(I’m not), here’s what I would look for in a startup:
Must Haves;
- BOTH Technical and Business-minded founders/team. By technical I mean the person who’s building it. By business-minded I mean someone who can sell it, drum up strategic deals and has a phenomenal sense of product.
- A prototype (at least). If you couldn’t find anyone to help you get the idea off the ground without money, I wouldn’t be convinced of a) the idea b) the leadership.
- A business model that a) exists b) isn’t ad based.
- A large, underserved market with money.
- Lots and lots of innovation. A significantly better mouse-trap.
Ideally;
- Cheap keywords
- CEO owns the product roadmap
- User Experience Fanatics
- 5+ years experience doing whichever function they intend to do with the company. CTO = coding. CEO = selling, leading, managing products. CEO could fall under the coding side too I suppose.
I’m totally biased on all of these things, and as I said I’m not an investor - but based on my current world-view, this is what I would look for.
