Tag: entrepreneurship

The future requires chutzpah

Inbal Arieli recently published the book Chutzpah: Why Israel is a Hub of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. (photo by Micha Loubaton)

Inbal Arieli has always been fascinated by what motivates and drives people, as well as what blocks their paths. “Throughout my career, which was mainly as a business executive, I always kept an eye on the human factor,” Arieli told the Independent. “And so, the businesses I started were somehow all related to that.”

Arieli, who is also a lawyer, is the owner and co-chief executive officer of Israeli start-up accelerator Synthesis. The company provides leadership assessment, as well as business training and development, in Israel, Canada and the United States.

“It is about the effect of the most critical skills that I think anyone should have today,” said Arieli about her recently published book Chutzpah: Why Israel is a Hub of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. “These are, according to the World Economic Forum, the skills which are required in the future, for anyone, regardless of your profession or future position. These are basic life skills – of critical thinking, decision-making, taking on initiative, etc., etc. There’s a long list of soft skills. The book is about these skills.

“What’s still interesting to me is, when looking at these skills, thinking about the future – the future of my kids, the future of the entrepreneurs here in Israel, the future of the job market in the world – about how can one practise these skills.

“The book shows the journey of a typical Israeli child from a very young age, as young as 3 or 4, until after military [age], young adult.”

In Chutzpah, Arieli shows how, in the five stages of childhood – infancy, childhood, adolescence, military service and then the big trip after the military – Israeli culture and society have produced principles, a framework and settings to foster these skills.

The book is not about Israel in and of itself. It is designed to help readers develop their own set of skills using the Israeli experience as an analogy.

Chutzpah (audacity), an ingrained trait, is very much nurtured in Israeli kids from a young age, said Arieli.

“From a very young age, chutzpah comes into play everywhere and anywhere,” she said. “Most of those skills, Israeli education and mindset … I think of them like muscles we all possess … only here, in Israel, we have access to the best gyms to practise these muscles.

“When you play at the playground, at age 3 or 4, the fact that you stand for your own opinion and find your own way of using the slide – an example I give in the book – that, in a sense, is a little bit of chutzpah. You don’t necessarily follow guidelines or practices. You bring your own personality [into your decisions and actions] at a very, very young age. So, it starts then, and then it fills up as we grow up here.”

Arieli sees Israeli society as being very open to giving freedom to everyone’s chutzpah – encouraging kids to exercise their chutzpah muscle, to be risk-takers, to stand out from the crowd, encouraging individualism along with a strong sense of collectivism. “Definitely, the framework that exists here, the environment, so many social structures are helping the muscles to remain developed and strong,” she said.

Chutzpah can be viewed as either negative or positive, and can be used in a positive or negative way. In Hebrew, one can differentiate between the two, depending on where the accent is placed. Arieli does not think it is important to differentiate between the two concepts of chutzpah. Rather, she contends that, just like any other muscle, the use of it needs to be calculated.

“Chutzpah is not a button you can press on or off,” she said. “It’s a mindset. In the context of innovation or entrepreneurship, I think it’s a very positive thing. And so are the other skills, ideas or principles spoken about in the book. I think it’s all a matter of finding the right balance between using them or not using them, and when to use them. What’s right for certain stages is less relevant for other stages.

“More than anything, I think it’s the combination of having these skills along with other skills is what’s optimal. But, I also think it’s very challenging to create an innovative society or an innovative team or group of people without allowing them to have a little bit of chutzpah.”

According to Arieli, just teaching kids how to work in today’s job market is a recipe for failure, as we have little knowledge of what work will even look like in their generation. The one and only thing we know for sure is that the future job market is uncertain. As such, the only way to prepare children is to equip them with the ability to be highly innovative and creative thinkers, capable of taking on initiatives by shaking things up and changing things.

“I wish for my kids that they will have as much chutzpah as possible when thinking about their future,” said Arieli. “They’ll have to reinvent themselves during their career several times and I want them to be proactive in that.”

