It was an incredible way to start off the new semester as a group of twelve Olin Business students traveled to Israel to experience Israel’s culture and entrepreneurial spirit through the hands-on Venture Advising course offered through Olin’s Entrepreneurship Program.
The week-long visit to Israel began in Jerusalem touring the city and taking in the diverse religious culture, but we were quickly off to Tel Aviv to work with Israeli students from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC) on projects presented to us by six Israeli startup companies.
Our team, consisting of Olin’s Nelson Nolte (PMBA) and Shannon Howell (BSBA‘14) and IDC’s Dan Gorlitsky and Shany Mosenzon, worked with FeeX, a company currently saving users thousands of dollars by bringing crowd-sourced transparency to the management fees of retirement plans like IRA and 401(k) plans. They have asked us to provide an in-depth industry analysis for a potential new product extension.
Throughout the week we worked in FeeX’s offices often staying late into the evening. We met with the CMO and CEO at the start of the week to review expectations and learn about the business and by the end of the week we presented our initial hypotheses, plan of action, and outline of our deliverables.
During the week we were further exposed to the breadth of Israel’s startup culture. We visited and heard presentations from two prominent venture capital firms in Israel. One presentation was given by Dr. Ed Mlavsky, a founding father of Israeli high-tech and venture capital. He told us stories from when he was the director of the Binational Industrial Research & Development Foundation (BIRD) that makes investments in projects between US and Israeli high-tech companies and that has helped encourage top US companies like Google, Microsoft, and Intel to operate R&D centers abroad in Israel.
We also saw the next the next generation of Israeli entrepreneurs and were a part of the development process. Each of the companies we worked with was founded by former students of the Zell program at IDC, a prestigious year-long venture creation program. These alumni exited the program and successfully built businesses around the ideas they had pitched only a few years ago in the Zell program. At the end of the week we also heard pitches from current Zell students as they presented to a panel of experienced professionals and potential investors. Maybe future WashU and IDC students will work together on projects relating to the business ideas we heard that evening.
We learned a great deal about our company and our project during our short time together, but we also learned a lot from each other. Our Israeli partners brought a direct, action-oriented approach that can be an asset to any team. Furthermore, they were great hosts in showing us many of the great places in Tel Aviv. It was an eye-opening experience to learn about their military experiences and share our relative cultural perspectives.
Everything from tackling real entrepreneurial problems to understanding such a unique culture made this an unparalleled learning experience.
Post submitted by: Shannon Howell, BSBA ’14
Photo credit: Tel Aviv, Wikipedia
