The Human Founder - Global

Oded Hermoni, Co-Founder, Managing Partner of J-Ventures

Journeys of Impact and Meaningful Connection: From Leaving with Loss to Building a 'Capitalist Kibbutz' in Silicon Valley

Oded Hermoni, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of J-Ventures Group, carries a profound connection to his Jewish identity, notably shaped by the circumstances of his father's death in the Yom Kippur war. Born just 10 days after this event, Oded was named after his late father, and this experience, along with the support of his mother and stepfather, significantly influenced his life.

His journey, spanning journalism, investments, and entrepreneurship, reflects a commitment to understanding the impact of his vision. Oded's move to Silicon Valley, marked as a major shift, emphasizes the transformative nature of his career choices.

When reflecting on the loss of his father, Oded identifies three significant impacts: his name, his deep commitment to Zionism, and the profound experience of fatherhood. The significance of his name, "Oded Hermoni," becomes particularly poignant when he searches it online and sees it on his father's grave during visits.

Throughout his varied career, including journalism, Oded underscores the importance of a mission-driven approach, aligning with his commitment to making a meaningful impact. He draws parallels between journalism and business, emphasizing the need to put ego aside, connect with people, and provide value.

His involvement in various impact and social activities, as well as founding  J-Ventures Group (J-Ventures+J-Impact), a Silicon Valley based Upside down VC fund with $70M AUM that he calls a "Capitalist Kibbutz"", to connect Israeli Startupsand Jews through investments. This further demonstrates his dedication to fostering connections within the Jewish community.

J-Ventures is a unique VC model empowered by 430 men & women. It's the only VC backed by over 150 other GPs from VC funds, by over 100 serial founders (and invested in 18 of them), and by 200 Executives. The model changes the paradigm of GP/LP and Also of VC/ Founders. 

Oded's perspective on building a company emphasizes creating a positive community and inclusive environment, where everyone feels part of something significant. The emphasis on choosing colleagues based on shared values reflects Oded's belief in mutual support during challenging moments. Therefore, ask yourself both as an investor & a founder: "Are you a person I would enjoy being in his company for 7 years?" and then make a choice.

Noam Toister, Co-Founder & CEO at Travelier

In 2020, his second company was already after an A round and had 60 employees - and then COVID hit. As a travel company, they suddenly had no market, and their sales crashed by 50% in just two weeks, and it only got worse as time passed.

Noam shared that after meeting with their investors, he understood that radical changes needed to be made in order for their company to survive.

And so, with a heavy heart, they had to let go of almost half of the company to insure the future salaries of the rest of the employees for the next two years.

“It was very tough, and thinking about it now in retrospect, it was one of the things I didn’t have much control over - I couldn’t prevent it, but I still felt so bad. Everyone was crying in the office because it felt like we’re just starting to scale up and build our DNA, and then things are down the drain.”

Alon Arvatz, CEO & Co-founder of PointFive

Every team of co-founders deals with conflicts. As three co-founders of IntSights, Alon shared that they had to overcome many obstacles. When I asked him what caused conflicts between them and what helped them solve them, he explained that he had to make a shift in his mindset.

“It was a tough process to go through; you believe in yourself, you believe that you know what needs to be done as the co-founder who's supposed to make the decisions, but you learn, like in marriage, that you can’t take all the decisions alone.”

 

Letting go of our egos is a big part of being a good co-founder. It’s a difficult shift in mindset to make between going all force toward a goal in one arena as an entrepreneur, and being considerate and compromising within your team to achieve this goal together in another. In some ways, it’s going against our nature.

It’s a tricky process that takes time - one that took Alon two years to make, but in the end, it's definitely worth it

Diving into everything in episode 103 of The Human Founder podcast, with Alon Arvatz, CEO & Co-founder of PointFive.

Hasan Abasi, Co-Founder and CEO of HAAT

“I felt like I had no control, not knowing what’s going on in my life, but I kept fighting, and no one felt anything - in fact, the company doubled itself.” 

He felt great responsibility to succeed for his family at home, and for his family of employees in HAAT - his community. 

Part of the capacity of responsibility that you choose to take on yourself when you become a founder is exactly this; accepting that even in the most stressful, difficult, and challenging moments, you will still be there, because you see it’s serving something bigger than yourself.

“Generally speaking, the journey is super difficult. We usually see the success, but we don’t see the suffering and patience behind it. Physically, I’m really tired, but mentally, I’m super excited. It’s the happiest and the hardest time in my life at the same time.”

Diving into everything in episode 102 of The Human Founder podcast, with Hasan Abasi, CEO at HAAT Delivery.

Eyal Gura, Entrepreneur & Venture Investor (Taboola , Appsflyer , Formlabs Medisafe, PayZen , Imagene , Theator , Taranis , Talon and more)

Our childhoods had immense power in shaping the adults we are. The events that occurred to us early in life taught us what to expect from life in the future; they created our whole perspective. 

Eyal shared about the insights he now has on the effects of his childhood: “Being the first son of a family when both your father leaves the house and you lose one of your role models in a sense, and in addition, losing our brother to cancer in those exact ages, which now I know are considered the time of personality development, were pretty traumatic. And so, in the future, I had to create a certain personality to deal with uncertainty in life.”

 

Stress is definitely very prevalent this year, both for us as people and as a part of the ecosystem as a whole. Many investors and founders who were used to success in the past few years are now experiencing a first crisis in their “algorithms”. For the first time, everything they knew and were sure about isn’t enough - new data is coming, and it’s very different from what they expected and were prepared for. It’s difficult to contain it all - for all of us. 

