Jeremy Weisz
What are you know, you are, you know, with Jerusalem Venture Partners, what made you decide to write this book, you’re probably you have all these startups coming to you, you know, you know, they’re kind of like, okay, like, I would love to have you invest in our company. And what made you decide to decide I need to write this book?
Uri Adoni
Well, I think that, you know, the, the ratio of investment per deal flow is very low. So usually it’s around one 200. When you see 100 companies and invest in one, that’s more or less the statistics. Anyway, when you’re in venture capital, so you have, you have to say no, in many cases, and one of the things that kind of, it’s kind of, I would say, strategy, so to speak, I think that anybody who meets you You need to give them something back not only to hear and even if you say no in terms of investment, you need to either, you know, make a good connection, give them some advice, you know, maybe have some an alternative strategic direction to what they’re doing, if you have anything to give, but you should give them something because in many cases, you have the experience for that. And in a way the the book is some kind of way to kind of share the knowledge and the experience with other entrepreneurs. So you know, the statistics that you mentioned earlier in earlier on about, you know, that most startups fail will be, you know, for a startup will be not as crucial or not as the crew, I would say. So, in a way to hire the, to increase the chances to start. And I think that there are things that when you maybe follow them or Getting into the right mindset can help to help you to increase the chances of your startup or being on the winning end rather than the
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, I know writing a book and doing going through that process is a serious undertaking and you’re already busy as it is. I want to talk about some of your favorite stories from the book. One that sticks out to me in the book is the story of CYACTIVE you want to talk a little bit about that?
Uri Adoni
Sure, it’s a I think it’s a one of the things that in the book I didn’t just take the big names and the famous companies but actually wanted to show that companies that maybe some of the audience never heard of had a great story behind it and a great way of kind of explaining what chutzpah because it’s hard to just the best way to kind of describe chutzpah is to show don’t tell about it. So I the story of CYACTIVE is, is interesting because what they do It was, you know, without going into too much technology. But when you talk about anti viruses, the way the world works is that you have a few existing viruses, that most hackers actually take and change something within the virus and then they create a new virus. So if you have an anti virus that block one virus, it wouldn’t block the mutation of the bat virus, so they don’t have to write the whole virus from scratch. This is talking about 97 98% of the viruses in the world. It’s mutations of existing ones. So what they thought and it’s kind of a cat and mouse thing because for every, every, every virus that comes to life, you need to kind of create this anti virus thing. So when they thought they said, You know what, let’s let’s look at it from a completely different angle. And they, they came up with this idea that actually come from Biology and say, You know what, let’s like a backside so to speak, let’s let’s take a virus, create an algorithm that will create automatically 10s of thousands of potential mutations of this virus. And then we can create a blog that actually blocks all the mutations before they even ever existed. So they kind of turn this, this pyramid on the head in a way because now the hackers would find it much hard to change your virus because it already has this backside, so to speak, or this ultimate antivirus. And so and, and they’ve proved it in a nice way. So the company was founded in 2013. But they took the virus from 2007 ran the magic on it and showed that another virus that was published in 2010, they would actually found it already in 2007. So they actually didn’t straighted that this technology works and and so I thought it’s, you know, eventually PayPal bought them relatively quick designs to the power of this technology. But the idea of challenging the reality as it is or the reality of anti viruses and kind of thinking completely in a different manner. I thought it’s a great kind of, you know, great example of what chutzpah is because it really demonstrate the mindset that you have in order to kind of challenge the status quo and say, you know, what, I have the horsepower the audacity or, or, you know, I’m bold enough to challenge it and come up with a different solution. And I think, you know, the, the core of what spy would say, is this, this mindset, and I thought that it’s a great example of showing what it is.
Jeremy Weisz
I you describe Chutzpah to someone who has no idea what that is, and it’s a funny, that is more Trying when I find myself explaining to someone you know, I use this same word to describe it, which does not work. Well, you know, it’s like you’re Chutzpah.
Uri Adoni
Yeah. So yeah, so I think quotes, by the way, I think, to be very honest, it has a negative sign and the positive side. So when you say, in Israel, this guy has hooks by can be, oh, he’s very rude and he’s arrogant. And this is not what I’m talking about. Or he has a he or she, they have the nerve, they have the balls, they have the audacity to go and, you know, address something that challenge something that is looks like an addressable and I’m obviously referring to the les ladder. So in a way I would say a foot space is not accepting may maybe not accepting reality as it is. And this is kind of the mindset of who’s got the results. So a way of doing business which is very straightforward tell me what you think you know not kind of being too many do mature you know around the bush actually saying what your thing and being very direct about it again without crossing the line of being arrogant or rude and and also as part of the interaction with people so in a way it’s all the way from your mindset how you look at the world how how confident you are in your idea, your company or yourself to challenge the status quo and challenge realities, all the way to how you do business and how you interact with people.
Jeremy Weisz
So CYACTIVE or CYACTIVE one of the investments from JVP?
Uri Adoni
Yeah, it was part of JVP investments it was that it was the first investment of the DP media cyber laboratory in south of Israel Sheva and was acquired relatively quick, less than less than two years and it was acquired because it has that very powerful technology.
Jeremy Weisz
So, you know, CYACTIVE comes to you, you know, you reject 100. And you accept one, what did jvp see in this? That allowed to say yes, as opposed to the other hundred, which some of them may have looked really good to?
Uri Adoni
Yes, I think that when we look and that would be, you know, better than to sack of another company that we invested in. But I think overall, if you need to summarize, there are three main things that we look at a team and definitely CYACTIVE had them all. The first one is the team. And when you look at the team, you look for not only very strong technological background, which is important, but you look for, you know, kind of a combination between technology business, so you want to have a few disciplines within the team. But I think, mainly, I think the main thing that we’re looking at on top of the experience is the passion behind the thing. And the passion that drives the team. And you wouldn’t like an entrepreneur to be passionate about the exit, or about making money. I mean, that’s fine. I mean, if there is an exit event, eventually, it’s good. And obviously, that’s a business model. But you want the entrepreneur to have a passion to change the space that they’re operating in. You want them to really be passionate about changing the status quo and the reality as I mentioned. So passion is very important. And by the way, passion is very hard to
Jeremy Weisz
measure.
Uri Adoni
Now it’s a fake measure by them. So you know, when you see you know, you know when it’s there or when it’s not there, but it’s also hard to measure. So it’s a very intuitive thing, which is a good point you made. I think that it’s not it’s not an Excel sheet. It’s something that appeal and you’d like, you know, one of these American Idol thing that you feel that somebody is a good singer, you don’t know why but they feel they’re good. So it’s a very similar thing that we’re looking at in a team. The second thing we’ll look at is the market they’re operating in and, and the market should be, you know, a growing market, but not to saturate in terms of other companies. It has the company has to have the potential to become a category leader. And for that, it usually needs to have some kind of concept that would disrupt the market, because if it’s already existed, maybe there’s probably there’s other leaders to the category. So a growing market and potential kind of new maybe subcategory to market or even a new category of a market. That’s an important kind of thing. And the third thing we’re looking at is the product itself. Mainly the technology but not only, so we want to have a Some kind of a competitive advantage if there is some cheap technology, it’s definitely a plus. But then you know, it can be on the business model it can be in the distribution channels it can be on the partnerships they have. So anything that you have within the product that actually makes it better than the existing solutions in the market is very important for us.
Jeremy Weisz
What you know, or what do you say what are some Israeli companies that maybe people don’t know came out of Israel but they’re actually really well known? Like Waze would be one I think of off the top of my head.
Uri Adoni
Yeah, so Waze is a I think was a great example because a lot of people when I tell him Waze is actually an Israeli company and said, Oh, really, I realized that well, it’s not anymore. It was bought by by Google for over a billion dollars, but was originated and found it and in Israel, I think again, it’s a great It’s a great story of an a couple of entrepreneurs. And one of them we live in, we change a few in the book as well. He’s a great entrepreneur. And one of the things that is interesting about the stories that when they kind of came to that a lot of people, most people that they’ve met said to them, you know, wouldn’t wouldn’t hold on you know, there’s so many GPS is there’s Google Maps, how do you how on earth do you think like a small startup in Israel would win such a big category as as the as the navigation category, and the GPS and they said, you know, because there is a there is a mark, there is a there is an opportunity. There is a flaw in the market employees that when I use a GPS, I only know the mark of a traffic jam when I’m in it, and that’s obviously too late. And I need to know about the traffic jam before I get there. And I’m not necessarily most interested in the shorter route. I’m interested in the shorter time Maybe time of arrival. Yay, yay.
