The Human Founder - Global

Yotam Cohen, Co-founder & CEO of Daisy

@Yotam is a serial entrepreneur, the co-founder and CEO of @Daisy, and previously, he co-founded @Wibbitz as part of the @Zell entrepreneurship program where he still serves as a mentor. 

 

Yotam, in fact, has experienced the full package of a life-of-an-entrepreneur - and shares with us from a bird’s eye view, and deep dives - the roller coaster of a serial entrepreneur. 

 

100% trust, and always thinking what’s best for the company

He co-founded Wibbitz while he was a student at the IDC, as part of the Zell program. When reflecting back, on the beginning of the journey - he now sees how naive he was and with how much uncertainty he had to cope with. It’s a marathon composed of many small winns, expected to prove who you are at all times - “You’ve gotta show you can really do it”.  At the Zell program - they started as 4 founders, soon became 2. The expectations were high. 

 

When discussing how they have decided about their roles as CEO & COO - he answers that the key is 100% trust, and always thinking what’s best for the company.  Co-founders relations are like marriage, and one should always think about the other side’s needs. Both parties should invest in it, and give priority to the relationship.

 

The dynamics changes when opening a US site

 Most startups leave their R&D & product in Israel, and marketing & sales in the US. Opening the second site, when one co-founder stays in Israel and the other one relocates - makes things more complicated. The cultural differences appear and the communication gets less direct. Hence, it’s profoundly crucial to first implement a strong foundation and infrastructure, set expectations and keep the communication channels open and transparent all the time. Once again - trust & healthy communication are the key.

 

The company’s culture won’t develop on its own, and people have to practice how to work together as a team. First and foremost - culture is being built by leaders who lead by example.

Yotam reflects about the difference between founding his 1st startup to the 2nd one, and how nowadays, prior to launching Daisy, it was all based on common values and clear understanding of how they should operate. 

 

How do you leave your “child”?

Leaving your own startup is a difficult choice. It’s a tough and emotional decision that you don’t make overnight. Things have to be deeply missfit to do so, and in his case, after a lot of self-reflection, he felt he was not himself anymore. 

Yotam remembers clearly the silence when he was in the office with his 100 employees, sharing the news - so sad and so proud of what they’ve built together. 

 

People don’t leave because they are afraid to deal with difficult questions. “What will I do now?” For Yotam it was clear - although many offers were made - from joining VCs to joining other ventures - he knew he was born to be an entrepreneur, and he wishes to do it all from the beginning - 0-1, new industry, new experience. 

 

2nd time entrepreneur

Building your 2nd venture - you face the same problems and same challenges, but there is one big difference - you already have some more perspective; you know that if things are broken now, you will fix them later on. Or not. And move to the next feature. Being a second time entrepreneur - you feel more comfortable making decisions with only 60-70% assurance. You know that the key to success is in the iterative process, the fast learnings and the personal evolvement of the team. 

 

Confidence comes from within (or: It’s all about family)

Yotam shares the strong foundation and confidence he got from his family: a father - former pilot at the IAF who was injured and got back to flight; a strong leader mother; 1 brother - @Yiftach - entrepreneur & CEO of @Zedes; 1 brother @Elad - a rocket scientist; and a successful sister, @Maya -Head of Company at @Lemonade, together with his wife @Michal  that keep him and their 4 children all together. Yotam describes his family as the ‘safe zone’. 

Talking about his recent relocation, Yotam shares the challenges and how important it is to have a supportive spouse, understanding the sacrifice the family is making - side by side with the amazing experiences.

 

To conclude, Yotam conveys a strong message of being confident in who you are, believe in who you are, and find out who you are in every stage of your life.

Avi Yaron, GP at HealthYa

How to Heal Your Brain & Save Your Own Life as an Entrepreneur?                          

Part II in the brain series – this time, from the real-life angle.

 

When you’re pushed to the edge - you can fight harder than your usual boundaries

Avi thought he had it all at the age of 26. 2 startups, working non-stop. A smart guy. An Electrical Engineer. Till the day his life went upside down - and the Dr. told him he has a brain tumor. He had a motorcycle accident, and the CT scan revealed the tumor. Avi thought his life was over. The Dr. recommended an immediate surgery but Avi refused. He started to teach himself Medicine. Biology. Physics. He tried all kinds of alternative medicine and changed the course of his life. He did an MRI every 3 months - checking the status of the tumor. As he describes - “I knew how bad the situation was according to the level of shoutings of the radiologists”. He had to be extra optimistic and to have a huge belief that he would defeat it - or else he would die. 

 

There were 2 “Avis”: the one that was driven out of curiosity, with no fear, learning and trying everything out there, and the 2nd Avi, who was afraid for his life. 

