The Art of Startup Fundraising. Alejandro Cremades

and are looking for, it's hard to give the right signals, prepare, and position your company to be the recipient of funding. So what do investors really want? In asking this question, it's often easiest to first address what they don't want, which is:

      ■ To lose money

      ■ To be made to look foolish

      Everything else, including expectations, circles back to avoiding these two pain points. Some expectations may be arrived at naturally and individually. Many others are line items that investors believe they need to check off. But they all come back to avoiding these pain points. Here is a list of the 19 items that investors want and expect: