Have finished three books of late that are worthy of sharing. The first a read for the literary soul in me, was Casual Vacancy by J.K.Rowling. If you are convinced as I was that she is a master fantasy storyteller, than this latest endeavor of hers proves she is simply (though there is nothing simple about it) a Master Storyteller. Thinking back I would argue that what makes the book an incredible read is her depth of characters, or the fact everyone has their own truth and it has many facets. Just when you think you feel something about someone she throws in a different angle and you see that person in a different light.

The second, of the modern Israeli investigative journalism genre, called Ze’elim, was given to me by Boaz Shedletzky and autographed to me by the author, Omri Assenheim (the two of them by both of their counts are very good friends). As a disclaimer I’ll say that I do not read much in Hebrew in the limited time I have to read, I prefer the easier (aka lazier) route, plus since I read mostly on my Kindle via iPad, that settles that on the language end (aka there’s some justification for my laziness to boot!). However, having an author sign a book and dedicate especially for me, gave me more than impetus to read in the language of the Hebrew Man and I am very glad for it. The book deals with the most controversial and tragic military accident in Israel’s history (and regrettably there were a more than a few). The writing is clear, concise and intelligent. Similar to J.K.Rowling, there is an understanding that different people have different ways of seeing the same event. Their perspective is a function of many things and shapes their outlook and their actions and justifications for things.

On that note but in a totally different way, the third book, Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In-Women, Work and the Will to Lead talks about modern feminism through the perspective of her own experience both professionally and as a mother. She offers herself as a role model but recognizes that there are different individual considerations and perspectives to work life balance and professional attainment as a woman.

She also highlights effectively the different perspective of men and women to similar situations. She states ‘multiple studies in multiple industries show that women often judge their own performance as worse than it actually was and that most men judge their performance as better than it actually was’ (p.29) ‘even worse, when women evaluate themselves in front of other people or in stereotypically male domains their underestimations can be more pronounced. Ask a man to explain his success and he will typically credit his own innate qualities and skills. Ask a woman the same question and she will attribute her success to external factors’ (pg. 30).

The three books have a common thread in a sense. The idea of many faceted truth or truth being defined from the perspective of one’s own experience and the need for openness and agility in considering those perspectives.

Entrepreneurship is like that. An entrepreneur often has a perspective of reality that is different (and it needs to be to be innovative and disruptive) but needs to relate to the different perspectives of customers when developing product and features (what do people need) business model (what will people pay for) and distribution (how will people engage).

Was in Cape Town on family vacation (the flight time alone offering explanation of my having finished reading three books!) and thus have had a lot of opportunity to think about different truths and perspectives in a broader political sense as well. Nothing like spending time in a complicated place to reflect on the complicated place you come from.

This has gotten me thinking…Our ability to be agile in perspective and thought, to see beyond our view of things and understand others has implications beyond politics (whether South Africa, Israel or Pagford) and business (whether climbing the corporate ladder as a woman or a man…or creating a viable business of one’s own). It is needed everywhere. It is essential in this ever globalized, ever rapidly changing world. It was always essential but now even more.

But is it being taught? Apparently not. Thomas Friedman, one of my favorite writers considers what education is and what it should be and I think it is spot on. Agility in thought, critical thinking, broad perspective and an open mind to difference, diversity and change.

Now back to work…Zell 13 applications all in. We have a record number of applicants…will have a tough time ploughing through the different perspectives offered for why each and everyone should be part of the next class of twenty.

One such Power of B, as in B for Building a Story, that start-middle-end of a telling that evokes the desired response from the listener, is clearly of the utmost importance for an entrepreneur. If you are not totally convinced, I am sure Kirby Ferguson’s recently added piece on the Future of Storytelling with Paul Zak (scroll to the bottom of the page for the second clip), will make you think twice. The clip is evocative and telling… and highlights how essential the structure of a story is to the art of story telling. The clip revisits  Gustav Freytag’s Dramatic Arc of narrative, beginning with exposition (or background), then rising action, climax, falling action and denouement (French for final action). It builds on this Dramatic Arc as the essential framework which makes for powerful storytelling. Freytag’s anti-semitic leanings aside, he clearly tapped into something that neuroscience is beginning to be able to explain today, ergo: That we are somehow wired to hear out a story when a certain dramatic sequence is followed.

