Understanding whether a company should raise investment and the common misconceptions about investment.

• 90% of companies should not raise investment, which is commonly misunderstood as the path to success.
• Raising investment is a form of debt and should be carefully considered.

The importance of understanding and using English terms in the investment industry.

• The presenter stresses the importance of overcoming 'Spanglish' and using industry-standard English terminology.
• Examples of terms include Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Lifetime Value (LTV), Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), and others.

Criteria that indicate a company is ready to raise investment and common mistakes to avoid.

• A company is ready to raise investment when it can build at least a minimum viable product with its own resources.
• Avoid seeking investment with just an idea or an incremental improvement over an existing popular platform.

Explaining why businesses based on incremental improvements over existing platforms are likely to fail.

• Businesses that are only marginally better than existing solutions do not succeed.
• Significant innovation, like TikTok's approach, is necessary to compete in the market.

The issue with startups planning to invest solely in marketing and advertising.

• Investing only in marketing indicates a founder might not appreciate the importance of product development.
• Successful companies grow through organic means like word-of-mouth, not just paid advertising.

Defining scalable business models and their characteristics.

• Scalable business models can achieve hyper-growth without proportionally increasing human resources.
• Examples include Uber's use of existing car owners and Netflix's subscription model.

Key industry terms and metrics for measuring business growth.

• Understand ARR, MoM, and YoY as fundamental metrics for evaluating business performance.
• Acceptable growth rates depend on the business's current revenue, with different expectations for different revenue brackets.

Different types of investors and when to approach them based on business growth.

• Angel investors, government programs, contests, and friends and family are common initial sources of investment.
• As a business grows, it can attract venture capital and private equity investment.

The importance of having a real product and market traction before seeking investment.

• A startup must have a real product used by real people, and the idea must be validated through actual sales or usage.

How to effectively pitch to investors with different types of pitches for different situations.

• A short pitch is essential to catch interest, followed by a more detailed pitch for interested investors.
• The ability to summarize your business concisely in a paragraph is crucial for successful pitching.

Final advice on raising investment, focusing on doing so prudently and with a strong mission.

• Raise only as much investment as necessary to retain a larger share of the company.
• Having a mission beyond just making money is vital for a startup's success.