An angel investor says founders who disappear after a pitch miss the real opportunity. Send regular updates to investors who pass, build trust over time, and create referral networks that pay off in future rounds.
Communicate with your stakeholders. I do a certain amount of angel investing and I am shocked at the number of people who come to me and say, hey, I like what you do, consider investing in my firm. And then that first meeting is the last I ever hear from them. I will always, in those meetings, say, put me on your friends of X list. I want to be surprised. Tell me what's going on. Really, a lot of them are saying, if you're not going to write a check in the first conversation, then I don't want to talk to you anymore. If that is the style of business they're running, then yeah, sure, I don't want to be a part of them. But the other thing I found is that there's a significant difference in those who are communicating with those friends of the company, who are making like a weekly or a monthly note where, hey, here's what's been going on, and a way to be keeping in touch that then builds trust over time so that you can eventually do the fundraise, you can be getting referrals from these people, you can be making use of them as your partners in the business. So communicate with your stakeholders, communicating.
