Favorite online networking methods for potential investors?

Question

Would love to hear everyones favorite ways to network online with potential partners/investors. We have a ton of larger multifamily deals in the pipeline that we'll have to raise capital for and really want to increase our investor base. COVID has obviously made it tougher to get out and do this in person, so I'm wondering what everyone's methods are for doing this online? Besides BP obviously ;)

Lance Pederson · Answer

Michael,

This is definitely the million dollar question! It's hard enough to build new investor relationships during ordinary times let alone in the middle of a global pandemic.

There are a handful of books on the market (e.g., Michael Blank, Matt Burk, Hunter Thompson, Adam Gower, etc.) that outline how to build what amount to lead machines online or speak to strategies on raising capital in general.

Richard Wilson is having an online event tomorrow (December 15, 2020) called the Family Office Super Summit where you may have a chance to mingle with prospective investors.

There are also investor clubs like For Investor By Investor (FIBI), Keiretsu Forum, The Mile Marker Club, Freedom Founders, etc. that have various programs available that allow you to gain access to their member base either by paying a fee to pitch your deal or becoming an training resource to their members at their various events.

At a high level though it seems that the strategy that worked best before the pandemic is the one that you must use during the pandemic and that is to build an educational platform to gather people. The podcast seems to be the preferred method of most real estate entrepreneurs these days but others seem to be having success with hosting online meetups as well. Maybe you do both! Most of the books mentioned above will recommend that you have some type of lead magnet/ebook to capture investors contact information followed by some type of auto responder campaign.

Personally, before the pandemic our firm had great success with live educational events that trained investors how to conduct appropriate due diligence on sponsors and their deals and we've transferred that to a new online platform that is aiming to do ostensibly do the same.

An alternative path would be to subscribe to databases like Preqin where you can run outbound calling and email campaigns to put these deals in front of the more institutional-type of investors. They will require you to come up with some type of co-investment (e.g., 10%) if they like the deal and the terms won't be as favorable but it can help you get from where you are to where you are going as you build you high net worth investor base. If you go this route you will need to make sure that you make it through their due diligence process. They will expect that you can provide them with detailed information on all of the deals you've done up to this point and that it lives in some type of secure data room (e.g., DocSend, Interlinks, Dropbox) that you can promptly give them access to.

Hope this helps!