Angel investing is personal, and your LinkedIn profile is your digital first impression for investors. They use it to assess your investibility, which is a mix of your commitment and skills. A professional, simple and trustworthy profile is key for making your outreach effective.
Why does my LinkedIn profile matter to investors?
Angel investing is personal. Investors have limited time to get to know a founder, so they use LinkedIn as a digital first impression. Often your profile is the first place they look to answer the question, “If you can’t sell yourself, how are you going to sell your product?”
What are investors looking for on my profile?
Investors are assessing your “Investibility,” which they see as a combination of your Commitment + Skills. They are trying to determine if you are a founder who can make them money, not lose it.
Your profile provides signals for five key factors:
- Size of network
- Mutual connections
- Relevant experience
- Ability to communicate
- Focus
How do I optimise the “Top of Profile” section?
This is the most important part of your profile for building initial trust. It consists of seven components:
- Cover Image: Use this space to display your product, brand logo, and brand colours.
- Photo: Your photo must be friendly, professional, and “on brand”. You should be looking at the camera. Avoid “faux pas” like cartoons, default icons, photos of pets or party photos.
- Name: Keep it simple. You can add designations, but no more than two.
- Headline: State your current role and again keep it simple (for example, “Founder & CEO @ FutureCo”).
- Connections: Having 500+ existing connections proves you can build a network.
- Mutual Connections: This is a key trust-builder for investors, the more the better.
- Company + Education: This adds brand visibility and creates a potential point of mutual experience, which also adds trust.
How do I optimise the middle section?
Your “about me” section should share your professional journey in a way that is easy to read. Keep it brief, get to the point, highlight achievements and use bullet points wherever you can. Use your featured posts to pin things that highlight your key achievements and have high engagement (likes and comments). Recent activity shows investors that you’re willing to post on LinkedIn and put yourself out there.
How do I optimise the experience section?
Firstly, list your experience in reverse-chronological order. Try to avoid writing lots of text about all of your previous responsibilities. Instead, it’s better to include one key achievement per role, especially if it’s relevant to your startup. A credible educational institution on your profile adds trust too.
What are the biggest “Don’ts” for a founder’s profile?
What you don’t do is as important as what you do.
- Don’t write long, “blanket” texts in your experience or about sections.
- Avoid multiple headlines, especially those with “lofty” words like “visionary”.
- Avoid headlines that are just trendy buzzwords (e.g., Web3/Blockchain/AI).
- Don’t list every single responsibility for each of your past jobs.
- Don’t list that you are working for someone else full-time.
- Don’t list multiple advisor roles.
Now you have all the tools for making a fantastic digital first impression on investors.