Angel Investors

I will note something very interesting that could happen in this world of "angel investors", so please pay attention.

It starts with you - having a company, having some expertise on your own, having your staff of experts that helped you to make a business plan and a project, etc. So you already know that you just need XX or YY amount of money, for ZZ destination and expenses. Everything is clear and good.

Then comes some person saying that he represents some investors, asking your project plan (so they are easy gaining knowledge in this branch, know-how, everything, confidential data, market trends and data analysis - which is very costly to achieve, by the way, names and positions of the expert people involved, similar projects of you or of the others around, market positioning of your own project, sensitive details, highly competitive advantages that your team could have over its competition, and so on...)

Now, here comes the question: how do you protect your project against the economic espionage ? From the bad guys, just wanting to learn your secrets,

even before you could materialize anything of them in a real factory, enterprise, anything. How is that possible? Because, if they would just come at your office door, and ask you such information, they would risk to be just thrown away without any further explanation. If they reach at a multinational company doors, and ask them, for example "dear Google, how does work your search programming algorithms, or dear Apple, how do you make the OS for this new computer or that new iPhone that you are going to launch" - do these would ever answer to them ???

And if not, why exactly will not do it ?

Because those are their trade secrets, no more and no less than that. Their OWN secrets, which are assets, in the full meaning of the word. Those are BUSINESS ASSETS and they are OWNERS of these.

Back to the example described. Those "partners of investors", that keep saying you that "money are not an issue" (at least for "them"), just keep asking you proprietary details, so that for them is easy to just steal your trade secrets and thereafter to bring to life maybe the same project, even if in maybe some different location, and so on. Or even later, they invite you again, to absorb from you and your team the last piece of knowledge, by claiming that they can hire your company (just to make you send them all the proofs that you are the good person for that job or that project execution, with your own company... )

Indeed, it is true that the internet is free (so anyone can reach at any information he needs), however this should not make all of us from everywhere just to abandon (in the hands of the others) our long hours of work, our business plans and our good projects.

Indeed, in front of a bank staff one could stay more relaxed because he knows that banks don't steal projects (because banks prefer to give money instead of going themselves on your behind and opening such construction or that same factory, or such technology or anything that they don't usually create or don't own yet). Banks stay at their own business and just "sell and buy" money, just that, and that makes them trust-able in face of the others.

They don't just "navigate" among business plans and projects, just to search the best one for them, but the best one for the market, because they have f-i-x-e-d interests for the money they invest in you.

On the other hand, an "angel" investor, if he somehow learns that somewhere there is any better opportunity for him, he does not hesitate to leave you in the cold, stop any funding, and run away from you, even if that one alone could produce you irreparable damages in your business or that new project...

So that I come back to an issue which is very dear to me : the security, the assurance that you indeed are going to receive what was promised to you. Not only the funds, but also the peace of mind, together.

How many of you prefere to receive also a new peace of mind, not only some "possible" funding for your projects ?

How many ?

Don't you think your hard work deserves to be compensate in some way ? That your good projects are worth a good investor for them, to support them and to help you ?

Therefore, be aware of the "hawks", that just pose into "angels", trying to just steal something that they don't own: your asset, your intelligence, your long and hard work.

Because when they step at your door, or ask your projects, they must prove that they indeed have funds, not that they just "know someone who knows someone, etc."

After all, if they don't have funds to invest, why they do bother you and just waste your time ? Do you like anyone to "hire" you and pay you nothing in the end ? Have you heard any lawyer that would accept just to stay with a "story teller", and to not charge that guy for his time (and shared expertise) spent ?

As a conclusion, fellow entrepreneurs, this is you the ones that deserve profit because of your projects, not only those that ask "what's inside for me?", "what could I earn from this project?", because your projects are not their cheap backyards, instead they might be their precious shrines. Without your ideas, nothing could come to life, indeed.

Sometimes, we see around some people so poor that they own nothing else than money .... As for the rest, they take (steal) it from the others...

I welcome any of your comments, and maybe we can defend the other side of the story, too.

Thank you for reading.