He understood that the brain tumor was a symptom, hence, something deep had to change. 

 

He then found a neurosurgeon with a different approach - Dr. Patrick Kelly - and he was willing to put his life in his hands. Avi was part of the process. 

1st-2nd of May 1995, was his new birth. The surgery went well.

He came back to Israel, determined to change his life - eat healthy, live without stress. He was a living miracle. 

 

Drunk on life, a year and a half passes by, and an MRI shows that he has a residual tumor.  

 

Dr. Patrick Kelly explains that the tumor is so deep, that he needs a 3D camera device to treat it, but there isn’t any existing. He suggests that Avi will wait 5 years for someone to invent it... 

 

Avi broke all his savings, met with scientists all over the world and started to work on this development. Investors didn't want to invest in him, as he was a ticking bomb.

 

He then reached out to Dr. Hanoch Elran who performed the 4th surgery, which saved Avi’s life.

 

As a healthy person - Avi went back to the investors.

10 more years of R&D and development and living in the US - @VisionSense, Avis’ scientific deep tech company which developed minimally invasive surgery technology, was acquired by @Medtronic.  

 

Avi reflects on his journey, that when it comes to adults - the root cause is usually emotional - “We should listen to the whisper of the disease and not wait for the shout”.  

 

From innovator to investor

That’s what has led him to build Joy Ventures, with a very big vision of creating a new ecosystem to enhance resilience. He had to leave that dream, understanding that too many mistakes had been made and that this venture is not right for him anymore. That was another milestone in Avi’s entrepreneurial rollercoaster.

That gave Avi, again, another big life lesson, to begin a new journey. “We should always work on our dreams, maximize our days, and learn from our mistakes. We have 3 brains - the mind brain, the heart brain, the guts brain. They are all integrated in a neural connection. Decisions have to be aligned with all of them”.  

 

Avi and his new partners founded @HealthYa, nurturing revolutionary health-tech solutions, investing in life saving technologies and helping build the ventures.

 

Avi guides and mentors dozens of entrepreneurs, as he sees his duty in serving others and helping people who need him. When talking about risk management - first and foremost - if you don’t have a huge dream to be an entrepreneur - don’t do it. 

The Chinese people believe that one is always a bit deceased, hence, we need to fix and improve ourselves all the time. The mental flexibility is what matters - not to be led by ego, but by curiosity. To do things we never did before, go out of our comfort zone, and always ask ourselves - is what we’re doing now really meaningful?

Omer Keilaf, Co-founder and CEO Innoviz

From Unit 81 to SPAC, With a Strong Purpose of Saving Life

 

Omer’s family was involved in a major car accident when he was a young boy. His mother, who was a ballet dancer and owned a studio, didn't get back to her barre, and his sister was seriously injured. It took them many years to overcome this experience.

Years later - Omer drove the motorcycle, and when finishing with this - he told himself that he was lucky enough to avoid the statistics of 1.3 million people dying in the roads every year and that 80% of the car accidents are caused by human mistakes.

With this significant  purpose - he goes to sleep and wakes up to another day, bringing safety to mobility - trying to decrease the number of car accidents and save lives.

 

Omer shares how when establishing Innoviz, they faced a big challenge dealing with a technological gap they weren't aware of; They understood that the problem they thought they needed to solve initially was not at all the right one. 5.5 years later, in April 2021 - Innoviz went public through a SPAC merger in Wall Street, with a valuation of $1.4 billion.

 

Omer shares his path in Unit 81 of the IDF, and how his character was built along the 7 years he spent there. He took from there many lessons and attributes - commitment and creativity were few of them. In the beginning ,when he first thought about Innoviz - he had 26 ideas. Innoviz was only #18 on the list. He has decided to solve a problem that wasn't solvable, but if someone can do it - it’s his team.

 

In Unit 81 he spent 2 periods - the 1st one taught him how to be an amazing integrator - to challenge the experts under unbelievable pressure and tight deadlines, so that the only thing that pushes you forward is the strong passion that you derive from what you do, knowing how important it is.  Their slogan was: Capability, Passion, Commitment - making the impossible-possible. The 2nd period - he was leading tech projects, the decision maker. What he learned from there - is the power of communication and transparency - a culture he brings into Innoviz, creating trust and making everyone approachable.

 

Omer shared the way he sees a 1st time experience - when your eyes are fresh, you feel confident, ask questions, make your voice heards and not necessarily take things as they are - that’s where you have an impact and can lead to a healthy change.

 

As team leaders - you have to educate and explain things - that’s where you learn as well. Omer earns his points when he is able to share something new he has learned. His job as a CEO is to learn new things>>see the blind spots>>solve problems and>>connect the dots. Not to spend time in meetings.

