HRH Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud, founder and Chief Executive Officer of KBW Ventures, and Hasan Haidar, partner at 500 Startups, participated in a meet and greet with Gulf students at Draper University in Silicon Valley.

The meet and greet took place at Draper University in Silicon Valley

The students asked the duo questions about how to attract venture capital, the best ways to build a business, and sought advice on matters that ranged from choosing suitable team members to how best to structure a startup.

Hasan Haider, partner at 500 Startups, and Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed, founder and CEO of KBW Ventures

Prince Khaled outlined the importance of knowing your space including having supporting market research and knowledge on competitor edge, and not getting distracted by public relations hype around acquisitions in the MENA region.

Students from the Gulf attended the session and asked questions related to investments and entrepreneurship

Prince Khaled elaborated on these ideas stressing the importance of building a strong business and curating a team that shares founder vision and values; adding that these elements would be followed by investor interest. He also explained the importance of resilience, and that founders should not be afraid of venture capital rejection.

This is the second session with Prince Khaled staged at Draper U with Gulf students of entrepreneurship

Hasan emphasized the importance of founder execution, highlighting that potential investors always look for ability to execute as a worthwhile metric, and pointed out that entrepreneurs tend to be overprotective of ideas hence delaying product release. In closing, Hasan noted that a strong founding team requires multiple skillsets: technical, marketing and communications, and business development, adding that single-founder startups have potential in-built weaknesses.

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