Not just thinking, "Hey, I need exit founders, unicorn brothers!" Sure, if you sold a company at a 100m valuation, that is your persona, otherwise, they’ll pass. By the way, you wouldn’t be here if you did. So, which animals do you hunt for? Of course, depending on your scope, but most of the early investors in studios are operator investors. Entrepreneurs who are still operating a company and have made great profits in the past or just sold a company.
Why? They understand the intricacies of building a company, and they still remember the early days of struggle and how a studio could have solved those. Most of the time, they’ve put their capital into lowish-risk PE or real estate. They miss the connection to the entrepreneurial journey but don't want to spend the time directly investing themselves.
Okay, that's the beginning of a persona. The main thing here? Their hopes, dreams, pains, and reliefs should fit your studio. Just reaching out to funds claiming that you know how to make deal flow for them is just plain bananas. Your deal flow will be nonexistent if you don’t get the right investor persona onboard.
To make life easier on yourselves, think of founders who sold to private equity and have also exited from the platform their company became part of. Most of the time, this is published in a nice PR article with some background story for you to start the convo with.