Kim Lisa TaylorSecurities Attorney, Founder, Syndication Attorneys, PLLC · Corporate Securities Attorney, 2x Best-Selling Author, Nationwide Speaker | Private Placement

Aligning Goals with Investors: Why It Matters!

24 Sept 2024 · 1 min

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0:39

In this short advisory video, the speaker emphasizes that misaligned goals between founders and investors lead to unhappy relationships, making alignment essential. He introduces a practical approach for early-stage founders: maintaining an investor database, often starting with a simple Excel spreadsheet to log contacts, conversations, and investors' return expectations (typically around 10‑11%). When evaluating a first deal, the founder should compare these expectations with projected annualized returns (e.g., around 12%) to assess whether the deal fits both parties' goals.

Chapters

If your goals don't align, it's not really worth the hassle because someone is going to be very unhappy in that relationship. This now also comes to your investor database that we always talk about. When you're starting out, some people in the very beginning use an Excel spreadsheet and just notate when they've spoken to people and they, you know, put those answers in there, right? You talk to a couple of people and they're looking for returns. You know, around, you know, 10, 11%, right? Now comes your first deal, and you think, and based on your projections, the annualized returns may be around somewhere around 12%.