[cd34]

  His request: he told me to send in an executive statement
  Your response: an executive statement for an early stage tech start up is a huge 
  waste of time

  Fund's requirement: the company must stay in Canton, OH for the next 10 years
  Your response: apply for funding outside Canton, OH

  His response: according to him my idea wasnt unique enough
  You need to refine your pitch

  His response: lack of market validation
  four people isn't validation. Even in stealth, you need to get a number of people 
  using your product. You need a revenue model, you need people using the service 
  to tell you what needs to be improved. Your idea may not be easily marketable and 
  clients are going to give feedback on what works better for them.

  His question: why a start up would want to remain in stealth mode
  Your response: I began to get slightly agitated

Regardless of your opinion of what he knows, he's the one with the money that you're trying to get. Telling the guy with the money that he doesn't know what he's doing isn't going to get him to write that check.

Refine your pitch, adjust your attitude, get some market validation and paying customers and approach other funds or bootstrap until someone notices you.

[frankwong]

Is the norm to build and test until you have a live system where users have been using it over many iterations of feedbacks and alterations before approaching investors? At earlier stages than that is generally a bad idea to approach them? Thanks.