True for the entrepreneurial pitch in much the same way: First, exposition, or some back ground to lay the foundation of the story –what you do, the team with the qualifications to pull it off; then rising action, the need or pain in the market, the incredible opportunity based on research done and minimal viable product tested; then climax, the solution and secret sauce to make it work and why this is going to be a game changer; then falling action, who and what is already out there, how the problem is being solved today, competitive landscape, differentiation;  and then the dramatic conclusion, or denouement, the business model and how this idea, once executed by your team, will tap into this amazing opportunity in the market, make loads of money and change the world.

Undoubtedly powerful, but not the only Power of B.  Speaking of Business Model, that other Power of B, of no less importance, and arguably without it, there is no story to tell… is the power of the business model. Often ignored, or offered as a laundry list, a generic slide that could work for any venture…the business model is in my view the essence of the whole thing. It does not mean the business model will work from day one, it does not mean it will not change as reality kicks in when a venture gets off the ground and runs inadvertently into its actual users, it does not mean it is full proof; but from my experience, when you consider the business end of your business and it doesn’t make sense (or ‘cents’ and many of them), there will be fundamental problems with the viability of the venture that no amount of story telling will be able to overcome in the end. I don’t just mean revenue model. One of our Zellumni, Dror Ceder recently shared with me a page from hackpad.com, the ‘smart collaborative documents’ site. I found the collaborative page, started and moderated by Fred Wilson on Web and Mobile Revenue Models, truly instructive and thorough. Great place to get analog ideas for different web revenue models. But I don’t mean only that. Those are more the means to the end, rather the essence of that end. Though sometimes confused, raising money is not a business model either… I mean the business reasoning behind the idea of the venture in the first place, the synergy or combination of need, solution, opportunity with an underlying economic rationale, that if it works, will yield an optimal use of resources for optimal economic benefit (ideally happy customers, fairly compensated employees, a good rate of return for investors, economic reward for founders).

I’ll give an example, removed from time and place, but the analogy is clear: I recently got an informational booklet circulated by our village municipality in honor of the 80 year anniversary of the founding of Ramot Hashavim. The circular includes minutes of meetings from the first board meetings and other related documents, like the call to action published by the founders of the village to enlist investors and the first settlers to the village (users and investors all in one). Translated from the German, the documents include the underlying business model for the whole endeavor. There were many villages founded at the time, but the founders clearly found a business model with differentiation: The founders learned that 100 million eggs were being imported per annum, consumed almost entirely by the then Jewish population at the time of 600,000 persons. The local supply produced only 1% of the demand. Eureka! an economic opportunity and one that solves a real problem for the German immigrant population arriving in Palestine…the ensuing business model was as follows: German immigrants to Israel at the time were professionals and merchants, unfit for most agricultural work, but in need of homes and occupations; raising chickens was agricultural work with relatively little need for training and physical ability; there was a growing population of egg consumers and very mitigated local supply of a product with limited shelf life and relatively high fragility…in a nutshell (or eggshell rather), the underpinnings of a successful entrepreneurial venture.

As the circular notes though, with the first egg came the problem of how to market it…which leads to a whole other topic and a separate  issue beyond the Powers that B, which I could call the Power of D (as in distribution… and go-to-market)…

Ask one of the Zellots today, and they will invariably tell you that finding a great idea for a startup is probably one of the bigger challenges. There is the fundamental question of what exactly a good idea is, never mind a great one. Is it one that VCs will invest in? is it one that makes money? is it one a great business can be built around? All valid questions…and then the matter of finding that idea.

