Tag: startups



I have never heard of anyone using love and business in the same sentence unless they were saying that they either loved or didn’t love business. However over the past three days I have heard two successful Israelis make the analogy between love and different aspects of business. Listening to Uri Levine, the founder of Waze, and Ofer Hacohen, an AT&T innovation coach create these analogies, made me think about business in a different way.

Guest blogger: Jackie is a sophomore at Washington University in St. Louis

When Uri related business to love, he talked about falling in love with an idea. You have to choose one from many, but once you choose it, you know that it’s the right one. This process takes time, it doesn’t just happen instantaneously. Then once you know that you’re in love, you’ll start sharing your idea with others hoping to get their approval. If they don’t like it, you may disengage with them to pursue your love. And sometimes, you will be wrong about being in love, so you just keep going until you find what’s right for you.

After hearing this foreign concept on Sunday, I was surprised to hear a similar analogy from Ofer on Tuesday. He spoke about how finding an investor in your company is like looking for a spouse. Initially, there is the first impression, which is extremely important. If you were on the marriage track like he was, you’d start with a first impression, and if someone makes a good first impression, then you would want to get to know the person. However it is common to get cold feet when moving forward. This is overcome by building a  feeling of trust, something that has been emphasized numerous times during our company visits.

I thought this was very interesting not only because it was something that I had never heard of before, but also because I learn best when I am able to relate new ideas to things that I already know. These comparisons helped me to better understand the process of creating a new idea and what it’s like to try to find investors or financial supporters of your product. Also, I think these comparisons speak a lot to the culture of Israelis. They are a country of fun-loving people who strive to enjoy life. As they compare their day-jobs with love, it shows that they truly enjoy what they do.




We got to the beach bright and early and ready to learn. Today, our classroom was the beach. The conversation started out about the Better Place project and entrepreneur Shai Agassi’s image of a “better place”.

With almost $1 billion in funding and ambitions to replace petroleum-based cars with a network of cheap electrics, Shai Agassi’s Better Place was remarkable even by the standards of world-changing startups. So was its epic failure. A 21st-century cautionary tale.  –Fast Company

Since we were on the beach, it was hard to hear everyone and comments continued to be repeated. So we went off the original plan, split into groups and continued to discuss the project. We all took part in the conversation within the smaller groups and discussed the execution and the failures of Shai Agassi’s vision.

Guest blogger: Leana is a sophomore at Brandeis University

I learned a lot about this lesson on the beach and not only about Better Place. We are all here to invest our time to learn about start-ups, Israel, venture capitalists, and more. And especially in startups, nothing ever goes as planned, and you can either give up or find a new way. And here Steve saw a situation what wasn’t working as planned and directed it in another direction.

I usually like to have a plan and stick to it, but that’s not reality. Things change and life takes us in every direction and it’s our turn to go with it and find the best way to move forward. So I look at the beach class as a success, because it was a minor example of curve balls that will be thrown our way. Since we broke up into smaller groups, we had the opportunity to listen and talk with our peers and open our minds to what could have been improved to really make Better Place, a real better place.




In the past week, we have been lucky enough to visit a number of very well known companies.  Two of my favorite visits have been to AT&T and to Microsoft. While I expected to have very formal lectures at both places, I was pleasantly surprised by the laid back nature of the discussions. We were graciously welcomed into both establishments.  The presenters were wearing jeans and seemed very excited to talk to us. I did not find out until later that one of the speakers at Microsoft was actually a very senior executive who is responsible for running a large part of the Israeli firm. This is more evidence of the casual, and humble nature of many people in Israel.

Guest Blogger: Jessie is a junior at Washington University in St. Louis

Aside from the welcoming atmosphere, I was impressed by the topic of discussion. At both places, we talked about the role these companies are playing in fueling Israel’s startup culture. Both AT&T and Microsoft have programs that encourage young entrepreneurs who have valuable ideas.

More specifically, the AT&T center has its International Innovation Center in Ra’anana, and Microsoft funds a start up program called Microsoft Ventures. The innovation center is a place where a number of innovators collaborate, share ideas, and think of ways to better the experience for an AT&T customer. It is interesting to note, however, that AT&T has no ownership over these companies and they can scale, grow and shift market in whichever way they please.

Arch grants signI found the Microsoft Ventures program particularly interesting because it is a program that pairs a startup with a mentor company in order to help the business grow. This semester, I did a presentation on Arch Grants, and had the pleasure of learning about their entrepreneurial competition. Just as Microsoft Ventures aims to foster the entrepreneurial spirit of Israel, Arch Grants aims to do the same for St. Louis. Just as Arch Grants funds a number of companies located in T-Rex, a center for entrepreneurs to collaborate, both Israeli accelerators give different entrepreneurs a physical space to exchange ideas.

I saw many other parallels in the programs, but he most astounding one was that neither Microsoft nor Arch Grants took any equity in the companies they helped. Although Arch Grants does not currently pair a start up with a mentor company, my team suggested they should. As proven by Microsoft, having a mentor company can give the startup a number of extremely useful resources. They are also both competitions, funding only the winners of extensive rounds of selection. Picking the finest companies and assisting them does great service to both the startup culture and the innovative spirit of both regions.




Today after having class in the morning and discussing the Waze case, we were fortunate to hear from one of the co-founders of Waze, Uri Levine. Seeing him clad in athletic clothing and sneakers, everyone was at first unsure if this was actually one of the co-founders of a more than billion dollar company.