Jeremy Weisz
It goes back into the Israeli army, you know, complete the mission. You know? Like, who cares? I get there.
Uri Adoni
Exactly. I need to get there. I don’t care how. Exactly so. And they believe that sharing content and sharing your location would actually enable them to create this unique map that will give this competitive advantage nobody has of the traffic jams in your city and not just the routes. And again, their hypothesis was Yeah, we will create something better than Google baby the other GPS out there. Many people were skeptical, I would say in brackets. If you have a revolutionary idea, you will get a lot of skeptical people saying you know, it wouldn’t work and you kind of if everybody thinks is a good idea, maybe it’s not that revolutionary and So they they had their struggle, they it wasn’t a smooth ride, like any startup, it’s a roller coaster. But they have proved that people actually willing to share their location and have this kind of common created map in real time that enables you to arrive in a shorter time to your destination. And even though you know, the exit story is great, but I think the journey that they add of creating the map and testing their, their technology, or understanding, you know, one of the interesting things that we said, you know, don’t interview the people who stays in like your your technology or your product interview, the one who actually deserted it or didn’t like it, because they’re, they’re going to give you some feedback, why they didn’t stay with the product. And you can learn quite a lot from that. So, you know, even though it’s good to hear your clients and It’s important thing to listen to your clients is sometimes even more beneficial to hear to your ex clients because they will you give you some data points or insights that the existing clients wouldn’t necessarily have.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, that’s a great point you know if you really want to improve interview you’re the people who abandoned it and didn’t like it. Um, what’s another company from Israel that is known that most people don’t know is is really company.
Uri Adoni
I think I don’t know it’s, it’s, it’s well known in the in cybersecurity. It’s called CyberArk. It’s a company that went public on Aztec few years back. And I think the interesting thing about cyber Ark is that they’re probably the first company that came and said, That there is also enemies from within and not only from the outside. So you know, when Checkpoint came out with the with their firewall, which, by the way, it’s a great metaphor and I think that again, in brackets, I would say you’re a star did a great if you have a great metaphor, it really helps. So they had this idea of a firewall which actually kind of visualizes what they do, they kind of blocks enemies from outside. And what CyberArk did is actually said, you know, what, if somebody has the enemies don’t necessarily have to penetrate from outside they can come from within the company, and they were the first one that actually kind of protected the organization from people within the organization that have access to data. One of the interesting timings is just before their IPO unethical in 2014, there was the whole snowdin instance. And actually they had a some kind of a PR of what happens that somebody who’s not or is not authorized actually have access to data and information that they shouldn’t have. And this is exactly what they’re doing. So in a way, they kind of disrupted the market in a different manner saying, you know, enemies can be with from within. And actually, statistics show that enemies are coming from within, by the way from within, it doesn’t have to be that the employee necessarily is the one who is hacking, but an external hacker can use an access from if you know, they penetrate an employee’s computer, then they’re with it. So one of the things that they’ve kind of came up with this concept that proved to be very, very powerful one, and, and again, because it’s on NASDAQ, and, and many companies use it. A lot of Fortune 500, but not many people know that actually the origin, the time
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, I love that. That’s I mean, there’s so many army, you know, metaphors, their defense force metaphors. I’m curious, you know, like you said, with with the, the life of a startup you’re trying to find, you know, product market fit, you’re trying to find all these things. And they have to probably iterate along the way. what’s what’s one of the businesses that you think of that sticks out whether you had investment or not with them, that they had a major pivot that allowed them to have a breakthrough, like, when I was talking to Mobileye, like they were just doing, you know, the signaling when someone would pass it would blink, and they kind of, I wouldn’t say Pitt, I mean, that was a pivot for them because they didn’t know what they would do with the technology once they created it. What’s one of the companies that you know that had one of these groundbreaking Okay, we are doing this, but we we didn’t quite have that. The market fits we change and then kind of kind of hit our stride.
