Today was an eye-opening day, both because of the quality of our speakers and the breadth of topics we covered.? It was amazing to finally see what we have been discussing in class for the last six weeks come alive.
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Ed Mlavsky, widely regarded as the father of Israeli venture capital, spoke to us today about venture capital in Israel, and honestly there is probably no one more knowledgeable on the entire situation.? What I thought to be one of the more interesting topics he touched on was how to manage a start-up founded in Israel, with a product designed for western consumers.? ?The cultural gap seems quite wide, and although we had heard from other speakers that American management does the best job of making the switch, Mlavsky argued just the opposite.? He is firmly in the position that Israeli companies should be in the hands of Israeli?s.? It is interesting to contemplate that within small companies an ?us vs them,? sort of relationship could come about, just between teams in different locations.
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Ebay recently purchased The Gift Project an Israeli founded company that allows users to split the cost of gifts purchased for others online.? As ingenious as the business model is, I found the most fascinating part of this visit to be the co-founder himself, Ron Gura.? He seems to be the absolute embodiment of the young, fearless Israeli entrepreneur we have been learning so much about.? Ron Gura is in his late twenties, has sold a company to Ebay for millions of dollars, and talks about in a startlingly casual manner.? This brings me back to a conversation I had last night.? Out and about I started a conversation with some Israelis.? As we got to talking they asked what I was doing in Israel, and I told them a little about the class, studying business innovation and entrepreneurship, and they were astonished.? They were sure there was some communication barrier, something lost in translation.? They could not fathom that I had come from the US to Israel to study business.? These ideals are so deeply engrained in their culture and thinking it, where as we have a whole class set up to study it.
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Another testament to the amazing startup culture of Israel is Elevator, a start-up accelerator.? For equity in a start-up Elevator provides a small amount of cash, plus legal, marketing, and PR services, and helps companies network, finding VC partners, and any other potentially beneficial partners.? This is such a unique phenomenon that could only come about in a culture and marketplace that is centered around entrepreneurship.? The two people we met with were in their early twenties.? It was quite eye opening to think that peers of mine just a couple years down the road could be accomplishing such impressive things.
Today has proved to me just how dynamic the start-up industry is, and the complexities of going from an idea to an actual company, and at the IDC we got a view into the very early stages of a start-up, pitched to us by two students in the Zell program.? It was quite interesting to see the dichotomy between the successful Gift Project, and this brand new start up HocSpot, seeing both ends of a wide spectrum of stages of a start up.? What a day.
Alex ? Olin Business School ? Freshman ? New York
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Source: http://olinbizinisrael.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/origin-of-israel-vcs-startup-culture/
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