I would argue that there is a fundamental flaw underlying that fundamental question…and that is, the notion that an idea can be detached from the problem it is trying to solve. As I see it in the context of venture creation, it is less about the percieved value of the idea and more about addressing a real need…(ideally that someone would be willing to pay for). Ideas will invariably change, pivot and be fine tuned to unrecognisable form as the underlying assumptions of those ideas are tested and validated…(or not)…and then implemented and retested.  The real birth of an idea is not a Eureka moment, but a process. When Ron Gura of Zell 9 started the Gifts Project the idea was group gifting initiated by the receiver of the gift (think: “I want an iPhone5 for my birthday, who wants to chip in?”), after getting something out there, Ron and team realised users were not so comfortable asking for gifts, but the more relevant need was to get groups together for someone else’s gift? (eBay thought so too, and acquired the company a year and a half ago).

Understanding (and then addressing) a real market lacuna, consumer pain, unmet need or inefficiency and considering a variety of solutions until one is found to have a real value proposition (through diligent customer discovery and dogged validation), that is how a good idea is born. Paul Graham shared some thoughts on this that are well worth a read.

As he notes in the article, organic idea generation is preferred, but not always an option. Inherent to the Zell program, a year long venture creation program that boasts its open approach to venture creation, its flexible structure and focus on what is right for each team and their venture, that even with all the fexibility and adaptive framework, in the course of a year each team will need to come up with an idea to work on (or it would not be a venture creation program?). Idea on demand is a challenge and some students complain to me that they feel it can constrain creativity.

My experience at Zell and other entrepreneurial venture creation platforms is that constraint is actually helpful in the entrepreneurial process, and in ideation in particular. Its a matter of being on alert for real needs. Another Zell 9 venture, Bizzabo chose their venture idea on a deadline. They were actually researching another idea at a tradeshow and realised the need for networking at conferences and business events.

It is also a matter of using your available resources at hand, like experience, domain expertise. At Seedcamp Paris this week, where I was a mentor, teams probably had the benefit of organic choice rather than on demand. The stronger ideas tapped into needs founders experienced in their workplaces (i.e. Unifyo) or used knowledge and experience gained in previous work (i.e.in PR and media in Tint).

Whether on demand or organic, idea development requires jumping in the water and starting.  A good idea is really a good or valid need or customer pain, your own or one you know about first hand because you’ve serviced that space, one that exists in a growing market. If Internet, Mary Meeker’s year end Internet Trends presentation gives great insights into trends and market scope and at LeWeb, the Internet of Things was slated as the next place for great ideas…

That great idea…whether on demand or organic, it should provide great added value (even a bit at a time); it need not be alone out there (on the contrary, lack of competitors has its own pretty big problems); it need not be first; it need not have all the answers, features, water tight solutions. It needs to be able to change and adapt as it is validated. It needs be uncertain. It needs to be scary. If it weren’t all those, it would be a day job.

Happy Holiday Season!

The Summer Induction Program came and went…in its wake a newly hatched Zell class, Zell 12, or the 12th year of the program! Twenty two students from the faculties of law and business, economics, government, computer science, communications, business management and accounting have formed six teams and are presently ideating away! There are 6 women, 2 pilots, a professional basketball player, 7 students from computer science, of which four are experienced programmers, a former Israel national team gymnast, an Heseg scholar, five students technically finished with school and staying on for Zell, another brother sister combo (different teams) who share a Zell alumni sibling…plus a lot of motivation, drive and entrepreneurial spirit. See their bios on the Zell site.

Some more program news: Dana, our program coordinator got married this year and recently had a baby… mom and child are doing great! Liraz Sharabani of Zell 7 has stepped in to fill the gap during Dana’s maternity leave and get a chance to see the program from a different angle! Welcome Liraz, great to have you!