Another trait Arieli talks about in Chutzpah is balagan (mess or chaos).

“Anyone who has visited Israel knows what I’m talking about – be it traffic, on the playground, in restaurants – everything is really chaotic here,” said Arieli. “But, that chaos, balagan, propels us toward new order, allowing us to rise every time from that balagan.”

Another factor Arieli discusses in her book is teamwork and “how Israeli society, while sometimes divided, at its core, has a galvanizing mechanism rooted in survival, through our culture … what we endured as a people and our mandatory army service … all of which unite us like no other nation on earth.”

For more information about Arieli or her book, visit inbalarieli.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Teaching entrepreneurship

Students at the Bachar school in Even Yehuda, which educates for leadership and entrepreneurship, prepare to welcome a delegation of educators from developing countries, who came to learn how Israeli schools educate for entrepreneurship. (photo from Galit Zamler)

For Galit Zamler, a course that began as a volunteer position at one school has become a full-time job, with more and more schools picking up her program.

In 2009, when Zamler’s third child was in Grade 6, his school principal wanted to have an after-school activity. She brought representatives of a company that was not only expensive to hire, but would only present to outstanding students, and required at least 20 of them.

Seeing the value of educating kids about entrepreneurship, Zamler – who has an MBA and has co-founded two businesses – told the principal that she would do such a presentation at no charge, as long as her son could be one of the participants. A month later, Zamler was teaching her first group of 12 children. She knew she was onto something great after she had sent the students’ parents notes about what was being taught, and the parents responded with thank you letters.

Word spread and, after volunteering for six years, Zamler turned her volunteer work into a full-time career. Now, 10 years into it, she said, “At the beginning of the course, I’d count each one of them, but now there are a lot of schools and there’s awareness of the need to teach entrepreneurship. I don’t need to go and try to convince anyone. They are going out looking for it.”

One of the first things Zamler teaches is that there are different kinds of entrepreneurs. It is not strictly about entrepreneurs of technology or inventions, and it is not just about opening a business. Students are taught that, to succeed, one must stand out from others – be creative and make their initiative unique.

“Then, they raise ideas and learn that there are no bad ideas,” said Zamler. “Each idea can be good and that’s how we do it. Being critical will prevent others from raising ideas. It’s very important that the class be open-minded and let everyone, whatever their idea, say it aloud and learn to explain it. Sometimes, what they have in their head is not clear to the others. They learn to stand in front of the class and explain their ideas.

“It’s not that every idea is great,” she clarified. “It’s just that we won’t criticize ideas. We ask questions to understand, and we discuss what difficulties we see in ideas – things like, how much it will cost, who will need it, to take a good look at it.

“Sometimes, this makes the student drop an idea, because they understand it can’t be implemented…. For example, there was a student who said she wanted every student to have a cupboard in the class to put their books into. The kids asked where she would put them, with very little space. And, she realized it couldn’t be done.”

photo - Sixth graders at the Hayovel school in Ashdod present their social project: A Birthday to Everyone
Sixth graders at the Hayovel school in Ashdod present their social project: A Birthday to Everyone. (photo from Galit Zamler)

Once all the ideas are shared with the class, students start to determine which ones they like the most and come up with business plans – tackling the process like a cake recipe, considering which ingredients they will need to bring their concepts to life. This includes the physical elements, as well as how to make their business unique, part of which involves seeking advice from experts in various fields to see if any changes might be needed.

Only then do the students try to implement their project, which can sometimes be as simple as composing a letter to the municipality.

“I have a school that wanted to have a gym,” said Zamler. “But, the school is small and there’s no place. So, they wrote a letter. The municipality sent an expert to explain why it can’t be done, but gave them money to buy equipment for activities they can move from place to place; using it outside and bringing it back inside as needed. And, they were satisfied with this.”

