What are the Normal Steps for Angel Investment?

Question: What are the normal steps for angel investment? What’s involved in submitting a business plan?

I decided to answer this question here because I see it so often in email and in question and answer sites on the web, especially Quora, which is where I first saw it and answered it.

Yes you do need a business plan

In the U.S. market the business plan generally stays in the background while investors look at summaries first, then pitches, and only eventually, after a lot of screening, if they are interested enough to do the detailed study called due diligence, then the business plan.

You want a bare-bones LEAN BUSINESS PLAN to guide your summary and pitch deck. You need to know strategy, tactics, milestones, and essential projections. But investors screen startups based on summaries and pitches before they look at full business plans.

But that’s not what you show investors first

So here are the normal steps:

1. That’s either summary memo, or profile on Startup Funding & Investing and AngelList, or similar.
2. If and only if the summary is interesting, then the pitch. There is a lot more information on the business pitch on bplans. And for more of my posts, on this blog, choose the business pitch.
3. If and only if the pitch is interesting, investors will want to see a full business plan for due diligence. Consider using a dedicated business pitch deck designer to make sure your deck is compelling.

However, this applies as general norm only, and in the U.S. market only. Generalizations are never always true. There are always exceptions.

(note: this first appeared as my Quora answer to What are the steps involved in submitting a business plan?