With Zell 12 in…(and after our traditional ZIZO (Zell In Zell out) event, we’ve sent Zell 11 out and about in the real world now…they had a great Zell year and developed some cool ideas in the program. One team, HocSpot had a working product launched by December. Two other ventures, BiggerGame and Crowdpic had working private betas by the end of the year, Gesta had a live public beta with real customers (of which I am proud to admit I was a satisfied one)…two teams were selected to compete and made it as finalists in SeedCamp Israel. HocSpot was offered an investment by SeedCamp and lool ventures, but eventually turned them down and disbanded. Feex secured an investment of 100K US and just moved into their offices, Roomer had great exposure in the US trip and even walked away with a 18K US$ grant, Spoteam is seeking funds, and TenFoot was selected to participate in UpWest Labs, the Silicon Valley accelerator for Israeli start-ups, Ori there now.

Zellumni ventures (ventures started on the program or by Zell alumni after the program) like Wibbitz (Yotam Cohen and Zohar Dayan – Zell 9) made news after securing 2.3MUS$ from Horizons Ventures and winning the UK Hub TeXchange competition, Bizzabo (Alon Alroy, Eran Ben Shushan and Boaz Katz – Zell 9) closed a second round with over 1MUS$ and launched a few months back, Overwolf (Gil Or and Uri Marchand – Zell 8) also making the news….and recently winning the StartTWS 2012 competition, also Arnon Harish’s (Zell 8) Ironsource moved into new offices on Rotshschild and have grown to 70 employees, Ori Saltzman’s (Zell 1) Gogbot got a new design…Eyal Baumel’s (Zell 8) Bites got back from UpWest labs, Karin Levi and Ofir Beigel’s (Zell 10) Weesh got back from DreamIt New York, Ohad Kedar’s (Zell 10) WeTrip is raising money, Segoma (Litan Yahav and Tomer Salvi Zell 10) secured financing and moved into new offices, and that is just the shortlist!

This past year was also marked by an incredible amount of alumni initiatives. Zell2Zell or Z2Z, an ad hoc bi-monthly peer group to share ideas, venture dilemmas etc. had bi- monthly meetings  Zell4Zell a monthly peer group meeting kicked off and started several groups Zell Gives Back kicked off activities for Zellumni giving back to the community by taking on the creation of a technological virtual playground at the Rogozin Bialik school. The Sippers, or Zell 12 candidates were enlisted to the cause and took part in the design and business proposal challenge during the summer, and now architects, who have agreed to take the project on pro bono, have started the planning. Next is fundraising!

Great new academic year, great new Hebrew calendar year to us all!

Some of the students of the TU Darmstadt course have been writing to me to comment that they are not in fact ONLY concerned about grades and that some of them work while in school…its always tricky and unfair to generalize. Certainly on the flip side, there are Israeli students that don’t work and many that are VERY concerned about their grades (though I try not to accept those…). So in a sense, the comparison is not only based on gross generalizations but also between two incomparable groups. The one was a master’s program 5-day required course and the other a very selective year long program, that involves about six months of application process.

For this year’s class, that six month application process is coming to a head in the beginning of August when we start our Summer Induction Program (SIP) of Zell. The ten day program involves lectures, workshops and interactive activities meant to give candidates an opportunity to get to know the program in terms of content, pace, culture…and a chance to get to know prospective team mates. Its rather a brutal process, but has its moments. Many of the candidates wonder what we are looking for as we try to narrow the pool of 33 candidates to about 20. While there are many different criteria we consider, and it would be hard to pinpoint one, I would have to say that we are looking for people who would able to make the best use of the amazing opportunity the program affords…and it really comes to leadership. Not necessarily the loudest or most dominant, not the one that seemingly takes charge…leadership in its essence; someone who takes initiative, ownership, and responsibility, sees the bigger picture and can stir people around her or him.

There is a distinct relationship between entrepreneurship and leadership in academic research.   The donor to the program, Sam Zell agrees. In fact, Zell believes that the crux of the program is about building the future business leadership of Israel.

