You must sift out downside investors from upside investors, right off the bat. Or your world will become a nightmare of eternal internal volatility.
Your process depends on who you are. In the same way, the pursuit of the best soul mate for you is dependent on who you are, and what you seek from the relationship. Do you need help in building your company, or are you experienced enough just to need money? There is a whole spectrum of criteria in-between that stipulates which investor is best for your specific scenario. A scenario in which you must be brutally honest in what you can and cannot pull off.
Assuming you created prime innovation, i.e., a unique outlier proposition derived from a new and higher normalization of truth, it is crucial to find an investor who understands the unique foresight, risk, and upside, and can subsequently support most of the monetary requirements of the projected initial funding stages.
And just like in finding the right soul mate, the number of sheep they bring along as a wedding gift is rather irrelevant. If you feel confident about the role an investor portrays to play in supporting your unprecedented vision of upside, the amount of equity you sell must be in equilibrium with the realistic and agreed upon risk to said upside, cut into manageable bite-size milestones to reduce investor risk.
Be forewarned: sell the foresight of upside to your prospective investor first, and find clear alignment there, before you move to discuss the specific trajectory of downside. By their responses, you will quickly sift out downside investors who don’t want to be left out from upside investors who cannot wait to get in. The latter type of investor is what prime innovation deserves.
There are, of course, many other bells and whistles to consider. I suggest you review my many articles on fundraising, and if you need more help, I’d be happy to assist.
