YouTube advice video (Stefan Georgi) arguing that many entrepreneurs mistakenly seek investors when they actually need mentors or skill development. The speaker recommends founders invest in themselves—learn marketing, copywriting, funnel-building, and customer acquisition (paid and organic)—or hire/team up with someone who has those skills. Showing initial traction (sales, customers) makes fundraising easier and yields better terms; exceptions include large inventory needs or cases requiring very rapid scale, where loans or equity may be necessary. The tone is practical and prescriptive, with informal asides and a final call-to-action.
Chapters
One mistake that I think a lot of entrepreneurs make is they think they need an investor when really they need a mentor. And by that, what I really mean is I've had people come to me and they're like, hey, we, you know, we're looking for an investment and also somebody who could help us with the marketing and growing the business. And on the, you know, outside, that doesn't seem like a terrible thing. But what does that really mean to me? It means like, hey, we don't actually know how to. We have an idea or a product, but we have no idea how to sell it or to scale it or to grow it or anything like that. So we want you to give us money and then help us to build this business. And that's like a pretty crappy proposition for a potential investor. It just implies a lot of work because now it's like, not just the money, right? But you also want a bunch of my time, and it makes it a lot harder for you to get investors to say yes. So from my perspective, if you're looking at, if this is something you're looking for, you're much better off investing in yourself and going and learning marketing and learning how to write, copy, build funnels, acquire customers, whether that's through paid media like Facebook or YouTube or native or TikTok or Instagram or it's affiliate traffic or it's organic, right? Build that up, actually start making sales, start acquiring customers, understand how to build your own sales funnels and, and do that stuff or have somebody on your team who does already, right? If you don't want, if you're not gonna do it, have someone on your team. Because then when you go and ask for an investment and you're already making progress, you're already making sales, you're already growing and scaling. You'll give a lot more people who are interested in giving you money. And at the same time, you'll be able to get way better terms. So you'll have like a higher valuation, be able to give away less equity for a larger amount of cash. So it just makes way more sense. But the thing people come in is they think they need an investor where again, they just need a mentor or they need somebody to help them build the business. So a mentor, a partner, finding somebody like an employee, like, you're much better served that. And by the way, for most people, once you do this, once you actually have that you've invested in yourself or you've got someone you are building, growing, and making sales, then the chances that you're going to need an investor actually go down pretty significantly because then you're actually growing and making sales. If you're smart, you can cash flow your growth. There are exceptions if you have to do a large inventory purchase or something like that, Right. Or maybe you're trying. It's critical that you scale very fast to dominate the market before other people come in, other competitors come in, because you're not like, it's not proprietary and you can't have a moat. And so in those cases, sure, maybe you need investment. Although if inventory, frankly, you'd still be better off trying to get a loan with like a modest interest rate than giving away equity if it's something that's working and growing. And you know, on the scale side, sure, that that's really, to me, one of the biggest reasons for investment. My cat had to make another cameo here. The house is a little messy because we've been quarantined due to Covid. But anyway, so hopefully that makes sense. And assuming it does, make sure to give me a like here. Click the like button, leave a comment, let me know your thoughts and subscribe to my channel if you haven't already. Because I would love to, you know, just, I don't know, keep engaging, making these videos and all that. But ultimately, again, invest in yourself, invest in your skills, or find somebody who has the skills that you're missing and make, you know, as an employee or potentially a partner, being careful of giving away equity no matter what. But ultimately, don't try to find investors that are going to magically generate sales and grow the whole business for you. Because then that's more of like a laziness thing. That's how it comes across, right? It's almost like, hey, I have an idea. Somebody like, you know, grow this for me and make me rich. And that's not appealing to investors. Anyway, that's all I got. See you soon.
