Jeff Clavier gets around Silicon Valley. Since emigrating from Tours, France to the Bay Area back in 2000, he’s personally invested in 70 startups and his fund SoftTech VC has invested in 49 investments (average $200,000 investment) since launching about six years ago.
His recent exits include Mob.ly, which was sold to Groupon; GeoAPI, which was sold to Twitter; Mint, which was sold to Intuit; DanceJam, which was sold to Grind Networks and Ohloh, which was sold to SourceForge.
In this segment Jeff offers up his advice to entrepreneurs based on years of working with many who’ve succeeded and many who’ve failed, and many who’ve experienced both.
In fact, failure, according to Jeff is a right of passage. “If you fail, it gives you freedom,” Jeff in our segment of “Lessons for entrepreneurs.”
Without diving into the details (you’ll have to watch the interview), one other key lesson is learning how to pivot or change. Jeff brings up Seesmic as an example. Seesmic started as a video Twitter, and has morphed into a popular Twitter utility. (Watch my interview with Loic Le Meur about Seesmic’s video ambitions practically two years ago to the day. This is not what Seesmic is now. Good for him for changing.) This is what makes great entrepreneurs. The willingness to persist.