 

Omer, 2*Orens, and the whole Innoviz Team are on a very important mission, committed to save life. You can feel it from Omer’s vibes when he speaks about what they do and the problem they are solving. Omer shows honest, mindful, empowering and humble leadership, wrapped in a very calm and balanced personality.

Meirav Oren (Fainaru), CEO & Co-founder Versatile

Meirav is the CEO & alongside 3 others, she is a co-founder of  Versatile, a leading ConstructionTech company. She just shared with me the amazing news of closing their B round of $80M within 2 weeks and no deck, led by Insight Partners and Tiger Global.

 

Meirav shares how she grew up with a General Contractor father, who made her love construction, and a mother that didn't support her leaving the comfort zone at Intel. She talks a lot about being unemployed, and her brother, a real estate developer who lost a worker on his site. She remembers that evening clearly, including thinking to herself that there’s a  gap in data within construction sites - it has to be closed and allow managers to make better decisions. That’s when Versatile was born. Meirav shares a lot of gratitude to those who accompanied her in the beginning - Tidhar group, Autodesk etc.

 

Embracing a Growth Mindset

Meirav sees Versatile’s job in changing the sequence of events, and controlling the processes within the construction site. When I asked her about being a woman entrepreneur - she said that if you know what you’re doing- gender is not an issue. From her point of view, you have to focus on your  track, set goals, exceed them, and hit your targets.

 

Meirav shares that when COVID hit, they had no idea what would happen. She believes in complete transparency with the team, sticking to the facts and doing everything she could within her power. That way, she kept her internal focus while showing her vulnerability, which helped her team feel more secure and committed. 

 

Failure is Only When we Fail to Learn

A superpower in days of uncertainty and always is to be aware of how you respond, communicate, and respond to failures. She believes in Nelson Mandella’s saying that “you either learn or win.” Meirav likes to see failures, as well-paid tuition. Her 1st ever project in Versatile was a complete failure - but it brought her the next investor. This failure made them understand exactly what they needed to improve - and the investor loved it.

A Table of 4 Legs

Meirav describes herself and her 3 co-founders like a 4 legged table - they too have a stable, synergistic, and harmonic relationship.

Each co-founder has a strict domain which he leads and manages, and the CEO makes the final decision. Meirav describes her transition from being a Founder to acting as a CEO  -as the company grows, you have to bring really good people, and that means - you also need to listen to them. She believes in growing your staff - hear all the voices around the table, but eventually - as CEO, DECIDE. Then, the others can ‘disagree & commit’. 

 

Meirav loves to checkmark ‘V’ - changing ‘impossible’ to ‘done’. That’s how she raised a series A of $28.5M within 8 weeks, and 6 months after - a Series B of $80M within 3 week, which all happened during COVID-19.  A strong proof of her attitude & spirit is that her investors have already invested in Versatile for the 4th time, which conveys trust and confidence in the vision and team.

 

Meirav conveyed a strong message that “there is no better place to invest now than in a company in this area, aiming to disrupt the construction industry.”

Eze Vidra & Kevin Baxpehler, Managing Partners of Remagine Ventures

Eze & Kevin have known each other from their days in the Zell program at the IDC, through working at  Wall Street, Google, a few more ventures & startups, and are now General Partners of an early-stage VC focusing on entertainment & consumers. Eze & Kevin are great friends and even better partners.

 

Kevin shares his entrepreneurial journey, including the day he had to let go of 30 employees, and chose to do the same for himself - since the company grew too fast and R&D couldn't keep up with sales. That difficult day threw him back to 2008, when the big crisis hit Wall St. and from big dreams and fancy cocktails - he found his work as an investment banker was no longer meaningful enough and shortly after he was fired.

 

Eze always loved computers - even back in Argentina, where he was born and raised until the age of 8 years old. After moving to Israel - it was always important to him to help put Israel on the global map through tech and create global bridges, so he founded VC cafe back in 2005. This venture is ongoing, and recently Eze added the ‘Firgun’ thread - as part of his abundance point of view.

 

Kevin says his biggest strengths are optimism & inner drive, something that was also nurtured from his years as a tennis player. Eze describes Kevin as a self-starter, so their dynamic is that Kevin draws the first draft & concepts, and Eze does the fine-tuning & finalizes the details. That’s how they gain a complete and comprehensive understanding based on trust and respect.

 

Eze says that his strongest strength is his curiosity, that he is wired to see the matrix and connect the dots. Kevin says that Eze is amazing in the way he gives feedback & criticism, and that he has this inner ML algorithm that learns and develops all the time.

