Where do investors come from?

Someone asked, "where do I find investors?" This is tough one. When I was trying to raise money for financialaid.com, I called every venture capitalist that I could find on the web. I set up meetings with those who would take my call and ultimately I was turned down by 16 of the 17.
After that fiasco, we looked hard at our business plan (yes you need a solid one) and decided to boot strap it as much as we could. This worked out well for us in the end. The original three partners of financialaid.com owned 96.25% of the business when it was sold. We raised a small amount of money from friends and we were off the races. We didn't have money to burn, which kept our eye on the ball. We had to succeed.

Venture Capital works well for some people. The VC's are very bright people who can plug your business into a network of companies who will increase your chance of succeeding. This comes at price. That price is equity in your venture. And since they have money invested, they will be looking over your shoulder.

Angel Capital is another way that people raise money. These are typically groups of local successful business people who are interested in investing small amounts of money in several companies. They will typically meet once a month and have a series of new ventures that present their idea to the group.

Hope this helps.

Mike