Maybe what an afternoon's one on one discussion with an investor and the guidelines of the spokesman for a Venture Capitalist and Angel Invvestor's group may be of benefit to Welch Gambit and any one else working on a pitch to investors?
Investors want to be convinced a filmmaker will get them their money back with the lowest possible risk. Here is how they read through a pitch and business plan.
The Do's
Investors want a concrete way of getting their money back. Like a bank, they want collateral. A distributor attached to your film is their collateral. They get the money a distributor pays out after the film is aired on TV, makes box office sales, or DVD sales and VOD sales.
How does a filmmaker get a distributor attached?
Distributors like studios and TV networks want names they know working in your production with track records of productions that made money before. The core ingrediant is a popular industry writer. That is why the studios work off of a list of writers with a track record of making money. Also, a famous director and / or actor should be attached to attract a distributor. For a proposal like mine, I will need to attract a popular TV science fiction writer and director attached to attract a big network. For a small network, such as SyFy, I'm hoping to get away with no names and sell them n a story. I do know a very accomplished TV science fiction writer and producer I will contact to help with series episodes, if I see money coming in. But, not before. I will bring in studio actors in future productions the industry knows for future productions too.
The Do Not's
Investors see "The potential to make money" and "Risk" as a red flag. They will not fund your production with words like that or if you use someone else's numbers to ask for funding, unless you have the people who made those numbers possible in those productions attached to work for you in your proposal.
So, this is what you are up against when you are putting something together for investors.
