There are two good parts in the PDF: First there
is:

We must ask: why are you seeking
venture funding?

o The business seems capable of
bootstrapping to success.

o You claim to have a successful
exit behind you. Why not fund
it yourself?

Good points. My guess is that with the amazing
improvement of the ratio of price and performance of
computer server hardware and Internet bandwidth,
more and more entrepreneurs will just bootstrap
their startups.

Second there is:

However, none of our funds are
currently in an investment mode, so
we won't be investing. So why did we
take the pitch?

o Because an hour of our time
doesn't really cost that much.

o We just wanted to hear what was
going on in the industry, and
it's cheaper for companies to
come to us, than for us to go to
conferences.

o We have a company in our
portfolio that is in your space,
and we're going to help them by
passing them your business plan
and your best ideas! Sorry.

Some VCs may do these things or somethings close to
them.

There are two problems, not just with the form
letter but US information technology venture
capital:

First there are the definitions:

o You're pre-seed because you have
an idea but no prototype or
users.

o You're seed stage because you
have a prototype or some
nonpaying users, but no scalable
way to convert those users to
revenue.

o You're early stage because you
have revenue, but are not yet
profitable.

o You're growth stage because you
have hit cash-flow-positive, but
only in a small market, and you
want to roll out new products
and services to new markets.

o You're pre-IPO because you've
got a solid track record of
dominating your market.

A problem here is that the list assumes that the
company will go to market with just a prototype.
Bummer.

These definitions of pre-seed and seed assume that
the product development needed and deserved no
equity funding and is done but somehow is still not
nearly enough for a going business and the project,
for a business, still needs equity funding. That
view cannot hold very often for projects that have
the potential VCs need. Really this view is being
lazy, that is, just don't look at the product and,
instead, look at 'traction' in the market.

Of course, there will occasionally be, for whatever
reasons, good, bad, or otherwise, some cases of
promising startups that have everything done but
need some 'go to market' equity funding, but more
and more in information technology such cases will
in niches.

Second, there is

Typically we look for:

o a fundamental innovation in
technology or business model.

o we're looking for someone who
lives at the frontier of
innovation in their field, and
knows where the puck is going.

Nearly no US information technology venture partners
are either willing or able to evaluate such
considerations.

We have to keep in mind: Surprisingly, shockingly,
US VCs are doing poorly making money. I.e., on
average they are failing at business. Two telling
examples:

(1) As in Fred Wilson's post of

Feb 21, 2013

Venture Capital Returns

at his

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/02/venture-capital-returns.html

over the past 10 years, early stage US venture
capital on average has had return on investment
(ROI) less than the S&P 500.

(2) As in remarks on venture capital at the Web site
of Peter Theil's The Founders Fund, at

http://www.foundersfund.com/the-future

where click on "Read More" in a tiny image near the
bottom of the page, with

'Founders Fund:'

'What Happened to the Future?'

By Bruce Gibney

in section "VC's Long Nightmare", see:

"Along the way, VC has ceased to be the funder of
the future, and instead has become a funder of
features, widgets, irrelevances. In large part, it
also ceased making money, as the bottom half of
venture produced flat to negative return for the
past decade."

Wow! Negative return for a decade!