I understand. I get why you want to send me your investment proposal. You’ve seen my blog posts or quora answers from the point of view of an angel investor, or me on some list of angel investors, and you’ve got a great idea/plan/business, that you’re sure will succeed, if only you can get some money to spend. I don’t blame you. But that message you sent, or tweet, or update – that isn’t going to work. Here’s why. See what applies to you from this list:

1. I would never ever invest in an idea before there’s a team in place, a company established, a product prototype or website, some traction, and some progress made. I don’t know anybody who would. Investors want businesses, not ideas. They want teams to execute, not ideas that they have to execute themselves.  If you really want my opinion, Google “Tim Berry, business ideas” to see what I’ve written on this subject.
2. I’ve invested mainly as a member of a local/regional angel investment group in Eugene and Corvallis, Oregon, USA. That group focused investment activities on our local area.  The only investment I’ve done outside Oregon was for Octane AI, where one of my daughters is VP Product.
3. I don’t like unsolicited emails, much less tweets. There’s a possibility that this is general solicitation, which puts you at risk of violating SEC rules. I’m not an attorney, so I can’t tell you for sure. But those rules are tricky and you should have legal help before you start seeking investors.
4. I’m probably useless to you anyhow if you aren’t operating in an industry I know, and a market I know. If you aren’t in the U.S., I really don’t know enough about your market and your business situation to be helpful.

So what should you do? How do you get investment?

I’ve posted a lot about this on various blogs, partly in the hope that I could help you without having to answer, individually, every time somebody approaches me. Check out these Quora answers, for example:

• How do you attract investors to your startup?
• After you’ve come up with a good idea, how do you find investors?
• What is the range of capital to expect from investors?

And also, check out blog.timberry.com where you’ll find a lot of posts related to angel investment and startups.

But do the work first. Nobody invests in ideas.

Here are two important summaries I’ve posted on my blog. These will also be helpful:

• All ideas are brilliant before they are executed
• How to make money on your brilliant business idea

You can see from those posts that if you’re investment proposal is about an idea, don’t waste your time sending it to me.