Uri Adoni
Yeah. I think one of the it’s an interesting story of a company that we invested in call Aspectiva, which was they It was a very strong technological team that created this very powerful NLP engine, natural language processing engine that actually can understand they understand kind of text without in an automatic manner so they can actually understand what the text is about without a human behind it kind of AI NLP engine. And they came with this and they didn’t really know what to do and eventually they wanted to focus on reviews, product reviews, so you can actually understand you know, any product or you know, room or were they in a hotel room or anything they had like 10,000 reviews 50,000 you know, nobody can read, you know, 10,000 reviews, and it’s just the longest So what they thought of doing is actually substract the different aspects on of the product as well Aspectiva so let’s say if it’s a computer or a laptop, so it’s okay how how good is the screen? How good is the battery how, how you know how the camera isn’t working well etc. Or if it’s a trolley if the trolley is good for for walking on the beach or if it’s a vacuum cleaner visit the corners or does it vacuum pets hair and this information doesn’t exist if you look what is the best vacuum cleaner for best hair, you wouldn’t have this data because nobody actually positioned their vacuum cleaner as such. So originally, they thought of coming with this b2c approach business to consumer approach and come up with this search engine that you would say you know the best expert why what is the best vacuum cleaner for pets hair or something like that. And eventually we quite quickly we understood that the b2c approach will work but we need to invest a lot of, you know, educating the market and finding out and driving traffic etc. So we’ve kind of it wasn’t a whole album called the pivot but it’s half a pivot. We decided to go on a b2b approach and say okay, we can use this technology in order to increase the sales of a sale site or hotel site to increase the conversion rate because I know better what to buy. That would be a great thing and that was eventually the company did. They implemented this technology in few ecommerce site whether it’s a large hotel ecommerce side, a large ecommerce product and they covered like hundreds of thousands of products like that. And and they actually show Statistically, they did all this AV testing that when you implement this widget within the site, you actually increase your your sales. So even if it’s a hotel room, if I’m looking for a hotel room for an anniversary, or if I want something that is fixed for a family, no, not necessarily you will have that in the reviews of the hotels and, and when you can actually look at it from this internet at different aspects. It is increasing the conversion rates. Fast forward, the company did have its struggles it didn’t, you know, time a little bit to fundraise and we had like any company or ups and downs. But eventually it was sold to Walmart and was the first purchase of Walmart in Israel and we were very proud of that.
Jeremy Weisz
I want to talk about the fourth rule of chutzpah in the book before we do I wanna, I just want to get an idea. What’s the What’s a typical like good success rate for like, not necessarily for drew some Venture Partners before a good fund? What should be the success rate of that and I’m not sure even how you measure success rate if it’s IPO or exit or whatever it is, you know, just to get an idea when I think of baseball, you know, a Hall of Famer bats 300 means they get out seven times out of 10. Right. So what’s a good percentage for an investment fund
Uri Adoni
so in terms of you know, multiples and IRR Usually, I would say multiple you want to get three four, sometimes you get more than that. on on on per dollar, but in terms of numbers,
Unknown Speaker
it’s like if a
Jeremy Weisz
company like if a company invests in 100 companies, what would be a success of
Uri Adoni
All right, so let’s take 10 companies will make it easier. Okay, so let’s say added companies, I would say, again, this is very high speaking, it’s not statistically validated, but I think reflects that I would say that three probably would, wouldn’t succeed, three would kind of return the investment. Three would give a good multiple of anywhere between two five, and one should be a home run or a fun returner, what we call so that could be 30 points. So this home run is something we call home run, you know, talking about baseball, but it’s something that usually you would like to have. You cannot plan it really but it’s if you look statistically at the successful funds they usually have within a fun one company that actually returns the whole fun and more and then the other company gives you the extra money. And so even though you can plan it in advance and you don’t know in advance which one would be the homerun, you do know that the investments that you make have the potential to be so usually wouldn’t invest in a me too company or another x company, that there’s a lot of it and there’s a clutter in the market, etc, you want companies that have the potential to become these kind of leaders will become a home run exit. And so if you plan it correctly, I think more or less, that would be a good turn again, and you can invest in your 30. But I mean, statistically, I would say more or less than
Jeremy Weisz
all those have the potential to get from the viewpoint of obviously the funder, they weren’t invested to be a home run. You know, just I just want to get that, that sense, because out of those 10, you know, there were 1000 that the company didn’t invest in, right because for every Hundred you invested one. So there’s a lot of companies and pitches you have to go through to find those 10 in in itself, you know,
