How's your public profile? Any skeletons in your virtual closet?

Is your virtual closet in need of a vacuum and a lick of paint?

• Have you thought about what people might discover if they search for and check out your public profile? 
• Have you ever sounded off on social media about a topic that perhaps you wouldn’t want people to be aware of in the context of your business?
• Would you be happy with your grandmother seeing information about you readily accessible in places such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Tik-Tok, Twitter, your business website etc.?
• And what about those potential investors carrying out some due diligence on your business? What would they find?

The reason I ask is that people seeking business investment don’t always remember that one of the first things potential investors do is search for the business, and its leaders, in all sorts of places and not just formal ones such as Companies House. So one of the steps you’ll need to take if you’re serious about raising investment for your business is to ensure that there aren’t any digital skeletons hiding in your virtual closet. Because if they’re there, others will find them and that’s unlikely to help your investment-raising ambitions. And bear in mind, at the point you do open discussions with one of the major crowdfunding platforms like Crowdcube and Seedrs, you can rest assured they will check you out.

Preparing your business for raising investment of course is about things like your investor deck, pre-money valuation, and how to choose a crowdfunding platform; but it’s a lot more besides. And that’s where we come in. Amongst the myriad of things we do when preparing our clients for their investment strategy is ensuring that the virtual closets are squeaky clean and tidy.

Author: Richard Mojel - Commercial Director, ISQ