Guest Blogger: Jackson is a sophomore at Washington University in St. Louis

Rest assured, he was. We later learned that Uri biked to IDC to speak to us. In fact, I think this informality, along with his laid-back, almost nonchalant temperament is what most impressed me and what I liked the most about him. This is because, although he definitely does impress, he doesn’t feel the need to do so, often mentioning that everything that he was saying was only his opinion and not to be taken for the final word. That said, I learned much from Uri that I hope to apply to my future work.

WAZE

With Waze app, you can see other friends also driving to your destination, when you connect to Facebook. Coordinate everyone’s arrival times when you pick up or meet up with friends.

The first lesson relates to the initial steps to a start-up. Specifically, you need to a have a dream or passion about your start-up. Being an entrepreneur is extremely difficult, full of ups and downs, and is never a sure thing. So, it’s very important that you are pursuing your start-up for the right reasons, rather than to chase money. As Uri put it, you need to “fall in love” with your idea.

In addition, you need to find a solution for many users with a problem, and your solution needs to be “big.” In order to determine if your idea is big enough, you should ask yourself: Who will be out of business when I succeed? If you don’t know, the idea is simply not big enough. This notion was very meaningful to me, as my first thought would be that you would want to start small and be realistic. However, he said that when you think big, you have much more drive to accomplish your goals, even if you don’t get there right away.

Next, I learned a great deal about leadership. First, not everyone is best suited to be a leader in a company. Although Uri co-founded Waze, he said that he knew himself well enough to know that he wouldn’t be the right CEO. However, because he told us to reach high, I took some valuable advice away. That is, if you are ever CEO of a company, ego management is critical. As a leader of a company, it’s important not to let your ego get in the way of what is best for your company and its shareholders. In addition, it’s vital to be the type of leader that you would like to follow. This can’t be overlooked, as leaders of companies play huge roles not only in decision-making, but also the overall morale of the workers.

I could go on and on about what I learned from Uri, but these were a couple of the bigger takeaways. Near the end of his visit, I asked him why he decided to sell and leave Waze instead of either continuing to grow it with his team or joining Google once it sold. He responded by saying that he left in order to build a new startup because “this is what entrepreneurs do.” To me, Uri is a role model for any aspiring entrepreneur, and his advice will most certainly be something that I’ll never forget.

*Waze is the world’s largest community-based traffic and navigation app. Join other drivers in your area who share real-time traffic and info, saving everyone time and gas money on their daily commute.




Karen Dodson, Executive MBA 42, is manager of professional development and Academic Publishing Services at Washington University School of Medicine. When she began the EMBA Program in April of 2013, Dodson had begun writing her novel, Set: A Love Story, and was thinking about how to use the book to market a business.

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Kate, an American journalist, travels to Patagonia to fly-fish and falls in love with Nico, her kind and handsome Argentine fishing guide. Does she stay?

Set in Patagonia, South America and published in January 2015, the novel is a journalistic work of fiction that led her–with the help of her EMBA teammates, the EMBA Program faculty, and EMBA Program staff–to create Reveal Patagonia, a travel excursion business. St. Louis Magazine published an interview with Dodson about the book this month.

Reveal Patagonia began coming together as a result Dodson’s EMBA coursework.  In Bart Hamilton’s Strategic Innovation class she experienced an “aha” moment that her idea for Reveal Patagonia was real.  Dodson said, “We had to pull together a presentation and during the presentation I realized it was all coming together. We had a three to five year plan, an exit strategy, and a whole business model.” Her team continued to support her business plan throughout the EMBA program. A study of “Reveal Patagonia: the China market” was their final project for the Global Theme section of the program.

Me and penguins

Author, entrepreneur, and fly fishing enthusiast Karen Dodson

Dodson said, “My EMBA teams, especially my second team, were very helpful in developing the business plan, along with [professor] Ron King. All of the classmates were enormously generous with their time and advice.” Lee Pelligreen, EMBA 44, is Dodson’s business partner for Reveal Patagonia, and was instrumental in getting the business started. They are putting the finishing touches on their “beta” trip, which will begin November 1. A two-page ad promoting the trip will appear in the July-August issue of Sophisticated Living magazine.

Now that Reveal Patagonia is launched, Dodson plans to eventually hand the business over to the team now running it.  Working multiple jobs, she supported all expenses for starting the business herself, including starting Pesca Publishing to get Set: A Love Story published.

Dodson says the EMBA experience was transformative, “I look at the world differently. I had a qualitative view, and now I have a quantitative view of the world. There is a structure around things that wasn’t there before, and I can walk away from what doesn’t make sense. I can analyze data more deeply. I now think in P&L. Now, if I have an idea, I know the absolute steps to make it happen.”

 Images: courtesy of Karen Dodson

 




Before Jolijt Tamanaha graduated from Wash U. earlier this month, she had started one business, sold it, and started another. Now, she is taking her new startup, Champio, and moving back to New York. We’ll miss you Jolijt, but we know you are going to continue to rock the business world.  All your friends here at Olin and Wash U. will be cheering you on! Read about Champio and Jolijt’s decision to move back home to the Big Apple in The St. Louis Business Journal.

Links to other posts about Jolijt:

Student ‘treps to compete at SXSW

Fuel for women-led ventures

Students sell 1 year old startup