Hey investors, we love you too, but…
Do your research
We had an investor ask us (same person, same question, multiple meetings) - “Your activity numbers look great, but how do we know it’s not just a few players submitting a whole lot of sightings?”
Open the app. Look at our homepage. We publish a live activity stream. Shows everything.
Five months after discussions began with an investment group, one of the investors, who’d we’d met in three different meetings, said to us, “Oh, you support plants? I didn’t know that.”
Really? Have you never opened the mobile app? Not read our newsletters? Why are you wasting our time?
This is not innocent or harmless. It costs us time, increases our risk, and can potentially kneecap a fast-growing Australian venture on its way to 10x growth and/or important social benefits such as biodiversity conservation.
Speaking of risk…
Respect risk
Don’t say, “Hey, we have to be very careful because we have to protect our investors’ money.” (I hear this a lot). As if you’re special. Do you think the rest of the world is throwing money away?
Of course you have to be careful. We, too, have to be careful, because we’ve committed everything to a high-risk venture.
We make it very clear right from the beginning: QuestaGame is a high risk, high reward venture. If our kitchen is too hot for you, don’t enter.
No doubt there are young start-ups who look at investors as potential “pay-days.” Don’t mix us up with them.
For a real venture like QuestaGame, your risk is not more than our risk. Respect our risk. Money is never more valuable than the time, passion and commitment required for world-changing innovation, a good cause, and the opportunity for high returns.
Exist in global Internet time
If it takes you 6-9 months to close a deal on an Internet tech company, you’re going to fail (and so will we).
Each month the Internet is different than it was the month before. There are different trends, different risks, new competitors, new business models. Internet tech is about living in a state of constant, rapid evolution and design thinking.
The change is only getting faster. If you force an Internet company to comply to an outdated process, conducting meetings without screens (!), you’re killing the company’s chance to be a global competitor (and don’t complain later when the company fails).
Don’t waste our time if you’re not interested in changing the world, or in saving biodiversity, or if you’re a climate-change denier.
Seems reasonable, no?
Don’t fear tall poppies.
Australia is a big country with a small population. A tall poppy in Australia is a very short poppy in China, India, the US and other places. The more tall poppies we can grow, the better for all of us. Let’s stand tall together.
QuestaGame has been global from day one, and is competing globally. If you’re not globally minded, we’re not the right fit for you.
This isn’t shark tank.
We’re just a bunch of people trying to work together to grow a global business.
This is not a game. Treat people with respect. Respect their time. Don’t gate-keep or create illusions of financial mastery. (Statistics suggest you know little more about creating billion dollar businesses than anyone else). Be open. Be forthright. Admit what you don’t know. Don’t exaggerate your value.
We’re doers. We measure success on achieving specific targets. Which means your participation is only as valuable as what it can achieve for QuestaGame.
The fact is, you have strengths. You have experience. Contacts. Resources. Trust from investors.
You have value and most of it is probably well-earned and well-deserved. (Some of it, of course, is just a result of circumstance).
Meetings should not be one sided. We’re not fish in a food chain. The goal is to discover - quickly, without wasting the other person’s time - whether or not your strengths can benefit QuestaGame; and whether QuestaGame can benefit you. If it’s a fit, great. If not, we move on.
Stop asking for pitch decks
We don’t do them, so don’t ask. Our company is online and open. The pitch deck has become such a old trope that investors worry more about slide formatting than the business itself. Let’s do better.