Author: I. Papikas, Senior Product Manager, e-satisfaction.com
First day is already gone and we already feel like we gained about a month of accumulated knowledge from the experts and known companies in the Israeli start-up community.
What am I talking about? The DLD Tel Aviv Innovation Festival of course, which takes place in Tel Aviv this September, like every September, to gather entrepreneurs, startups, companies and investors from all over the world to meet, grow their network, make partnerships and synergies and even invest or get funded.
I am in DLD Festival representing e-satisfaction.com that has been invited by the Embassy of Israel in Athens, Greece to be a part of the Greek Delegation in the conference and supported by the Hellenic Entrepreneurship Award. I am here with Greek promising startups that have been sent to exchange expertise with the local startup community and understand what makes the Israeli community so successful. During this trip we have the opportunity to understand how Israel manages technology and how companies in Israel work together with Universities, Public sector, Military and many other giant companies to allow sustainable growth which overcomes Greece’s by 40%.
The Culture
The very first thing that we learned on our very first meeting in Tel Aviv was about the unique culture of Israel and their entrepreneurs, an asset which makes them compete with the top startup cultures in the world, very close to the ones in Silicon Valley. And what is the key value of their culture? They call it chutzpah, a word that describes the courage, the strength, the stamina and the nerve to question almost everything around them, from military rankings to new technologies and processes. This attitude is what drives them further and further towards their goals, or faster and faster to their failures so that they can start up again. Work fast, fail faster is serious and we should never forget it.
Another characteristic that drives them, their curiosity, knowledge and expertise is the power of sharing. They believe in information sharing inside their ecosystem in order to help themselves grow fast and big. They call it Firgun, which describes genuine, unselfish delight or pride in the accomplishment of the other. They are willing to tell their story with everyone that is willing to hear, share mistakes and save others from doing them again, but also to share successes so that everyone can succeed as a team.
If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.
The Business
During our visit in our first day, we managed to book a private presentation of one of the most successful startups in Israel, Similar Web.
Similar Web, a unique Website traffic data analysis service that powers startups and companies with their freemium model of providing the right analytics for any website in the world helping everyone to understand the business, the market and the effect of actions in the future by observing the past, the present while they deal with the trends of the market.
We learned what it takes to really have a secret weapon in your armory, power up your entire intelligence and innovate. So, if you think that you have this something special, take it to the world for a show-off. And then iterate, iterate and iterate until you make it right.
In this meeting, I realized the amount of attention that we have to give to our customers, and their customers so that we can keep everyone happy, pleased and in the loop. You have to take care of the customer from their very first step and for every step of their way. Keeping current customers can be much more expensive than acquiring new ones, but if you do it right and strategically, you will succeed big time.
Finally, growth and culture are two things that can easily stand against each other, when in rapid growth and continuous hires. If there was one thing that got into me, this is: Hire slow, fire fast. Relocate and let the team play along at the same place.
Conclusion
I would like, now more than ever, to quote Ghandi and allow me to simplify it and keep it short:
Be The Change You Want To See In The World
Change within and make the world a better place.
