Startup Funding: Why Investors Keep Saying NO To Your BIG Idea

Danielle Morrill (right), Ooshma Garg (middle), and Poornima Vijayashanker (left)

Interview with Investment Partners at XFactor Ventures Danielle Morrill CEO and Founder of Mattermark and Ooshma Garg CEO and Founder of Gobble

Think you’re onto something BIG, and surprised you’re receiving so many NO’s from investors?

It can really make you second guess yourself, and shake your confidence…

… but it shouldn’t!

Receiving a LOT of NO’s is natural.

You may be tempted to listen to the feedback after receiving some NO’s and think you just need to launch your product, change your business model, or grow your customer base, and then you’ll be more attractive to investors.

Guess again.

The reason you receive for the NO and the feedback you get may not be aligned.

Why?

Because at the end of the day, investors are human. They don’t want to hurt the feeling of a first time founder, and don’t want to seem rude in case they want to invest later.

Yes they just might invest later.

So how can you tell what is really going on?

Well that’s what we’re going to debunk in today’s episode of Build! To help us out I’ve invited Ooshma Garg who is the CEO and Founder of Gobble, and Danielle Morrill who is the CEO and Founder of Mattermark. They’ve both recently become investment partners at XFactor Ventures, an investment firm that’s focused on investing in female founders and mixed-gender teams.

We’re going to help get comfortable with receiving NOs and deciphering what they really mean.

You’ll learn:

• How Danielle and Ooshma learned to keep their spirits up despite all the NOs they received
• How to be politely persistent with investors who won’t bother taking a meeting with you
• The various tests investors put first time founder through
• How to maintain a relationship with an investors even after they say NO

In next week’s final episode on this topic, we’ll cover what it’s going to take to get a yes and that first check from an investor!

Listen to the episode on iTunes!

You can listen to this episode of Build on iTunes.

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Check out these additional resources on fundraising for startups

• Monetize Before Making Your Product
• Why You Should Consider Being An Early Stage Startup Employee

Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.