The quickest slowest investor wins...

Momentum, is important.

For most Entrepreneurs, it’s a drug. We thrive on it.

And… if you bring it over to being an investor, it will cause you to lose a lot of money.

I’m used to a world where once someone says yes, they’ve paid me within 24 hours.

The emotions are high, the person you’re working with is excited and after paying by wire or credit card, they are ready to get started. 

It’s normal for this to happen and as an Entrepreneur, no matter if it’s an eCommerce or high-end like I do… you’re used to the money flowing quickly and making choices quickly.

Further, as an Entrepreneur, the longer it takes to make a choice, the worst the choice can be, or worse, you just spent the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars making up your mind.

As you transition into being an investor, the faster you make choices, along with the more often you make choices, in general, the worse the outcome.

It’s a major shift and it’s been a major shift for me.

Once, I want to do something as an investor, I may be waiting for a year, for that to occur, at best it takes a couple of months.

The Entrepreneurial and momentum based part of who I am struggled with this greatly at the beginning, simply because of a this one truth.

The thing is, as you develop further and further as an investor, you’ll realize that if you move too quickly, it’s difficult to be neutral.

I believe our best choices come from making them from a place of neutrality. Meaning that we are not overly optimistic, we are seeing things from a perspective that is perhaps the closest to reality.

When I see a business that I know I can help scale and grow, from the start, I get very excited about it.

My emotions, automatically get involved. However, the advantage to partnerships and investments taking weeks and months? You get to become neutral.

This is perhaps the largest gift of investing that I’ve found.

Why? Simply put, in our day-to-day life, most Entrepreneurs that I’ve met (and mentor) aren’t great at waiting.

They get excited, they see the vision, they pull the trigger. Some of the time, they make good choices, some of the time they don’t.

Through the process of investing and building partnerships, it’s almost impossible to “shot gun” things, which IS the advantage.

My point is simple.

Embrace the back and forth.

The due diligence.

The contracts.

The conversations.

The wait time in-between.

The slow down, allows for the speed up.

It allows you to think of everything.

Instead of trying to rush things with motion like you would as an Entrepreneur.

Momentum comes not from motion, but from articulated intentionality as an Investor. 

- Scott