How to Raise Money in 2013

by @Jason Calacanis

Every few years—at least for the past 20 that I’ve been in the technology space — I’ve witnessed a change in how startups go about getting funding from investors.

In the mid ’90s, the best way to build a pitch was to collect a couple of MBAs and build a kick-ass business plan, a slick PowerPoint deck and, of course, a killer business model in Excel. (Back then, people spent more time building their business plans than founders spend on the first versions of companies I see on today’s AngelList!)  

Ten years ago, the best practice was finding an emerging market and building the category killer in it. Basically, you paired a large vertical (healthcare, sports, kids, plastics) with a buzzword (blogging, photo sharing, social, e-commerce) and put a “for” between them. For example: “blogging for sports,” “photo sharing for kids,” or “social for healthcare.”

Today? People are obsessed with the “lean startup” genre of businesses that reinvent — basically optimize — traditional activities like hailing a taxi or booking a hotel room.

If you came into a room with a VC 10 years ago and said you were building any of the following businesses, you probably would have been quickly dismissed:

1. Hail a taxi

2. Back up your files

3. A message board for employees

Yet those businesses — Uber, Dropbox and Yammer — are three of the hottest startups. (Full disclosure: I’m an investor in Uber, and while I didn’t invest in Dropbox and Yammer, they did debut at my conference.)

So, how does one get an investment for an idea that seems obvious? Very simple: Understand what angel investors and VCs are looking for and give it to them. Investors have pattern recognition, and they are driven by four Fs: fortune, fame, fear and fun.

Fortune
Investors are typically already rich. They have all the basics covered in my experience: homes, cars, vacations and private schools. As such they need big, big returns for an idea to get them—and their LPs—excited.

Do not—I repeat, do not—come to them with an idea that can make $10 million or $100 million a year in revenue. Come to them with an idea that can hit $1 billion in revenue.

This doesn’t mean building a spreadsheet that shows you make $1 billion in revenue after five years. Everyone knows that’s BS.

Instead, tell them X number of hotel rooms are rented every day and Y number are not rented, and that if you discounted the Y by 50 percent and sold just 10 percent of those, the total revenue would be Z—and 30 percent of Z in 200 cities equals $1 billion. (I’m imagining Airbnb and Hotel Tonight doing that math).

Investors don’t care if it’s a one in 500 shot of hitting $1 billion in revenue, because their return will be 10,000 fold when you do. Investing is about hitting a moon shot like Facebook, Google, Yammer or Dropbox.

Fame
Almost every investor I’ve met is driven by ego, and if they’re not, you don’t want them as an investor. If you don’t have an ego about winning, then you’re not going to fight like a tiger when the chips are down. You want crazy on your side when things get real.

There is nothing that makes me more proud than rattling off the successful startups I’ve invested in. It shows I can pick winners, and let’s be frank: We all want to be on the side that’s winning.

It’s your job to explain exactly how big and powerful your startup will become. If you do it properly, people will jump on board.

Read the rest of this post on American Express OPEN Forum, where it was originally published, and post your comments there, too.