Uri Adoni
but I would say that ones. First of all, we don’t always choose, right. Obviously, we made some wrong choices and companies that never made it. And we missed some good opportunities that we thought that not not good ones, and they turned to be a success. So it’s not that, you know, we don’t have the monopoly of smart brains in the world by no means
Unknown Speaker
what was we are
Uri Adoni
we are trying to kind of mitigate risk by choosing the right ones. Yeah. And maybe also mentioned the fact that one fund said no, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t fit the other fund because sometimes we say no, no, because the company’s not good because it doesn’t necessarily fit our strategy. It can be in a vertical that we don’t understand in good enough. It may be that it’s maybe too late for our fund maybe too early for So every fund has its kind of investment strategy. And so for every intrapreneur, that goes to venture capital for investment, they need to understand what the strategy is. And so try to get fit from the strategy to where you are in terms of the stages in terms of the space in terms of the hands on approach or a hands off approach, or whatever the strategy of the fun. It’s, it’s some of the noser or the or the negative of the reason we kind of refused is not because the company’s not good, but may not fit the schedule.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, that was a good, that’s a good point because it may not be a match. It may be like a groundbreaking food, a consumer goods product, you know, like we don’t invest in consumer goods, we invest in technology, so go to someone else who specializes in that. What sticks out to you as a missed opportunity that you go back, you’re like, Who are we? The signs maybe were there. Maybe they weren’t. But we going back. We Wish we would have would have taken that one.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah.
Uri Adoni
There was a company that we looked at, at the time, this really cool 3d. Kind of, do you call it when you rerun, like a sports scene? And it gave this 360 angle? Like in the matrix, you know, the famous scene that you have. It’s like matrix. Yeah. And so they made a really cool technology. And we looked at them, we weren’t sure that the mark is big enough. We weren’t sure. But eventually they were so like, after under 12 or 18 months to Intel in in a nice next exit. We should have done that. But, but again, it’s like you when you invest, you also have kind of hypothesis, and we weren’t sure that the broadcasting market was good enough or we pay enough with technology. So it’s kind of I remember that as a missed opportunity, but you know, that’s, that’s part of life. And by the way, any good fun will measure not only the successes, but what we usually do. And I’m doing is investor, we look at the companies we didn’t invest in and kind of follow to see what happened with them. And so you kind of learned also from your own mistakes. And and it’s good to see this opportunities or to look at the opportunities you missed, because sometimes you actually learn quite a lot from that.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Because I like to see the thought process, right, because you talk about people to market product. And for that one, maybe you saw was the market really big enough? And maybe even if all the rest of them were there, you’d be like, well, that one’s out there. And it’s, if you just don’t know you can’t put the money now. You know,
Uri Adoni
that was exactly the case. The team was good. The product was interesting. I mean, the nice technology but the market we thought it’s a small market. It’s a niche. You know, it’s it’s also very, you know, not many sports, kind of broadcasting channels. So if you, if you get it, you get a few and if you’re not, you don’t have a market. So we were skeptical about it, but eventually we bought them and, and proved us wrong. But yeah, you know, I was very happy company and and yeah so there are these kind of stories that you say but sometimes by the way you analyze the market in the right way and but still not necessarily within your strategy. So, you know, if you’re not in the medical devices, you can analyze the markets again, we’re not investing in medical devices, so probably not engage in these kind of companies.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, I mean, I imagine sometimes that fuels the founder and be like, I’m going to show them they didn’t even think our markets big enough, all blah, and we’re gonna we’re going to show them and that maybe fuels them a little bit more nose. They get to to
Uri Adoni
me, I’m happy for The ones who made it, you know, and I had to prove I was wrong, and that’s fine. And, but you get, by the way, you get also other things that, you know, going back to what I was saying earlier to maybe give some kind of an input, I got some intrapreneurs that, you know, I met whatever, two years ago, three years ago and didn’t make an investment and then I need an in some conference and they say, you know what, this meeting we had, we were talking about that we took this route, it was great, you know, advice and you know, we really owe you this and now we’re doing great and I’m, you know, more than happy to be kind of to give my two cents to such companies and
Jeremy Weisz
what was it advice? What was an example of that where you gave a piece of advice to someone and they came back and said, and maybe you know, you do so you probably meet with so many people give so much advice, but to them that is it was so meaningful for them. What was a company that came back and said said that to you? And what was the advice you gave them?
