Failing to find serial investors or reasonable first time investors for startup
Building a tech-first interior design company. ₹8 Cr revenue target Year 1. Recently posted that I'm raising ₹80L for 10%.
Got decent interest. Every single conversation was painful.
Almost everyone who reached out was a first-time investor. I say this with full respect — the enthusiasm is real. But enthusiasm without fundamentals kills the conversation before it even starts. For both sides.
It always goes the same way. Starts strong. Then the questions come:
"What if it fails?"
"Can you guarantee returns?"
"How is this different from Livspace?"
And then it goes cold. Every. Single. Time.
I get it. Fear of losing money is real. But that fear comes from not understanding how startup investing actually works. A startup is not an FD. It's not a mutual fund. You're not buying a product off a shelf. You're backing a team's ability to fight through a market that doesn't have a winner yet.
An angel investor backs the idea, the team, the vision — in that order. A first-time investor wants perfect numbers, guaranteed scaling, and a foolproof plan. A serial investor knows that if they back 10 startups, 2 making it is a win. It's a game of probability. Fundamentals improve the odds — they don't eliminate the risk.
Zomato and Swiggy ran the same idea for years. Both burning cash. Both struggling yet growing with the constant backing. Investors kept backing both anyway. Why? They weren't betting on the idea. They were betting on the team, the obsession, the refusal to quit. Both eventually made their investors wealthy. That's the model. That's always been the model.
Serial investors ask about unit economics. They ask about founder motivation. They ask what happens when everything goes wrong. First-time investors ask if the idea is unique.
The uniqueness of the idea is the wrong question. What matters is how effectively the team can penetrate the market, what gives them an edge over others, what the customer acquisition cost looks like, and whether the people building it can actually build a company — not just a product.
This isn't me trying to teach anyone how startup investing works. I'm just being honest about the kind of conversation I want to have with potential investors.
If you're serious about investing in startups — spend real time in the ecosystem first. Understand what a cap table is. Understand dilution. Understand why a VC backs 10 companies fully understanding that most of them may fail. That's not pessimism. That's the math. define your guardrails, niche, risk appetite, expertise area, networks.
Covering few basic fundamentals like this should help you back the right founders and take your money many folds back.
I'm a first-time founder myself. But if I'm going to turn someone's money into 10x or 100x, I need investors who understand the vision, can assess the team honestly, know the real challenges — from the business side and the customer side — and then take their bet with open eyes. That kind of conviction doesn't come from one call. It takes time. It takes genuine curiosity.
I'm not here to teach anything other than that we as founders expect more sincere conversation, data and experience based.
Am I overreacting? Or do other founders run into the same wall?
or may be reddit is completely missing serial investors.
share your experience or opinion below, maybe I'm wrong or missing something from your pov— founder or investor. Could help a lot of people reading this.