Why it's hard to get an investor...and why it pays to hire me to do it for you:

The average length of time to raise venture capital is around 13 months, and a business owner won't have much time to do anything else while he or she is trying to raise new capital.

• Professional investors -- either individuals or staff members of venture capital companies -- get an average of around 100 proposals in the form of Business Plans or Offering Memoranda per month.

They reject 80 of the proposals without reading them, because the plans look poorly prepared or boring.

They reject another sixteen of the proposals after reading through the first few pages of the Executive Summary because they do not meet their investment criteria, or lack anything unique enough to get their attention.

Of the remaining four that they read through completely, only one gets chosen for in-depth 'due-diligence' analysis -- to be sure the forecasts can be believed.

Out of the twelve business plans that get due-diligence analysis in a year, only two or three get funded. That's two or three out of the 1,200 that the average venture capitalist receives in a year.

In other words, there are very long odds against you. It is critical that your plan meets all of the requirements for getting past the first and second 'cuts'. That way you're only competing with three others for the all-important due diligence stage.

• The more the perceived management risk in your project, the greater the control that the investors will want to maintain while their funds are at risk.

Management risks are defined by the breadth of your management team and their experience in building the kind of company you are proposing.

Investor control can be in ownership percentage, management oversight or possibly even accounting and inventory control by someone reporting to them.

You may not want to live with those controls. Your advisor should be able to tell you ahead of time what to expect.

• The average professional venture capitalist looks for a 'way out' (called an exit strategy) about 3-5 years in the future.

They want to be able to see this exit strategy at the time they make the investment, so consider this to be an essential part of your proposal.

• They try to invest in projects that on average will increase in value at least 30%-40% annually by the time they get out.

Since they know some of the companies they invest in won't make it, they try to only invest in projects that have the potential for 100 percent gain in ownership value per year. This is their way of being somewhat certain they will average 30%-40% annualized return on their entire portfolio.

If your project does not show that kind of growth potential for them, most professional investors will not be interested.

Please note that return on investment to a venture capitalist does not mean dividends or other forms of income; it means that when they exit, their payback on their original investment will be equal to that much per year.

• Investors would rather put their money in projects with excellent management teams - but only good financial forecasts - than invest in ones that have excellent forecasts and poorer management.