But what happens when you get twenty leaders into a group. One of our alumni, Aviv Garten (Zell 5) put it nicely when he said the program was about “leading leaders.” Always a challenge!  and on that note, nice article about the program and IDC just published in Leaders Magazine. (And on a different note, young entrepreneur, Ben Lang, who I am hoping will eventually find himself at Zell after his army service, made a nice mention of us as well in the context of entrepreneurship education).

In any event the Leadership Challenge is on…As we head into SIP2012, ventures proposals submitted, faculty and alumni on hand to help in the process, very excited and nervous candidates on their mark, we are looking for the next group of leaders for Zell 12 (2012-13). Stay tuned!

Incredibly jet lagged, just landed in LA for some long awaited R&R (and reunion with my two small ones and parents) after a long trip to Germany to teach a venture creation course to masters students in the Computer Science Engineering and Economics program at the Technische Universitat Darmstadt.

I started the trip at DLD women, a great DLD experience, as usual, but this time even better somehow, with the many many women all around (have never been to a conference with professional content and such a feminine vibe)! (next general DLD city event in Tel Aviv October 21-15 should be fun! and Zellots will be working the event again like last year). Was great catching up with old friends (even one from LA) and meeting new, seeing Hanan and Shamim, by now DLD regulars and seeing Shamim WOW! the audience yet again with a great talk on pushing boundaries in writing. From there spent a relaxing weekend with a good friend in Erlangen, where Oren and I lived many many years ago in what seems like a previous lifetime.

Then on to Darmstadt, Germany.

Had gotten venture proposals from all 50! students enrolled for the course. Venture proposals ranging from topics like an emission reading app to an interface for cloud storage. Some more developed than others, some more creative than others…I admit I was daunted a bit by the sheer number of students, (thankfully had help from Shimrit Shiran preparing the materials and reading and organizing the proposals), but still somehow managed to maintain denial mode until the very minute I met them Monday at 9am.

A great group of students, the combination of computer science and German, requiring quite a cultural adaptation to the usual suspects I teach at the Zell Entrepreneurship Program at IDC Herzliya. Very polite and attentive, very engaged but deferential, always on time and mostly insanely concerned about their grades. They tend to be a bit younger than the undergrads at IDC Herzliya (allowing for Israeli students’ army service ups the average age) and unlike their Israeli counterparts, most have no work experience at all. German students apparently spend all of their time studying and have no time for work. The studies are very demanding and it seems a cultural consensus that when you study you don’t work.

Back from the whirlwind, ever eye opening Zell study trip abroad. This year we broke ground by going West to the Bay Area in addition to our usual romps. Last year we broke the third airport barrier by visiting the Oracle of Omaha….this year we headed all the way to the Cali coast.

Traditionally and at the insistence of our generous donor, Sam Zell, the yearlong Zell Entrepreneurship Program culminates with a study trip to the US in order to broaden horizons of the students to the opportunities of the US corporate and economic environment. To do this, the study trip includes specially designed study modules at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business; meetings with entrepreneurs, including Sam Zell; and visits to a wide variety of companies in New York City.

As the program evolves and veers more and more to new media ventures, the idea of getting to Silicon Valley to round out the experience and make it even more relevant has developed and finally grown to fruition this year.

To keep to the 12-day framework, we needed to trim a bit of the rest. In Chicago the leeway is limited. We took a two-day study program and met with Sam Zell to present the ventures to him and Ellen Havdala, his colleague and senior partner at Equity Group Investments and the “fairy god mother” of the program. Ellen hosts us every year for a great dinner. This time at Balsan, the restaurant at the Waldorf Astoria, recently purchased by Sam Zell. An amazing evening that started off with cocktails hosted by Helen and Sam Zell at their incredible home.

