What it takes for a venture capitalist to write a check

Offering tidbits about what clicks with the Venture Firm, Chris Sugden noted VC's desire to find a "connection" between the entrepreneur and themselves via various industry intermediaries such as investment banks, law firms, accounting firms and financial specialists. Chris highlighted that presentations by entrepreneurs need to boldly state the problem they are solving and why their solution is worthy of investement----in his words "speak to the VC Firm as if they were the customer". In the first meeting with a VC firm use a power point presentation, not the business plan and guage the response of the interviewing vc people by the questions they ask and positive body language. Edison anticipates a first meeting to be held with the entrepreneur and one other company representative such as a CFO or VP of Sales. They are looking at the composition of the team and at what stage of staffing they are in, both for assessing the entrepreneur's judgment and seeing the match with the stage of funding the venture is in. Often the VC will assist in finding a CEO for an entrepreneur, but this is not always necessary. Chris noted that boards exist within his firm for various expertises and if an interview is being done by someone not on a board, than the interview is just a screening meeting.