How do you overcome an inexperienced management team when seeking capital?

QUESTION:

When seeking capital, how do you overcome the weakness in the management team of not having start-up experience? Also, is it a sign of weakness to inform them that we are seeking this capital as a way to attract top level CEO candidates or other high level team members to help us to the next step?

ANSWER:

by Naomi Kokubo, Cofounder of Founders Space

Lots of entrepreneurs today don’t have startup experience. It’s common for recent college grads to start a company without any work experience, let alone startup experience. The key is having a compelling and timely product that investors can evaluate.

It’s best to have a product that’s out in the marketplace and has some sort of traction. Most investors won’t be interested in an inexperienced management team without some sort of traction in your business, whether it’s revenue or user growth or strategic deals.

As for your second question, it is not a sign of weakness to let investors know that you’ll be looking to attract a top level CEO. Most experienced investors will see this as a positive, not a negative. I hope this helps!