What’s more important to investors: the idea or the team?

James Church
5 min readOct 17, 2022

If you don’t have a solid idea and the pitch, financials, and proof of concept to back it up, you won’t find an investor willing to support you.

But, in our experience, the team behind the idea is just as important as the idea itself.

That’s because, setting the idea aside, there are several essential elements you need to demonstrate before you can successfully raise investment. This is the case whether you’ve already got a team behind you or you’re a sole founder seeking investment on your own.

How to Make Investors Trust Your Team

Demonstrate You’re Highly Resourceful

To begin with, any prospective investor will expect you to show how highly resourceful you are.

They’ll want to see that you can pitch your idea to them in a clear, concise, compelling way and that you have the passion and salespersonship to get people to buy into your vision. Not just a few people, many people; the vast numbers of people it’s going to take to dazzle the marketplace and eventually reward your investor with a healthy return.

When an investor sees you’ve got that ability to make other people excited about what you’re working to achieve, they’ll recognise how highly resourceful you are. They’ll be confident you’ll be able to attract talent when you need to and that you have the skills to forge commercial partnerships that will open up new networks and unlock new opportunities.

They won’t doubt that you’re the calibre of entrepreneur they have to work with because you’ll always be able to find new customers, create new products, and attract fresh capital when needed.

That’s another reason honing your pitch to perfection is vital. It’s not just your idea you’re pitching; you’re pitching yourself and your team and firing the investor up with how much more they can gain from supporting this single proposal you’ve brought to them today.

James Church

Author of the best-selling book Investable Entrepreneur and COO of leading pitch agency Robot Mascot: www.robotmascot.co.uk