Everyone’s an Investor—Until It’s Time to Wire the Money

The word investor has become unmoored. It used to mean something specific: a person or institution deploying capital with an expectation of financial return, ideally after having read at least one document longer than a pitch deck. Today, it means anyone who once wrote a €10k check into a pre-seed round, owns two tokens of something called QuantumFlare, or has an Investor badge on LinkedIn because they almost closed on a fund last year.

This dilution wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t so costly for founders. Time, energy, strategy—all spent chasing conversations that turn out to be little more than social performance art.

I was recently catching up with an old business contact now living in Dubai. Lovely person. Knows the scene. When I asked about raising capital in the region, she laughed and said, “In Dubai, everybody is rich and everybody knows the royal family.” It’s a great line, but it’s not unique to Dubai. You could swap in any global business hub—Singapore, London, Zurich, Miami—and the narrative holds. Everyone has “access,” everyone has “family office connections,” everyone is “actively deploying capital.” Until, of course, you ask for a term sheet. Then it’s suddenly “too early,” “a bit outside scope,” or just met with radio silence followed by a three-month vacation in the Maldives.

There’s a deeper lesson here. The loudest investors are often the quietest when it counts. The ones broadcasting their credentials tend to be the ones with the most to prove—or the least to invest. Meanwhile, the ones with actual influence and dry powder are often understated, methodical, and allergic to hype. In Germany or Switzerland, you might meet a man in an Aldi fleece jacket driving a Porsche 911 who just sold a mid-cap logistics firm and quietly controls €200M in personal assets. You will not find him on Twitter threads about how to “10x your seed round.”

Which is why founders—especially first-timers—need to learn how to read the room. Not every coffee chat with someone who “advises funds” is worth your attention. Not every person who says they “invest in healthtech” actually writes checks. And not every fund with a slick deck is still raising from LPs that exist.

Start by understanding what kind of investor you’re actually talking to. Some are institutional—VC funds with clear mandates, timelines, and partners accountable to performance. Some are strategic—corporates or CVCs who will move slower, care more about synergy than growth, and be very polite before ultimately passing. Some are high-net-worth individuals—who range from hands-off and helpful to catastrophically meddling. Others are family offices—often conservative, unhurried, and less interested in FOMO than in not looking foolish.

Then there’s the aspirational class: people who desperately want to be part of “the ecosystem” but whose main capital is social. They attend panels, repost TechCrunch articles, and occasionally issue unsolicited feedback like, “You need to tighten your narrative for Series B investors.” They have not led a round. They are not leading yours. But they will offer to “loop in” their friend, who turns out to be a third-tier associate at a fund you’ve already pitched.

Don’t fall for the theater. Money is not a vibe.

The real investors—the ones who move the needle—are not only quieter, but also more selective. They’ve done their homework. They ask about your cap table, your unit economics, your regulatory plan. And yes, sometimes they pass too. But they do it with intention. Not because they were posturing. But because they were actually listening.

As a founder, you have finite bandwidth. Be generous with your time, but ruthless with your filters. You wouldn’t let someone perform surgery because they once watched Grey’s Anatomy. Don’t let someone into your round because they once “got close” to closing a SPV.

The good investors? They rarely need to say it. They ask better questions. They move faster. And most importantly, they know the difference between signal and status.

So the next time someone tells you they’re “actively investing,” just smile politely and ask one question: What was the last deal you led, and when did it close? Watch the reaction. That’s your real diligence.

Because in this market, everyone’s an investor—until it’s time to wire the money.