This story requires our BI Prime membership. To read the full article,Kleiner Perkins Partner Mamoon Hamid, who was an early investor in companies such as Slack, Box and Yammer, explains the fine points of pitching to venture capital firms for early-stage startups.
That's why founders and entrepreneurs typically turn to venture capital investors as they look for their initial big investments: The Series A investment round that gives the startup the cash to really establish the business, and then the crucial Series B follow-up round that can add more fuel to the proverbial fire.
"With Series A, there are not a lot of numbers to talk about," he said. "With Series A, I'm thinking a lot about the vision, the team, the market that they are going into. In Series B, it's really about execution since the Series A — how developed is the product? Is it in the hands of customers? What is the sales cycle like?"
"You've either built the product already, or you will be building the product and your prior credentials make us believe that you will build that product," he added.
Kleiner Perkins? Are they still around?