The curriculum is offered to grades 2 through 9 in Israel and it is funded in part by the government, as principals are allowed some leeway to allocate funds as they see fit within a list of external programs pre-approved by the Ministry of Education.

“Sometimes, they teach it as a science class,” said Zamler. “Other times, it is categorized as a life skills lesson in the curriculum … and, when the school principal thinks it’s important, he or she finds a way.”

Zamler – and other parents – consider the entrepreneurship course a great addition to what is being taught in school, as it will help in practically every aspect of life.

“I think, sometimes, it’s the parents that bring the program to the schools, because they know that children learn something useful for life … not just the ordinary curriculum,” which includes things that may not “help them when they grow up, as things change so quickly,” said Zamler.

Even armed with this entrepreneurial knowledge, Zamler acknowledged that the overwhelming majority of students – 90% to 95% – will end up as employees. But, she is hoping they will be leader employees.

“I was an employee with entrepreneur skills, and that’s what helped me go from the bottom up to management,” she said. “Being an entrepreneur in an organization means that you think big, you do more than you are told. Those are the kinds of workers we need in the workforce.”

While Zamler has not yet conducted follow-up studies on the students who have taken the program, other countries are taking note and looking for ways to implement the program in their own schools.

“The foreign office brings delegations to Israel twice a year and takes them to a school that educates for entrepreneurship,” said Zamler. “And what we see is that, instead of students who don’t like to go to school, we see students who are really enjoying their time in school, because they have choices.

“The army is also looking for these kinds of students…. If they don’t have these kinds of skills – persistence, creativity, and working on team goals – the army doesn’t want them. We know it helps them in the future, in the army and, I think, the workforce.”

The Hebrew Academy in Miami Beach was the first school outside of Israel to implement the program. Also, a company from Hong Kong has purchased the licence to bring the program there.

“They do amazing things there and they’re opening more and more classes,” Zamler said of Hong Kong. “But, there, it is an after-school activity, because it’s hard to bring it into the public school curriculum.”

Zamler has created an online training program for both students and teachers wanting to bring entrepreneurship into their school. For more information, visit tomorrowsuccess.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Talent agency expands

Back in university, Jeff Jacobson started working in the career he loves – being a talent agent. (photo from Jeff Jacobson)

“When I was a kid, my favourite movie was Jerry Maguire. He was an agent, and I wanted to be one, too,” said Jeff Jacobson, co-owner of Talent Bureau. “Whenever my buddies and I talked about some famous athlete or musician, I wanted to know who represented them.”

Jacobson started on the road to the career he loves when he was at the University of Victoria. “I was a promoter, organized concerts of rap and hip-hop music at UVic,” he said. “We tried to get the performers all they wanted, but I was getting tired of the musicians’ ‘diva’ attitude. I wanted to work with a different kind of performer.”

His chance came in 2007. Still a student at the time, he arranged for Al Gore to speak at the university. “Amazingly, Mr. Gore agreed. He came to Victoria. And I thought: that’s what I want to do. Many people and organizations want speakers at their events. Speakers are much better than musicians. The logistics are easier, too. Musicians often have an entourage, so you need hotels and transportation for at least a dozen people, while a speaker comes alone. Easier to arrange.”

Jacobson graduated in 2008 with a degree in American history. That year, he also organized an event featuring Colin Powell as a speaker.

“History teaches us about great men and women. It’s all about storytelling,” he said. “It’s exactly what I do professionally: bring great men and women to speak to people and help them tell their stories.”

With two powerful speakers behind him already, Jacobson went to work for the National Speakers Bureau. In 2014, he left the company and opened his own, then called Jeff Jacobson Agency.

“I don’t organize concerts or events anymore,” he said. “I’m a middleman. I bring talent and event organizers together.”

He said about 80% of his business comes from speakers.

“When people invite a speaker to speak at their event, they expect more,” he said. “They want social media. They want a YouTube video. We make sure it happens. We facilitate all the extras and help the speakers produce content. We’re a 21st-century agency. We represent the social media generation.”

