You’ve Earned An Investment, Now What?

Congratulations! You’ve earned your first real investment, but what are the next steps to ensure your investors are satisfied and your business thrives? Below, we’re sharing some of the most pressing, immediate next steps so that you can amplify your investor’s ROI, as well as business success.  

Maximize the business relationship with your investor   
There are two sides to every story when a company earns its first investment—the investment works toward the benefit of both the business and the investing firm. It’s the company’s task to maximize the investment to exit and it’s the investor’s responsibility to help the company achieve its goals. The business should take advantage of the assistance investors can provide—like help with building teams, leadership expertise, help with executing on deals, and more. The founding members of the company and the investors must establish a mutually beneficial relationship to where the investors add value, and the company meets or exceeds business objectives.
  
Change your mindset  
Your company earned its first round of funding, but the hard part isn’t out of the way. To maximize on the investment, the leaders need to shift from creating a startup to scaling and operating a growing business. With this shift comes more structure, stronger processes, and better strategic thinking.

A couple of things can’t change though—maintaining a lean operation and successful execution.  
 
Focus on building a strong team   
One of the most important factors of company success is the team building in the background. To show the company’s dedication to executing on set goals, it’s imperative to have employees that believe in the vision and values. Investors want to have confidence in the leadership team having competency, commitment, honesty, and trustworthiness, to name a few characteristics. Another key trait is having a leadership group that is coachable in addition to being able to manage their own work. The business is only as strong as the leaders behind it, so focus of effort should be applied to finding the right people that fit the need.

​Pro tip: start small and lean. 
  
It’s thrilling to achieve the first foundational steps of starting and running a business. Once funding is secured, leaders of the company need to quickly shift gears and focus to ensure they execute on the plan ahead. Stay focused at this milestone mark and beyond so that you don’t lose steam, and you can charge full speed ahead!