By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: What do you think angel-backed founders could do to increase their chances of success? Alan: Have a very rich father. No, seriously, there are a couple of very common errors that companies make that if they could avoid those, they’d really make – particularly the capital
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: On average, from all sources, how many pitches do you receive a month? Jeff: It’s hundreds. It varies. I would say like five to ten a day on average. And then some days are busier so, it really depends. A lot of those sometimes aren’t qualified.
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Jeff: Sometimes people will catch my attention. Someone the other day reached me via Twitter. I looked at what he was doing. It was a 20-year-old kid who was trying to put a company together, so I gave him some advice around how to think about his
Alan: Another one is in the financial services arena, and it has been cash flowing now for over twenty-four months, and it doesn’t get any better than that. When a company is just internally building cash, it’s a wonderful thing to see and we’ll probably look at exit on that company possibly even this year
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: How many people work for the fund? Jeff: It’s just me. I am a workhorse. I have done eighty-two deals in the past six years on my own. And I do support my companies and I do help them and work with my CEOs despite the
Irina: Do you have any sector preference? Alan: No, but I’ll hit on a couple. First off, one of our criteria – and I call it a soft criterion, but it’s a general guideline that we adhere to – is that within Springboard’s membership, it’s 53 partners, if we don’t have anybody who has expertise
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold This is the fourteenth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Palo Alto-based Jeff Clavier, founder and managing partner of SoftTech VC, an early-stage venture capital firm managing a $15 million seed fund, SoftTech VC II. Irina: Hi, Jeff. Could you tell
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: At what stage of a company’s development do you usually invest? Alan: Post-revenue. To be a little bit more precise, it’s post-revenue but probably before they have a sufficient customer base to interest the venture funds. Venture funds look at companies at various stages but tend,