Uri Adoni
Um, there was a, at the time there was this edtech company that I wasn’t sure and they were thinking of going to small companies to small, like small sites, it was a whole kind of bidding, bidding process company. And and I told them, they and their strategy was all about to go to the long tail and I told them that I actually don’t think they should go to the long tail, but rather go to the, you know, large companies and because they have interesting technology that can actually increase the revenues and and they actually follow this arise and eventually they got some really big kind of publishers on their site, on their technology so they can remember that We change our focus, we went a long time we went to big guys, and we managed to get them in the, you know, our
Jeremy Weisz
that’s a big deal. That’s a big change, you know, because if they’re thinking, you know, when you’re in your own bubble, hurry, like, that’s all you’re thinking. And so someone coming in from outside and tell you, you should focus on this, you’ll really change it someone’s worse. You know, right. Um, so I want to talk to the fourth rule, the fourth rule of good spa, I mean, I, you know, like I said, Everyone should check out the unstoppable startup but the fourth rule when I was, you know, reading through it, okay, the fourth rule is the market needs it, even if it doesn’t know it yet. And this is really hard sometimes for me to grapple with. When you think of really innovators like Steve Jobs, or Ford, right. If they asked what they wanted, they want a faster horse, not a car. So this always sticks out and I feel like it It’s sometimes tough to give advice around. So I’d love for you to talk about the fourth rule of chutzpah
Uri Adoni
Yeah, you know, you mentioned Steve Jobs, I think he’s like a, you know, the ultimate entrepreneur, so to speak, that kind of said, you know, the world needs a smartphone, and he doesn’t know he and he proved that he was right. And very similar with the iPod that he did Previous to that, and even in Pixar, you know, 3d animation. So he was kind of had this really exceptional sense of, you know, understanding the need before even the market knows it and kind of coming out with this product. But I think that, you know, one of the examples I gave in the book is a company called the pic scout that eventually was sold to Getty Images, but they came with this concept that said, you know, people should be I mean, there’s a lot of
Unknown Speaker
how do you spell it the boy
Uri Adoni
scout p IC, SC od D.
Jeremy Weisz
gotta pick Scott. Okay.