 

Kevin shares that every 3-4 years, he feels like he’s too much in his comfort zone - so he has to disrupt himself and learn something new or go through some kind of personal development. 

He recently graduated from the Hoffman-Kofman Conscious Leadership Program, where he gained a lot of experience and trained his listening & conflict resolution skills. Additionally, Kevin recently began  studying mindfulness and has since implemented various techniques into his day-to-day life.

A few of the mindfulness techniques include:

• Conscious breathing techniques - focusing on the inhale & exhale
• Body scan - focusing on various parts of the body and directing the breathing into those areas
• Focusing on the Here & Now, more being over doing in an unproductive way

 

Eze spoke about giving back to society & shared his experiences with Tech-Bikers, which is  a non-profit organization he established promoting long distance cycling challenges. The organization supports the establishment of new schools, libraries & scholarships in Nepal, Vietnam, Bangladesh and more. 

 

Eze & Kevin discussed the high cost and trade-offs of the entrepreneurial journey and how perspective is crucial to success. They also shared advice about the importance of cash flow and high margins and how as an entrepreneur, you should always have a plan B.

Gigi Levy-Weiss, General Partner at NFX

Gigi is one of the most appreciated, sharp and talented investors in the Israeli startup scene, but also abroad. He is a GP at NFX together with James Currier, Pete Flint, Omri Drori & Morgan Beller.

After being a pilot in the Israeli Air Force, Gigi founded several startups, such as Playtika (acquired for $4.4 billion), Ridge, Beach Bums and more. He used to be CEO of 888 Holdings, one of the world’s frontrunners in the gaming industry. Gigi invested in startups such as Komodor, Mammoth Biosciences, Kenshoo, MyHeritage and countless others. He also serves as an advisor on the board of several organizations, such as MEET - Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow. 

 

Gigi candidly  shared with me his personal journey.

 

The CEO Persona

We spoke about the complexity embedded in the CEO role - the costume you wear, and how that sometimes gets confused with the real you. We shared how as a young CEO - he was managed by his ego, with no compassion and forgiveness, and how important it is for a CEO to learn to put his ego aside and really listen to others. Being forgiving to himself and to others  is something that he takes with him into the investor position.

 

In Silicon Valley - both the founders and investors use a language which nurtures a complex threshold of expectations -  they are all “killing it”. They should not show weakness, which brings a lot of misery, and literally “killing it.” Now - it doesn't mean that you should share your weakness with everyone - but you should do it with your inner circle and close peers.  

 

The Investor Persona

Gigi sees his role as the sounding board of the entrepreneurs he invests in. Once they share their truth - it’s a ‘Protected Zone,’ and they can rest assured that it stays there. Gigi and the other NFX GPs don’t insist on being on the board, but they insist on being the last conversation prior to the board.

Sometimes, it’s also ‘tough love’ - as this is what they need to hear at that moment.

 

Gigi believes that as investors - they should be grateful to have been chosen by the founders to join their journey. The founders are generally brilliant, hungry, energetic and sacrificing a lot in this path. It’s not ‘our’ company - it’s theirs. For him, the lowest of lows - is to find out he picked the wrong entrepreneur. 

 

Founders’ Psychological Traits 

Gigi has seen more than 10,000 entrepreneurs over the years. In different verticals - different traits are needed. But, there are psychological aspects that are true for entrepreneurs in general.  

1. Founders are a mix of inherent contradictions
2. Optimism - they never believe they’ll fail
3. They must have an elastic and agile mind, so they can reconvene new directions when needed
4. Be open and transparent
5. Crystalize a clear vision & WHY
6. Be data-driven decision-makers
7. Entrepreneurs can be either arrogant & loud or insecure & quiet; the range is surprising. However, both types can be great entrepreneurs.
8. Decision Makers - “Move Fast and Break Things”
   1. Speed is one of the main character traits founders should have, whilst being willing to accept failure. If you make a mistake>>you fix>>iterate>>move. 
   2. Speed needs to be balanced with the quality of decisions - especially when it comes to recruiting talents. 
   3. Gigi shares his personal growth from being the smartest guy in the room, telling others what to do, to being the mentor that thinks together with them. He likes providing them with tools to make decisions and letting them make their own. That has a lot to do with the concept of parenting and how we educate & mentor our children and founders.

 

Gigi sees the cherry on top of his role as an investor in helping the entrepreneurs balance their psychological traits, is learning how to wear the various costumes when needed. More importantly, it is knowing when to leave them aside. 

 

For Gigi, what helped him more than all in his personal growth journey - was learning from failures. Failure, the way he sees it, is a call to reach a higher level of consciousness. A “wake up call,” an opportunity to better ourselves.