How to Incorporate Investor Feedback into Your Business

Investor feedback isn’t about personal validation. It’s not about a pat on the back. It’s about finding the best course of action. Figuring out the optimal solution can cause a rift between two parties. But that’s only natural. Letting down your defences and actually listening to your startup’s investors is key to easing the tension. Remember it’s all about the betterment of YOUR business. Keep the pointers below in mind to get the best out of your investor feedback.

Use Feedback To Improve

• Be open-minded: This is the first step towards listening to what your business investors have to say.
• Get Specific Feedback: If you’re unsure about something, ask. You want your startup investor feedback to be detailed.
• Formulate a Plan: This is needed when you have to change course or make a decision based on the feedback you’ve received.
• Follow-up: This helps to build trust and portrays you as a person who really wants to make changes.

Why Is Feedback So Important?

• Identify areas to improve upon: Business investors can provide valuable feedback on your business model, product, or service.
• Boost investor perception: Investor feedback can help you connect with other investors who in turn, can provide startup fundraising if you’re looking to raise funds down the line.
• Build relationships: Wanting investor feedback is an opportunity to build relationships with them. Even if an investor himself, does not invest in your business, they can be willing to help with valuable advice in the future. They might also provide fundraising ideas that work if you’re ever trying to fundraise for your business. Investors sometimes help provide the best fundraising ideas because they’ve been in the business for a long time, and know what works and what doesn’t.

Importance of Acting On Investor Feedback

• Change Strategy: Helps you correct your course.
• Raise funds by recommendations or reputation if you need startup fundraising down the line. While trying to fundraise for your business, this is massively helpful. 
• Build an improved product: Gaining more insight into what it would take to make it better.
• Get a better workforce to boost your business through recommendations or be willing to invest more to build a better team.

Three Ways To Collect Feedback

• After pitch meetings 
• Via Emails/ Phone Calls
• Attend Investor Conferences And Events

While there are a bunch of other ways to ask for feedback, your best chance is always to ask them directly. The above ways help you do just that.

Dealing With Negative Investor Feedback

• Talk To Others: Sometimes having more feedback can offer you a more complete view. Always aim to gain perspective.
• Change Your Strategy: Investors want to see that you’re responsive to their feedback. If you feel like something needs to be changed, then change it already!
• Talking to your team: This can make a huge difference because your team more often than not, believe in your product – even more so than anyone else. Talking to them can help you figure out where you’re going wrong. 

Receiving negative feedback from investors can be discouraging, but remember that it’s part of the investment process.

Prioritize Changes Based on Investor Feedback

Prioritizing changes based on investor feedback can be a decisive step in building a successful venture. Here are some tips you can take to prioritize changes based on investor feedback:

• Collect and categorize feedback: This will help you prioritize the changes that are most important and have the best potential to improve your business.
• Feasibility: Consider factors such as resources, time, and cost.
• Measure impact: This can include factors such as revenue growth, customer satisfaction, and market share. 
• Have a plan: Creating a plan which includes timelines and resource allocation, will help execute changes resourcefully and successfully.
• Communicate with investors: Keep your investors informed about the changes you are making to build trust.

Know What To Filter Out

In a business, there are always going to be a lot of things to do and a lot of ways to do them. Learn to prioritize what’s needed and what’s not. Don’t fall into the trap where you do too many things at once. This will help you lose focus on what matters. Of course, feedback is critical. Just align them with your business goals and targets. Running them by your team can also help you gain more insight regarding certain matters.

In A Nutshell

By this point, it’s sufficient to say that investor feedback has a massive impact on the way a business functions. What’s most important is to keep an open mind, be attentive, and learn to filter out what you don’t need. Realise that the best entrepreneurs are always the ones who are attentive and willing to implement new things. If you’re having a hard time finding the right investors, give Marquee Equity a call at +1-213-600-7272 to get direct access to 32,000+ VCs, PEs, Family Offices and Angels to boost your business. We help you create customized pitches for various investors with a consultant to help you along the way. The strategy adopted by us is customised specifically for you, keeping in consideration your funding needs.