With all of that in mind, Eyal emphasized - “If we want to maximize the chances of a certain company being successful and have the founders and their team maintain a sense of sanity and wellbeing (especially in this time), we need to put a lot of emphasis on addressing our personalities, communication, and awareness expansion…”

 

Diving into everything in episode 99 of The Human Founder podcast, With Eyal Gura, Entrepreneur & Venture Investor. 

Eliav Alaluf, Marketing Expert and Author

The power of authentic storytelling for founders.

 

“I do appreciate what I have achieved so far, but I think that my best projects are ahead of me. I believe in continuous learning - the more you know, the more you can give. And I think meaning doesn’t come from what you have or receive but from what you give to others. You are not the story - you’re the storyteller. It’s not about you, people only care about what you can give them - an idea, a way to think about things, a methodology, a message, or a powerful principle - if you give me that, that’s what’s interesting.”

 

Diving into the fascinating world of branding and storytelling in The Human Founder podcast episode 96 with Eliav Alaluf, Marketing Expert and Author.

Natalie Refuah, General Partner at Viola Growth

In honor of International Women's Day, I'm excited and happy to share with you a special episode with Natalie Refuah, who shared in our intimate conversation about the insights she gathered during two decades of her career in the worlds of investments and entrepreneurship. Hearing and learning from her sensitive and wise take on the ecosystem has definitely made this day special and inspiring for me, and I hope it can do the same for you. 

 

“I like looking at things at a macro level - looking from the side of the investors, the LPs that invest in funds, gives you the macro perspective. When I started this journey two decades ago, there were barely women who were Partners, General Partners or analysts, and I think that today it’s about 15-20% of women at the top of VCs, so it’s definitely better, but I don’t see any reason for why it won’t be 50%.”

 

Diving into everything in ep 95 of The Human Founder podcast, with Natalie Refuah, General Partner at Viola Growth.

Rabea Zioud, Co-Founder & CEO at Hasoub

How to dream big and make an impact on your community?

 

Rabea grew up as the oldest out of five siblings with two amazing parents. Despite the fact that his parents didn’t have the opportunity to finish school, they believed in and supported all of their children in completing their education and reaching their full potential. 

Because two of his siblings were diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy (a group of disorders that affect a person's ability to move and maintain balance and posture) and required care, Rabea developed a strong sense of responsibility from a young age, knowing it was his responsibility to care for them with the family for the rest of their lives.

“I always knew I wanted to do big things that affected people at the macro level, and I also wanted to study something in the medical field," something that was heavily influenced by him growing up with his brother and sister and wanting to help them.

And so, he ended up choosing physical therapy. That year he also started what he called his “entrepreneurial adventure” - and opened together with a good friend a study center for pupils in elementary school in the Arabic society  who came from a tough background and had no one to help them with their studying. 

“We were 20 years old, and knew nothing about business and how to start things," but still, they managed to help many kids complete their education. And that was just the beginning.

Diving into everything in episode 93 With Rabea Zioud, Co-Founder & CEO at Hasoub

Nir Eyal, Author: Indistractable, Hooked; Investor; Consultant; and a Public Speaker

How can we become indistractable?

 

Nir’s research on personal productivity and distraction came from a specific moment in his life, when he and his daughter a quality afternoon together, reading an activity book for parents and their kids, and one of the suggestions there was to ask each other - ‘If you could have any superpower, what superpower would you want?’

Unfortunately, Nir shared that he didn’t hear his daughter’s answer because he was too busy checking his phone. “When I looked up, she was already gone, because I was sending a very clear message that my phone was more important than she was.” 

At that point, he realized he needed to reassess his approach to distractions because he could see how it affected every single part of his life.

The superpower he now wanted to cultivate was the power to be undistracted.

 

He spent five years researching and writing the book "Indistractable" to help people learn how to control their attention and become more successful in life,“but it took me so long because I kept getting distracted! I wrote this book for me, more than anyone else, cause I needed it”.

He wanted to provide a tech positive approach that doesn't moralize or medicalize the problem, but instead looks at the root cause of why we get distracted in the first place. 

Diving into the fascinating world of the psychology behind trends in The Human Founder podcast episode 92 with Nir Eyal, Author: Indistractable, Hooked; Investor; Consultant; and a Public Speaker

Jonathan Ellman, Co-Founder & Chairman, Flip, Co-founder & CEO, Seekers

How to build 7 tech companies in 15 years whilst finding your center as an entrepreneur?

 

“I think entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned to hit those walls more than other people are, because of the difficulties of building a startup, failing, and doing it again - it makes you question yourself much more than other professions will afford you to do.”

 

Sometimes, as much as we might hate it, doubt can be a good thing. It’s not about knowing everything right from the beginning, but having the ability to ask the tough and important questions, to be willing to change and be surprised.

This ability is a must, especially as a founder.

 

I think one of the big secrets that no one tells founders in the beginning of the way, is that the real challenging part of this journey won’t be raising the funds, but will come from inside yourself. The highest walls you must break come from within.

It might sound gloomy, but as Jonathan said: “Once you turn that switch of knowing you can do it - it’s turned for life, and that’s the key.”

 

Diving into everything in The Human Founder podcast episode 89 with Jonathan Ellman, Co-Founder & Chairman of Flip, קו-פאונדר ומנכ״ל Seekers 

 

This episode is in loving memory of Micha.