1. What we can do to monetise the app better?
2. How and when to seek a sponsor (static/dynamic brand/product placement) for the title?
3. How to seek potential investors/partners that will help take the app to the next level?

1. What we can do to monetise the app better?

2. How and when to seek a sponsor (static/dynamic brand/product placement) for the title?

3. How to seek potential investors/partners that will help take the app to the next level?

From your questions, looks like you need to hire someone to do business development, or invest the time to learn and read and study to become skilled in the field yourself.

1. That is a business development question that every business is always asking. There is no good answer. You need to research what has worked for other companies, what has failed for other companies, and figure out what can work for you. Much of the advice out there seems contradictory: what works for one company does not work for another. You need to do your own research for this.

2. This is another business development question. You can seek sponsors as early as you like, or as late as you like. Usually late in the process is better because you have more to show them, but earlier in the process means more money to make things better. It is entirely a business decision driven by your needs. Early sponsors tend to invest less or require more on the back end as they bear more risk. Later sponsors tend to invest more and require less as they bear less risk. It is all about what you can offer them in exchange for what they offer you, and this is unique for every project.

3. Initially it is the three F's: Friends, Family, and Fools. There are some directories of investors but they're generally not that useful unless you know the people. Unlike many other topics that take place electronically, business development still relies heavily on telephone calls to the right people. Use online tools to find the right groups, then call them and talk with them. After you've established a relationship and they are willing to talk, then it switches to a mix of email and telephone.

3a. Once you've found the Friends, Family, and Fools who have money and are potentially interested, you need to convince them to invest in you. This is not showing them your game and asking them to put money in your game. Instead, it means showing them your business plans, your market research, your statistics versus comparable projects, and telling them the ways that their investment will give them financial returns. They don't care anything for your game, they care entirely about how they will make money from investing in you.

Thank you for your response frob.

Regarding when to seek sponsors: post launch, what criteria are looked at? number of downloads, daily active users?

Are there professional entities that can help find sponsors at a service cost or commission based?

Regarding investors, I am hoping to find like minded entities (individuals or businesses) who will not just offer their money but also expertise to help grow the product.

Any suggestions on which online tools are better suited for reaching out to relevant entities?

That's the same type of questions, they are all business development. If online reading has failed you, go to the library and ask the librarian to help you find books about business development.

For your other questions, turn it around a little bit and think how the investors see it.

Imagine that you are working for a capital management company, maybe you've got access to a half billion dollars and you're looking for emerging companies to invest in.

You, as the person with a half billion dollars to invest, start hunting for companies that are a solid investment. Better than investing in Apple stock or investing in other sources. In short order you have thousands of startups and dozens of established companies asking for your money. THINK: How does that investor get the list of companies to invest in? If you struggle to figure it out, pretend that you've got the money and start doing a search yourself; you'll learn something in the process.

So now the investor has a list of companies. What would you look for in deciding who gets your funding? Would you look at one specific game, investing in a game rather than investing in a company? Would you look at one specific game's count of downloads? Would you look at topics like industry experience, growth plans, and market research? THINK: What would you want to know if positions were reversed? Would you be asking them what the product looks like? Would you be asking about how many downloads they happen to have? Would you be asking questions about staff and experience? What about asking them for their business plans, their target demographics, or products that compare to what they're making?

It is not a matter of finding the mystic list of angel investors who deliver truckloads of money when you've done nothing more than discover the list. It is about selling your company to an investor as a good investment, about developing the business as a business. Exactly how you do that is up to you.