Tel Aviv Company Visits

Much has been made of the laid back business culture of Israel.  Sandals and untucked shirts are as much the norm as neckties are uncommon.  But despite Israel’s casual approach to business our full slate of company visits last Monday was anything but laid back.  With an aggressive schedule that started in Tel Aviv suburb Herzeliya at 9:00 AM and ended 10 hours later in Ceasaria, we met the full spectrum of Israeli business.

Better Place

The morning began with one of the stars of Israeli innovation: Better Place.  Founded with the mission of ending oil dependence, this company has taken the vision of electric cars beyond just hybrid and plug-in electrics by envisioning an entire infrastructure of battery switch stations.  In addition to the network of battery switch stations, Better Place actually purchases and maintains the car battery for the consumer, removing an expensive barrier for many electric car customers.  Better Place has begun to roll out their network in Israel, Denmark and Australia but will need to expand into larger markets to repay the billion dollars of funding their founder Shai Agassi has raised.  With the world finally realizing that oil cannot be the answer in the long run, it’s safe to say they have a head start on the competition in an industry that can do nothing but grow.

Rainbow Medical

With so many of our teammates pitching ventures in the bio medical industry, meeting the management of a company that specializes in seeding and growing medical technologies provided some great insight for our own projects and upcoming venture capitalist pitches.  Of their portfolio technologies, Rainbow showed off the Nano Retina, an implantable chip that restores sight to people who have gone blind due to acute macular degeneration.  What felt like something taken from a science fiction movie is currently being tested in animals and is one year from human trials.

Benchmark Capital

Whenever an entrepreneur has a chance to network with top tier venture capitalists, he or she must capitalize on the opportunity.  At Benchmark, we did just that, talking to venture capitalists on the current state of their industry, both in Israel and the US.  Before concluding the meeting, we of course took the opportunity to pitch our own ventures and gain valuable feedback from an experienced business builder.

Aqwise

While not always the hottest industry, water treatment is not only of utmost importance to the desert dwelling Israelis, but will soon be a concern for the entire world.  At Aqwise, innovation has transformed a sewage treatment company into a cleantech leader, as this Israeli company now treats a quantity of water in 8 hours that used to take 10 days.  With the obvious benefits of their technological solution, Aqwise is now global, counting the likes of Walmart and Coca-Cola as customers.

Microsoft

Employing 600 people in their Herzeliya research and development facility, Microsoft has marked Israel as a key asset in their drive to innovate and constantly reinvent themselves.  In meeting the management of their Innovation Labs, we saw first-hand how they create value by improving on and redefining Microsoft’s existing current product line.  And more importantly, we saw some of the new management techniques that Microsoft is employing to encourage innovation and outside the box thinking as a part of its larger strategic goal of remaining relevant in a rapidly evolving marketplace.  Whether we go into the high tech industry or not, their innovative techniques such as Out of the Box Week are implementable anywhere.

Emefcy

On our way back to Haifa from Tel Aviv we made on last stop in Ceasarea to visit new water technology startup Emefcy.  This company has developed the technology to not only eliminate energy consumption used in waste water treatment but in some case leverage the treatment process to generate electricity.  The paradigm shift that results from their innovation has clearly caught the eye of industry, as they recently announced an investment from General Electric.

Getting Down to Work

Between biomed conferences, Israeli holidays involving barbecuing on the beach and a little sightseeing, we have spent countless hours working on our technologies.  On our first full day in Israel everyone met their Israeli counterparts and saw presentations from the Technion innovator who developed their techs.  From that moment on, we have been fully immersed in every aspect of our technologies: wrapping our minds around the science behind them, researching the potential applications for them, meeting with experts in the field and related fields in which they could be commercialized and of course conceiving of the initial business models for their potential commercialization.

With just one week to immerse ourselves in our technologies, each team presented five potential applications to the class and our instructors.  We were encouraged to move beyond the most obvious applications for our technologies, which means we saw some really outside-the-box ideas for commercial applications for these innovations.

While our instructors, Ze’ev Ganor and Asher Epstein, went easy on us in our first class, they turned on the Israeli charm for our second Thursday night meeting.  The first presentation was interrupted during their first few slides for questions – a sharp contrast from the MBA classes back home where professors patiently await the obligatory “Questions?” slide to tell you how wrong your assumptions are.

Olivia and Lisa presenting their technology

To that end, we have learned a lot during our first full week.  First, you must think outside the box when it comes to entrepreneurship – thinking linearly about applications for a new technology is an easy way to get shot down by a venture capitalist.  Second, understanding the market for a new technological application is not as straightforward as it might at first appear.  Numerous assumptions must often be made (especially when dealing with an innovation that solves a problem in a unique manner), and those assumptions must be supported by logical claims.  Failure to do so is an easy way to ensure tough questions from venture capitalists.  And third, selling a new technology is all about solving a problem.  Convincing your audience of the severity of this problem and how your innovation addresses it better than the competition is the basis of your sales pitch, and you should never lose sight of it.

Israel – Startup Nation

Dan Senor and Saul Singer’s Startup Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle is required reading for anyone looking to do business in Israel.  In it, the co-authors describe how Israel has undergone a transformation from fledgling nation to the world’s most exciting place for technological innovation and entrepreneurship.  The reasons are varied, but all have their roots in a shared sense of survival around which this small nation has cultivated the ideal environment in which to start a business.  If you don’t believe me, just consider that Israel has:

• the highest density of startup companies in the world (one for every 1,844 Israelis)
• more companies listed on NASDAQ than all of Europe
• the greatest portion of GDP spent on civilian R&D worldwide

From the perspective of an MBA student and entrepreneur, Israel offers everything you could ever dream of.  I’m told that driving down Highway 2 from Haifa to Israel I will see offices for global leaders like Intel, HP, Google and Microsoft.  Not to mention that I will have access to Israeli startups-turned-corporations such as Teva, Given Imaging and Netafim.  And nevermind the brilliant researchers at the Technion and the venture capitalists to whom I will pitch my ideas on a weekly basis.

The concentration of multinational firms, innovative startups and funded research in an environment that encourages learning by doing and innovative approaches to problem solving makes Israel the ideal place for an internship and beyond.