In New York we traipsed uptown and downtown (and uptown again) for two full days from 8am until midnight, at BBDO (visiting with former CEO Allen Rosenshine), Estee Lauder (touring Estee’s office and meeting with VP of the travel retail group), Goldman Sachs (hosted by Nadav Glucklich, who arranged a tour of the trading floor and meeting with the power house Orit Friedman), Two River Group (with a lecture on failure by Peter Kash), Graj & Gustavsen (to understand branding and design with Ray Graj), Getty Images (where we met CEO Jonathan Klein and alum Offir Gutelzon of PicScout now there after their sale to GI and Eyal Gura who joined us as chaperone), Dream It Ventures (where two of our alumni are spending the summer working on their couples app: Wheesh) and rounded out the visit circuit with our annual Entrepreneur’s War Stories Session with Yaron Galai, our advisory board member and CEO of Outbrain. This year David Kostman of Nanoosh, joined us as well at Loeb & Loeb hosted by Lloyd Rothenberg for the inspirational and meaningful feedback session.

Following a five-year tradition, we also got to present ventures at Tech Aviv New York, and Roomer, the secondary market for hotel room reservations won! Incidentally, at a dinner in Chicago hosted by Lowell Kraff of Trivergence, all the teams presented and Roomer also took first place with a gift of 18,000US from Kraff and his partners.

We also celebrated with alumni at a drinks event at IDC alum, chef and entrepreneur, Eran Elhalal’s Saro Bistro in the Lower East Side (also brother to Maya Elahlal of Zell1). Locals Irit Anavim (Zell 3), Yuval Refua (Zell 5), Karin Levi and Ofir Beigel (Zell 10 at DreamIt) joined. As did Dror Ceder and Daniel Tal (Zell 7 and founders of Wibiya bought by Conduit last year). Dror and Daniel joined Eyal Gura throughout visit to NY and Bay Area…(just shows that a once in a lifetime trip can be had again!)

After two grueling days in NYC some of the student’s were heard complaining that it was worse than reserve duty (tired, hungry, uncomfortable clothes, endless walking, no girlfriend…), but we had an amazing respite at Idit Caperton’s home for a magical generously and graciously hosted Friday night sushi meal.

Saturday was an off day and students rested, shopped and went to a Euro League friendship soccer match…for dinner we headed to New Jersey and had Havdala service and a lovely dinner in the beautiful home of Erica and Mark Gerson.

Sunday we headed to the Golden State! We landed late and started early the next day with a bus ride to San Jose. We started at eBay, (arranged by our alum, Ron Gura, whose Gift’s Project was sold the eBay last year), had lunch and a talk and tour with Ran Makavy of Snaptu, sold to fb and then went for a speed date session at Innovation Endeavors, where Anat Binur and Dror Berman rounded up angel investors and entrepreneurs to give insights and feedback to each of the teams. We topped off the evening on the amazing roof of Innovation Endeavors with beers and yummy fruit and snacks.

Tuesday westarted Khosla Ventures, with a talk by partner Andrew Chang joined by Vinod Khosla who inspired the students to think big. Wecomtinued to Google, where toured, ate lunch and presented our ventures to Leor Stern who hosted us graciously. From there we headed to Ideo hosted by Keren Amit to see Design Thinking in action and SRI International hosted by Dror Oren to think about future technologies. After that, we continued for a fireside chat on the quad at Stanford Graduate School of Business with angel investor, Oren Zeev.

The teams presented at Tech Aviv Palo Alto, and Roomer won yet again! But the feedback to all of the ventures was great! From there we went for beers with our friends from Gil Ben Artsy and Shuly Galili’s UpWest Labs and finally headed home. Filming impersonations of each other and faculty all the way (can’s wait to see that!)

