Your Most Deadly Competitor – Lack of Investor Time
Understanding the time challenges that investors face is KEY to understanding how founders must approach the financing process
In my years as an investor, one of my biggest challenges was time. There was a limited amount of time in each day, and a seemingly unlimited number of potential investment opportunities to research and review. As time is of the essence, time efficiency was always top of my mind.
Given that, the investment review process that I - and most if not all investors - develop is one of heavy filtering. Filter and move on. Filter and move on. The next one, then the next one, on and on. The quicker that I could review an opportunity and filter it out – the better.
This point is KEY to the entire Capital Mindset™ process - so I want to emphasize it.
My number one priority was to very quickly filter companies OUT. My emphasis was on exclusion, not inclusion. I had my priorities as an investor, I had my goals, I had the lense that I was using to review companies. The quicker that I could review an opportunity and say no to it mentally – the better.
The opportunities never stopped coming in. There was always another company wanting to set up a meeting. There was always another pitch deck hitting my email. Always a new cold outreach on LinkedIn. Always another warm intro to a new entrepreneur buzzing on my phone. It was an endless conveyer belt of companies – at different stages of growth, development, and maturity – that were all demanding my attention.
Most investors face this, or a very similar dilemma. It becomes a matter of time survival. The solution for the investor develops out of necessity. Review the opportunities quickly, run them through your filter quickly – and move on as fast as you possibly can. Don’t look back.
Entrepreneurs and Investors are Often Not on the Same Page
That is what investors are thinking. But that is not what the entrepreneur is thinking.
As an entrepreneur, you are obviously passionate about your company and about what you have built. It is likely all that you have done or thought about for years on end. When you look at your company, you can see it in all its grandeur. Where it came from, where it is today, where it can be tomorrow, and where you know that it can go years into the future.
When you look at your company, that is ALL you see – it’s potential.
Investors see little to none of that.
Pause there and let that settle in a minute. When investors look at your company they can see little to none of that potential.
This is a MASSIVE disconnect between entrepreneurs and investors – and you must take some time to fully understand it, because it affects everything you will need to do in a financing process.
Most Investors are Looking for the Cut Diamond - not the Diamond in the Rough
The idea that an investor is really digging into each opportunity, working to understand the nuances, evaluate both the potential that is obvious and the potential that is hidden – just isn’t happening. Investor mindshare and timeshare are both severely limited – so they just plow through, bookmarking the very few opportunities that check every box that they are looking for.
I am not implying that this process is the best one for investors to follow. As I said, the process is born out of necessity, not out of its ability to find the optimal investment. As a matter of fact, most investors would likely admit that they don’t like the process either. However, the investment opportunity conveyor belt stops for no one. Investors either keep moving, or they get buried.
Severely limited time and mindshare are connected and represent one of the investor’s biggest challenges. There is never enough of either. The end result is that investors are NOT spending time and effort digging deeply into the companies they meet in order to look for potential. It’s just not happening. Either an investment opportunity jumps out at them immediately, or it gets filtered out immediately.
In the investor’s mind, the challenge that they face is one of time. Few – if any – investors worry one second about deal flow. Deals flow. Every single day. There is no shortage of new companies or new entrepreneurs to meet with.
Filtering out ‘noisy’ opportunities is on the mind of the investor. THAT is priority one. Finding great opportunities that they DO want to invest in becomes secondary to filtering through the noise.
As an entrepreneur, your biggest competitor for investment capital is not a company that competes in your industry, and it is not other great investment opportunities. Your biggest competitor is the lack of time that investors have to review your company.
Entrepreneurs may not like this scenario. But it is reality – so you better accommodate yourself to the reality on the ground.
You Believe - but How do you Get Investors to Believe
As an entrepreneur or business leader, your company is your passion. You have strong conviction for what you have built, for how much progress you will be able to make with growth capital, and for the healthy returns you will be able to provide investors.
But - do you really have any idea on how convicted investors will be with the opportunity? Do you really understand the Mindset of the investor – their needs, expectations, and what they are looking for in an opportunity?
© Copyright October 2025. Marc Patterson. All Rights Reserved.