Good morning {{first_name}},
Last week I said the third step to building your capital machine was simple: Hire your first IR rep.
Easy to say.
Then the real question shows up…
How do you not blow it in the first 90 days?
Because here's what I see over and over:
An operator finally makes the hire
Gives it 60 days
Sees no closed capital
Panics
Lets them go…
Then blames the hire.
ATTN: I’m looking for 3 individuals/companies to help build a flow of investor leads for their raise, and if unsuccessful, you don’t pay. Book a call below to discuss.
The hire was probably fine. The timeline was the problem.
Investor relations is a relationship business, and relationships with $100K to $1M check writers don't normally close in eight weeks. You already know this in your own life. You just forget it the second payroll is on the line.
So let's talk about the first 90 days. What to pay, what to train, what to measure, and when it's actually fair to walk away.
First, pay them right.
The best IR reps I've seen are not on a fat base.
Modest base, generous sliding-scale bonus tied to activity first and closed capital second.
Here's why that matters…
A big base with no upside attracts people who want to feel safe. A real bonus structure attracts people who want to win. You want the second kind sitting across from your investors.
Pay for the behavior early. Pay for the result once it shows up.
Then train them in the trenches with you.
You cannot hand someone a list and a script and disappear.
The first two to three months, you're both in it. Same calls. Same emails. Same rejections.
They need to hear how you talk about a deal.
They need to feel how you handle a "no."
They need to know the story of your track record cold, so it comes out of their mouth as naturally as it comes out of yours.
If you skip this part, you didn't hire an IR rep. You hired a very expensive voicemail.
Measure activity, not closings.
This is where most operators get it wrong.
In the first 90 days, you do not judge an IR rep on capital raised.
You judge them on the inputs that lead to capital raised:
Outbound touches per day (calls, emails, LinkedIn)
Conversations booked
Follow-ups that actually went out
Notes and CRM hygiene (a messy pipeline is a dead pipeline)
Meetings held with real check writers
Get those numbers right for three months and the capital follows. It just follows on its own clock, not yours.
Why the "quiet times" break people.
There's a stretch, usually somewhere around week six or seven, where nothing looks like it's working.
The calls are happening. The emails are going out. And the pipeline still looks quiet.
This is the exact moment most operators quit on the hire.
Don't.
That quiet is the sound of relationships forming under the surface. It's the least glamorous part of the whole thing, and it's where the entire game is actually won.
Here's the simple 90-day plan:
Days 1 to 15: They learn the deals, the track record, and the story. You talk, they listen and take notes. No solo outreach yet.
Days 15 to 45: You go on calls together. They start sending outreach with you watching. You correct in real time.
Days 45 to 75: They run outreach solo. You review the numbers weekly. Activity targets are the scoreboard, not closings.
Days 75 to 90: You look at the inputs together. Strong activity and clean follow-up? Keep going, the capital is coming. Weak effort or no coachability? Now it's fair to make a change.
Judge the effort at 90 days. Judge the results at six months. Not the other way around.
Want help building this out?
If you're about to make your first IR hire, or you've made one and it's not clicking yet, let's look at it together.
100% free. No pitch. Just a set of eyes on your setup from someone who's built this a few times.
Hoping this helps you grow,
Andrew LeBaron
P.S. If you'd like to build a newsletter like this one to attract and raise capital, book a call with me here.