Sunday we kicked off the day at Fortress Investments, enjoying the talk by Peter Briger and the incredible view of both Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge from his office. Then went downtown to Mission St. to the event venue of True Ventures, where we were warmly hosted by Raanan Bar Cohen of Auttomatic. Raanan spoke about WordPress and the very unique corporate culture at Auttomatic and had some friends come by to hear the student pitches. We then headed to the last official meeting of the trip to Kenshoo…and from there to margaritas at Tres and the Giants game, all organized to perfection by my college roommate and good friend Andy Rogers. I could not tell you for the life of me who they played…and we seem to have opted out to a bar about ten minutes before the game became history…as “the Perfect Game”…but as I see it, game not with standing, it was a perfect end to an amazing trip…an end that for the new graduates of Zell 11, is of course, just the beginning…

With a great showing for Zell teams Roomer and HocSpot at Seedcamp behind us, we are ready to go forward into Spring and the real venture creation push at Zell. Spring means gearing up for the trip and beyond…it means getting customer validation nailed down, use cases tried and tested, Minimal Viable Products out into the world, elevator pitches honed and presentations perfected and for some it ultimately means no go or …get on the entrepreneurial roller coaster…and either way, that too is a beginning of something…We are also at the beginning of the new recruitment process for Zell 12, the twelfth Zell class. With a record number of potential Zellots, we will start the grueling screening process including application review, alumni interviews and director interviews…and then, the Summer Induction Program, otherwise known as SIP after that. This year SIP will do a joint project with the Zell Alumni Gives Back initiative.

In fact, this initiative represents another new beginning in itself. We just had the alumni board meeting at my house last week. Zellumni representing Zell 1,4,5,7,8 and 9 all met to discuss, update and brainstorm on the amazing Zellumni projects going on. Zell Goves Back is just one of many initiatives and it aims to rally alumni into social causes. The first one will be a project with the Bialik Rogozin School. There are many of these great alumni projects, and one in particular worth mentioning, is Z2Z, the ad hoc peer review group organized by Uri Haramati with Jonathan Russo, which met last week and got great reviews on quality of feedback from Ilan Lapidot of Zell 5 who presented. Great stuff.

And since we are deep in Passover mode, I thought I would share a link on Warren Buffet and Chametz shared with me by Oded Stern of Zell 5. For all of Zell 10, this should be particularly nostalgic, as it was a year ago we visited him in Omaha as part of the trip and many of the stories were mentioned either in the dinner we had with him, or in the company visits the next day. The picture attached is from the memorable dinner…Moadim Le’Simcha


And… you can now watch my blog in a Wibbitz video here:

 

This has been a week with tons of entrepreneurship activity. There were so many events, I started feeling like I was seeing the same people over again…It all began with Saul Klein of Index Ventures hosted Allison Johnson of Apple, Chris Riley and Todd Waterbury of Wieden+Kennedy, all branding experts at such brands as Apple, Nike etc. at different venues and in varying formats: An entrepreneurs’ workshop on narrative at the amazing Peres Center for Peace in Jaffa; a workshop on the future of Internet at IDC and an open lecture by Chris Riley (in the picture) on the power of brand also at IDC hosted by the Zell Program.

We were very happy to host a part of this kind of “farewell” week of Saul’s who has been very helpful to the program (and the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Israel in general) in his year and a half in and around Silicon Blvd (aka Rotschild Blvd.). There was also an event at the amazing residence of the UK Ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould in Ramat Gan. The Ambassador, who has invested particular energy in bolstering the relations in the high tech community with the launching of the UK Israel Technologies Hub, also made mention of Saul’s contribution.

The week also played host to Bootcamp Ventures in Israel, which Guy Lachman of the renowned law firm Yigal Arnon (who were one of the sponsors) was kind enough to invite me to join and the Mass Challenge kick off. Finally, the week culminated with Seedcamp, also hosted by Saul along with Phillip Moehring. Two Zell teams, Roomer and HocSpot were the finalists in the 18 team line-up at SeedCamp Tel Aviv. I got great feedback on both teams while mentoring during the long day. They did an amazing job and made me super proud.

Zell program honored to host Saul Klein of Index Ventures on whirlwind week farewell…everyone invited!