Depending on the individual investor, they will be looking for specific attributes of your business prior to making an investment.  Some of the more common items include:

Revenue:

Depending on the age of your business, revenue may or may not be a must have.  Investors will often look to revenue as being a validation that the product being sold by your company has market acceptance.  Revenue growth is often looked to validate that the business has a high growth potential and that if the investor gets in at the right time, their is a potential for significant returns in the future.

There are several types of businesses where revenue may not yet be required for an investment to be made, but an investor will be looking for other milestones to have been met.  These milestones can include development of a prototype or clearing a successful regulatory hurdle (i.e. a medical device company receiving clearance from the Food and Drug Administration).

Cash Flow:

Cash Flow is important to an investor for two key reasons; they want to determine how much future investment will be required and if they will be able to obtain a return on their investment.

If the Company has or will soon reach a position of cash flow positive, an investor will feel more comfortable that the Company will not need to raise future additional capital, which will either dilute their potential for returns, or put the Company in a position where they may not survive (and thus wiping out their investment).

An investor may also look to cash flow to determine if their is potential for receiving a return on their investment, especially if it is a debt investment.  The investor will want to determine that they will be paid back (with interest), when they expect.  If a debt investor doubts that they will be paid back, they either will not invest or will require a higher return.

Competition:

Competition for your Company is both a positive and negative for your Company in the eyes of an investor.  If there is zero competition for your Company, it may be viewed that you are trying to compete in an area with no demand.  However, if there is too much competition, or extremely strong competition, it may be viewed that your chances for success are small.

Defendable Position:

An investor will want to determine what your strategy is for creating a defendable position from which your company can survive both current and future competition.  This can take place in several ways, including first to market, intellectual property, an exclusive license, an exclusive territory, or government regulation.

Management:

The management team is often one of the key things an investor will look at before making a decision.  They want to see experience in running a business, each managers experience in their field, and prior experience in growing a successful business.  The ideal will be a management team who has already started a previous successful business in either the same or similar space.

Potential for Returns:

Prior to making an investment, an investor wants to make sure they are going to get their money back, in addition to being compensated for the risk they took.  A debt investor wants to see the ability to pay back the loan and interest.  An equity investor is looking for both things that will increase the value of their equity (growth of the business, future demand for the Company’s product, etc...) and the ability to sell their equity at some point in time in the future.  An entrepreneur needs to understand that equity investments in private small companies are very hard to sell, and an investor will often look for the potential of a liquidity event.  A liquidity event can take many forms, but the two most common ones an investor will look for is the ability for the Company to go public in the future or be sold to a larger company.