How to Find Angel Investors on LinkedIn

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When starting a new business, one of the biggest challenges that entrepreneurs have to overcome is figuring out how to come up with the money they need. In the area of business, it takes money to make money. While there are some exceptions to the rule, most businesses can’t simply start up a business in their garage and be successful in a major way. Instead, they have to spend money to get started before they bring in any revenue. While you could always apply for a business loan or use lines of credit to get started, another viable option to consider is working with angel investors.

Angel investors are individuals who have large amounts of money to invest in small businesses. These angel investors become partial owners in the companies that they invest in. From that point forward, they are entitled to a share in the profits of the companies that they put their money into. The advantage of using angel investors is that you don’t have to worry about making a monthly payment as you would with a business loan. It gives you a lot of flexibility in what you can do from an ownership standpoint.

One of the big challenges in getting involved with angel investors is finding people to work with. Angel investors are rare and there are many businesses vying for limited angel funds. If you’re in the process of trying to find an angel investor, one tool that you might want to use is www.linkedIn.com. LinkedIn is a social networking website for professionals and it can be successfully used to help find angel investors. This article below offers a few tips on how to find angel investors on LinkedIn.

[image by TechCocktail on flickr]

Ask Questions
One of the best ways to find an angel investor to work with is to ask questions. Go to the “LinkedIn Questions” section and you can find a great venue to get a discussion started. When you post a question, try not to make it obvious that you are just interested in trying to find an angel investor. You could ask something like “What is angel investing?” or “How does angel investing work?” When you take the time to get a conversation going such as this, you may be able to attract an angel investor. Sometimes, angel investors will answer your questions and you can use that as an opportunity to introduce yourself and eventually your business idea.

Look for Advice
Instead of asking a general question about angel investing; you may also want to ask someone for advice about your business plan. When you bring up your business plan and ask people to help you fill in the blanks, you may be able to drum up some interest. If an angel investor happens to be reading through your post, he may make up his mind to invest in your business. To make this work, you must make a pretty compelling case for your business plan. Do your best to describe your idea and how it’s different than anything else that is already out there in the market.

Try Groups
One of the nice things about LinkedIn is that it has groups. You can search through the available groups on LinkedIn and potentially find a group that has a number of different investors in it. You can select Financing, Venture Capital and Private Equity groups and categories. Once you join the group, you can start interacting with different people and get to know some of them. After you develop relationships with some investors, you can ask them to review your business plan. You never know who you may come across in one of these groups. In some cases, you might find someone who is willing to fund your entire project or the majority of it.

Regardless of what you do, it’s important to remain professional throughout your discussions via LinkedIn. Don’t come in and start spamming the group right away with your business ideas. This is important because you may be able to join a group initially, without a lot of contacts, but you still need to have a good reputation before you start approaching people with your business idea.

To sum up the points discussed above; LinkedIn is one of the best places to go online when you are in need of angel investment capital. As long as you are willing to get in there and develop some relationships, you have a fair chance to do well. Take the time to fill out your profile and provide as much information about yourself as possible including a profile picture. For, if you seem anonymous, people will be less likely to work with you.

About the Author:

Jon Tucker is Director of ENotaryClasses.com, the leading provider of notary classes required by the State of California to become a notary public.