't invest in companies that are far away from where they are. Angels like to be close to the companies that they are putting their money into. They want to be able to drive to you and talk to you if something's going wrong with their investment. And it's pretty rare to have people who are in other countries, if you're looking at the States in particular, to have successful angel investors want to invest in a company in Halifax, Canada. So it's a little too far for most angels. It's not impossible, but it'd be a hard bet to try to go and get those guys. If you really do need the capital, another way to look at it, if you can't get a local investor is the crowdsourced method. A lot of people are raising funds on websites like Kickstarter. That's probably the most well-known, but I don't think you can do it if you're a Canadian company. There are other options to look at, but you can look at the Kickstarter type of crowdsourcing raising capital method. And basically here you're asking lots of individual people to support you. If you need $100,000 or more, I don't know how much you need for your online company, But you can post that as an amount and people from around the world, small chunks, will give you the money to hopefully get your business off the ground. That being said, it's still a new industry and honestly, probably your best bet is to try to bootstrap the beginning. The challenge that a lot of investors face is they're being bombarded with a lot of new startup pitches. When I was in the VC community, we got bombarded with new startup pitches, and nobody had customers almost. There was— most of them were just an idea. And what you did— the challenge that you have here is you need to separate yourself from all these other guys who just have an idea and aren't able to actually take action on it. So your best bet would be to try to bootstrap the start, go get some customers, go get a little bit of revenue. You don't have to show that you're making tons of profit, but show that you can get a customer, show that one guy is willing to buy from you, and and already you're ahead of 95% of all the other people who are submitting their plans to angel investors. So if you can show that somebody will actually buy from you, even if it's a prototype, you know, your minimum viable product, just something bare bones, it doesn't have to be full-featured, but if you can show that somebody's willing to pay money to you as a customer and you have a little bit of money coming in, then it's a lot easier to go to the investors and say, "Hey look, I've got it off the ground a little bit, now I need money to expand." expand and really make this into a business. That's a much easier value proposition to take to even a local angel investor than, "Hey, I have an idea. I hope you can help me fund it." And not to say that your idea isn't great, it's just that from the investor side of view, they're being hit all day long with tons of pitches from these startups with just an idea but haven't, you know, aren't able to take it to the next step. So you want to show that you are that guy, you are the entrepreneur who can make it, and stand out from the crowd by going out and trying to get a little bit of traction on your own to Hopefully that helps, George. Maybe not the answer you wanted to hear, but dish it like it is. If you guys like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. It makes me want to do more of these videos for you guys. And if you have a question about raising capital or another question for your business, I'd be happy to answer it if you want to leave it in the comments below. So thank you, and we'll see you on the next episode. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]
