In the world of startup fundraising, your online presence can make or break your chances of securing investor backing. According to tech investor Anamaria Meshkurti of AMVS Capital, founders must be thoughtful and strategic when crafting their personal brand online to appeal to potential investors.
By taking time to audit and refine your image, identify core messaging pillars, and engage consistently, entrepreneurs can showcase their expertise and gain crucial visibility. Anamaria shares three tips for honing an online presence with the power to open investors’ checkbooks.
Examine Your Existing Brand
The first step is conducting an audit of your current personal brand. As Anamaria explains, “Really try to understand what is your personal brand, what are you trying to push out there to everyone, what your expertise is.” Often, the brand image you believe you’re projecting differs from how others actually perceive you.
Anamaria stresses the value of gaining outside perspective, stating you can “do this audit yourself or you can use a freelancer or an agency that will help you understand where you stand.” An unbiased evaluation of your online persona allows you to pinpoint areas for improvement. According to Anamaria, “Understanding where you stand is key to understanding what steps you need to take to make it better.”
Analyze the consistency of your messaging across platforms, the clarity of your supposed expertise, and how your content and engagement are being received. An audit illuminates strengths to leverage and weaknesses requiring correction. As Anamaria advises, start by examining your current brand before working to enhance it.
Focus Your Expertise
With your brand diagnostics complete, the next step is defining the core topics that will drive your content. Anamaria cautions entrepreneurs from positioning themselves as a jack-of-all-trades, advising they “cannot be an expert in everything.”
Instead, she urges founders to hone in on a niche, sharing, “It’s very, very important to have a complete focus and niche. You want to really be an expert in one, two or maximum three topics.” Establishing a specific realm of expertise boosts your credibility and thought leadership.
Anamaria explains a narrow focus also multiplies opportunities, noting experts can more readily “become a speaker in different places, an advisor.” Consequently, she directs entrepreneurs to ensure “all your thoughts on leadership should focus on these pillars so that you do not confuse your audience.”
For example, an entrepreneur focused on sustainable food systems should concentrate their content on related issues like regenerative agriculture, supply chain transparency, and policy reform. Such topical alignment reinforces their expertise for investors.
Commit to Consistent Engagement
With your personal brand audit completed and areas of expertise defined, the final ingredient is consistent online engagement. Anamaria emphasizes that founders must have a robust plan detailing their social media and content cadence.
She states entrepreneurs should map out details like “how many times are you going to post, which articles you’ll be featured on…because you don’t want to post randomly.” An intentional schedule prevents haphazard messaging that confuses your audience.
Specifically, Anamaria highlights the value of identifying which platforms to prioritize, your ideal posting frequency, what content formats you’ll use, and how you’ll engage your community. She explains, “Your plan should be clear and easy to digest. You should think about this plan before you start posting out there.”
Executing this plan with discipline establishes you as a thought leader worth investors’ attention. As Anamaria notes, “You also want to ensure that you have a good base that will like and comment immediately after your post because that’s the time where LinkedIn, for example, is going to pick up and move forward your posts and make them go viral.”
To learn more about Anamaria Meshkurti, visit her website here.
