Business Angels and Venture Capitalists are crucial to many startups, but they are a picky bunch. They want your business to grow, but they are looking for a good return on their investment, as such they aren’t necessarily willing to pay for everything that the company needs.

So what are the top three things investors are not going to pay for:

1. Ideas - Investors aren’t interested in ideas. Millions of people have ideas and most of them are bad (just watch Dragon’s Den to get an idea how bad some of them are). What makes an idea a good business opportunity is not it’s uniqueness, it’s the ability to actually implement the idea and take it to market.
2. Your salary - Investors won’t pay for your salary while you are testing out a new idea and even if they do agree to you taking some form of salary it’s going to be little more than a token gesture.
3. Existing Debts - If you’ve financed the company so far by loaning it the money don’t expect the investors to allow you to repay those loans, in fact they’ll probably expect you to write off the debts.

In short investors are looking to invest in the growth of a business, not the expense of an idea. Until you have turned the idea into a proven business, you’re not going to get any investment from Business Angels or Venture Capitalists. Until then you’re choices are sweat and debt… so lets hope you’ve got a good business idea.

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