Uri Adoni
Al Gore was the founder and owner behind it. And and they said, you know, we have this technology that can actually look for infringement in, in images in on the web. So if you have a website and you’re using an image without the copyrights, we can actually find out about it. And nobody, nobody saw that. It’s interesting, you know, that, you know, why do we need that? And they had some struggle to actually prove to starting with Getty Images, which I think that was the largest image bank in the world. They said, well, there’s not that much of infringement in the world and you know, it’s a minor thing. Eventually they went in, they, they kind of look at it, looked at it from the photographer’s angle and send you know, they’re actually losing money because if they got the copyright photographer First, we’ll get the money. And so eventually they prove to the world that the reason needs for that. And again, there was a nice exit as a result, but the world didn’t think that there were that many infringement. That is apparently the word. And there were a lot of money that was lost in a way for photographers and the people who actually did the work. And I made this without autograph. So in a way, sometimes you and I think in many cases, startups need to have this hypothesis of where the market is going. What is it that you think will be different in the world in 234 years time and I think now, it’s a great era to think in these matters, because obviously the world is changing for our eyes. And whether it’s remote working, whether it’s telemedicine, whether it’s educational technologies or, you know, third, third party delivery, whatever, and the world is changing fast and kind of a good start. I would say up where the world is going? What would the world need in the world can be consumers in businesses can be many things. And let’s create it now before even the world is aware of that. So I’ll give you another example a company that we invested at the time from the hospital. It was they found it just as the cloud was beginning. And everybody said, you know, enterprise would never put the data in the cloud, because they’re afraid they wouldn’t be protective. So Nova came out with this security of the cloud, and was one of the first companies in the world that actually made this encryption between when you’re uploading the data and downloading the data. So even if you got somebody in the middle, a man in the middle stealing your data, it would be encrypted. So they thought about the need of these large enterprises, putting their data on the cloud and their fears of you know, of their protecting data. And they come up came out with a solution again, fast forward a few years, and they were so Salesforce, because they kind of thought about a need that the market wasn’t sure that that I mean, many people said they would just, you know, they wouldn’t put in the cloud. They thought differently, they put up with that, if it will be secure, let’s make the security for that. So I think that any good startup will have a good hypothesis of where the world is going. Maybe right maybe wrong, but if it’s right, you have to have like a, you know, these missiles that run after something in the air and then he hits it. It’s a very similar thing. You know, coming coming back to army metaphors. You have this. You have this market with its ever changing moving target, where missile is also trying to hit it. And but you need to have to say I thought this is the right offices. We have the eye on the ball all the time. It’s chance to do it.
Jeremy Weisz
In that case, we want an explosion of profits not not deadly, something deadly. First of all, I have two last questions or and first of all, thank you. I loved reading over the book and also just from your you’re in the trenches experience, you know just kind of bleeds through and so I suggest anyone check out the unstoppable startup you know, mastering Israel’s secret rules of chutzpah and my two last questions, and where should we point people towards online to check it out? I know they can they can find on Amazon. What other places online Should we ask people to go to
Uri Adoni
check out theunstoppablestartup.com and there’s a lot of information about that book and
Jeremy Weisz
check it out. I always ask since it’s inspired insider what’s been a low moment you had to push through challenging points. career wise or story wise or investment wise, and then what’s been a proud moment for you?
Uri Adoni
I guess I would, I would join the two and maybe refer to one of the stories I told before about this company Aspectiva I told you about, we got to a position when you are on a board of a company, usually you have 30 days notice to give to the, to the employees in case you don’t have the capital. So, you have the capital to pay the last month. And so, when you give a notice it means basically that the company’s gone for nobody by a company without employees. And with this company, we we were very close to giving this notice and, and and by the way, if the company has some kind of a dialogue with an investor, you can come to the board and say okay, let’s wait for the notice because it’s may come come in the next few days. And we had a very, very tight situation of, you know, either running out of runway cash wise, and eventually, literally in the last second, we had this investor coming in. And so the moment of you know, we’re, you know, we truly believed in the company, we knew we had a good thing, you know, and we knew we had a good team. And it’s a unique thing. And it was just so frustrating to be so close and yet so far. But then, you know, it came through and that was great, because it was like, You almost gave up and you should never give up. And then it was just wow, we got not only the investment, but relatively soon after that we got this offer from actually a few large corporates. Eventually we went along with Walmart. So that was kind of a low and high within the same rollercoaster with the same startup and and i think that you probably have this with many startups. Because, you know, it is a roller coaster and you need to make sure that you are aware of that, and push through all the way and you know never to give up hope that’s very important. And make sure that you do everything within your power to make you know, to go through and you know, very last thing to say about that, be very, very, listen, listen very carefully to what the market has to say because you shouldn’t push it just because you believe in it, you should push it because the market actually tells you it’s interesting. And if the market tells you it’s not interesting enough, listen carefully and make the changes the tweaks that they would have needed in order to have this you know, product market fit and not just go with your head against the wall. So you have to be very useful. Have a musical ear to the market and make sure you make the right adjustment at the right time.
Jeremy Weisz
Great. I want to be the first one to thank you everyone. Check out theunstoppablestartup.com. Check it out. Thank you so much.
Uri Adoni
Thank you, Jeremy. It was real pleasure. Appreciate it. Thank you.
