If you wanted someone to invest capitol to start up a business - what exactly do they look for? How do you get noticed among the sea of others that have good ideas and are competing for said investment?

I posted a little introduction in the introduction forum, if anyone is interested in what I do...

I'm not just going to sit back and want a hand-out, but I'd like enough money to hire one person because I think I can double my profits with one person working for me.

My plan is to actually document everything as closely as possible to prove the validity of my estimates before ever presenting it to an investor. Right now it's just me working, at the worst at least I'm entertaining myself and if it doesn't really get off the ground I'm not losing anything, and if it does I will have evidence to show potential investors to prove that I'm not just "running off with the mouth".

But what things do investors look for? What kind of information should I be keeping? I kept all the records of sales (name, address, phone number & ammount) for the past two months. I don't have a bank account and most of it was done in cash (or checks cashed at the bank they were drawn on...) Could I use that information so that a potential investor can call and verify their purchase, if they want? Should I start keeping digital photos of checks I recieve?

From what i've learned, Cost is definitely at the top of the list. From that, they then figure, "are the cost worth the benefits?" None wants to put in one dollar and only make 25 cents. So basically, when writing the proposal to a potential investor, make sure you jazz it up to make it sound really good, while still using realistic numbers for future projection.

I read your intro, but what exactly are you creating again?

Corn pillow heating pads.