- You are talking about funding terms and conditions before you have framed the investor’s objectives
- The investor continues to ask questions about your credibility long after your first conversation.
- The investor feigns interest with anecdotes of his or her own past experiences and seeks to point you to a “dead-end” road.
- The investor routinely allows (or makes arranged) disruptions to your meeting, by their assistant, colleagues or to take “urgent” phone calls.
- The investor cuts short your meeting or arranges for a subordinate to step in at short notice.
- You are pushed into a position by the investor of constantly defending your investment thesis, your IP, or your technology rather than discussing how you might work as partners in success.
- You are doing more than a third of the talking.
- You are treated as a subordinate in the investor meeting (body language and talk).
- The investor refuses to engage in a conversation about his or her desired outcomes as it pertains to your investment needs. (“It is too early.”)
- The responses that you receive from the investor are curt and to the point but with little or no explanation for his or her position.
- You leave accepting “we’ll call get to you” or words to that effect from the investor that include no definitive next step (call, meeting, exchange of further information).
- Your follow up calls and other attempts at contact are returned with a cursory platitude or not at all.
