Writing as a Startup

How can a college student convince a company to invest $50,000 in their idea?  I can tell you its not easy.  I rarely trust lending my car keys to college friends.  So how could I convince a company to invest their money in me?  I am just a sophomore in college with very little work experience, and definitely no experience in starting a company.  One thing I have learned this semester through a project with some friends is that it is not easy to build credibility as a college student writing for potential investors or business partners.   When people hear “college student” they automatically take you less seriously and see you as more of a risk.  One major way to build confidence and credibility is through your writing to potential investors and partners.  Writing for this group initially posed many challenges as I tried to establish credibility as a college student by using huge words.  However, I have found that by writing honestly and as simple as possible, people received my writing better and allowed me to have serious business discussions with them.

One major problem with trying to gain investors is that I am a 20-year-old college student.  And everyone I am working with is a college student. As much as I hate to admit it, we initially knew absolutely nothing about writing as a startup business.  When putting together presentations, we would try and cover our inexperience by using big words and countless data to back up our claims.  For example, when presenting financial projections I initially tried to explain a very complex revenue-generating model I developed that took a long time to explain and make people understand.  Further, investors are often interested in how your company will be able to grow.  For this I came up with another complicated model that took a lot of explaining by me to have people understand. Simply put, I tried to establish my credibility by throwing around various numbers and projections that were very intricate.  Most investors who read those summaries probably had no idea what I was talking about or had no interest in trying to understand the work I had done.  I quickly realized that by trying to sound like I knew everything, it made it sound even more like I knew nothing.

I was able to write more effectively when pretending I was writing for someone that knew nothing about business.  Instead of writing for a potential investor, I pretended I was writing for a 6^th grader. When writing about a startup business, I found it best to assume that your audience knows absolutely nothing about the industry or your operations.  No matter how smart you think investors are, when describing a business it is in everyone’s best interest for it to be as simplified as possible.  For example, now when addressing potential financial growth, I use a very simple revenue model, that is easily displayed on a PowerPoint using less than 10 words, that even the least financially minded person could understand.  While I initially thought that it was too simple, people we presented to actually responded to the simplified version much better because anyone could understand it.  Further, this actually allowed for people to have confidence in our company. Simply because then they read about our sales, or hear me present, they automatically understand what I am talking about rather than being lost in a pile of endless statistics and numbers thrown at them.

Another technique to gain credibility as a college student is through honesty.  There is no point in trying to convince people that you are anything more than a college student.  I have found that it is important to be completely transparent with your weaknesses, such as lack of experience, and even transform these weaknesses into strengths.  For example, being a college student gives us the opportunity to work on a project without worrying about things such as rent and food expenses that other startup owners would have to consider.  Further, being a college student gives us great exposure to the college student market, and knowledge of current trends.  Thus in our writing, by being honest the readers respect our limitations, and give credit to how they can also play to our strengths.  Further, this causes fewer objections if you are able to explicitly mention areas of weakness, and proves that you have done plenty of research and are knowledgeable about the subject.

All the work I put into writing for the company would eventually be transformed into a presentation and PowerPoint.    The most important lesson I have learned about taking writing and forming a speech is to be charismatic and confident.  It is very hard for investors to be excited about your work if you aren’t excited yourself.  Further, if someone is considering investing in your company, you have to show confidence not only in yourself, but also in your idea.  A great idea can only go so far if the person trying to implement it is not confident in their abilities.  However and average idea can become great with confidence and the correct implementation.