For Jacobson, being a modern company means that he and his employees aren’t at their small office 9 to 5 every day. Most of their internal communications and business with clients can be done online or over the phone.

“My partner Jeff Lohnes is based in Toronto. We have staff members in Ottawa and in Nelson, B.C.,” Jacobson explained. “At the moment, our team is six people. Last year, we booked talents for approximately 300 events all over the world. We booked speakers for events in Latvia, in New Zealand, but the majority of our business comes from the events in Canada and the U.S.”

In addition to speakers, the agency handles entertainment, mostly bands, but other activities, as well. Companies will come to Talent Bureau, as the company is now called, when they want a celebrity to endorse their product or service, for example. Jacobson listed some of the speakers and organizations he has helped bring together.

“We worked with Rogers and Google, American Express and Sysco, Pfizer and Microsoft. We booked speakers for universities like UBC, McGill and Georgetown,” he said. “Recently, I placed the speakers at the SFU Public Square’s Brave New Work Event – Van Jones from CNN and Anne-Marie Slaughter. I booked former prime minister Stephen Harper to speak at the FarmTech Conference in Edmonton.”

As word-of-mouth has spread about the good job they do, more and more exclusive speakers have been asking Talent Bureau to represent them.

“To handle this level of clients, an agent needs a very thick skin,” Jacobson joked. These clients, he said, “They always want things their way, and we make sure they are satisfied. We also help the organizers to realize their ambitions for their events. We are matchmakers between talents and events.”

In addition to a thick skin, Jacobson said a keen interest in current events and a deep familiarity with pop culture are absolute necessities for his hectic profession. “I have to talk to people in different industries: sports, agriculture, manufacturing, art, science. I have to speak their lingo,” he explained, “be up to speed about everything that happens, be aware of the biggest trends.”

An obsessive consumer of news, Jacobson tweets multiple times a day, but his main focus is people. “You need a sense of humour to handle such a job and you need humility. I always remember that, although I deal with celebrities, I’m not one.”

He also stressed the need to care, to be passionate about his work. “Sometimes, bizarre challenges or obscure requests spring at you, and you must be prepared to deal with them,” he said. “For example, once a client canceled on me…. He was booked to speak at an event but, at the last minute, he remembered his daughter’s graduation and canceled. I had to find a replacement fast. Another time, a client asked the event organizers to build him a canoe on stage. Flexibility is the key.”

In general, Jacobson said he has to prove his value as an agent, earn his reputation every time he books someone. “One of the modern challenges for an agent is the democratization of talent,” he explained. “Everyone has a website. Anyone can approach him or her online, so why do they need an agent? I prove myself by caring about the people I work with. Everyone has a chaotic schedule, and it’s my job to juggle those schedules, to find good opportunities. Every day is like a Rubik’s Cube and, one day, I might even solve it.”

It was just this year that Jacobson and Lohnes rebranded the agency, changing the name to Talent Bureau. “It was a collaborative decision but it’s the right direction,” Jacobson said. “When you say Jeff Jacobson Agency, nobody knows what it is, but when you say Talent Bureau, it’s clear what we do. And we are still new enough in the business to be able to rebrand without damage.”

To learn more, visit talentbureau.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Israel’s human capital

Some of the attendees at the July 16 event, left to right: Daniel Wosk, Julia Goudkova, Shai Josopov, Sigal Kleynerman and Daniel Milner. (photo from CFHU Vancouver)

Israel’s best “natural resource” is its people. On July 16, at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, four speakers, representing diverse segments of Israeli society, gave TED Talk-style presentations before a sold-out crowd at the Jerusalem: City of Gold and Tech event. The common denominator of the speakers was their connection to Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Presented by Canadian Friends of Hebrew University (CFHU) in conjunction with the Jerusalem Foundation and the JCCGV, the evening presented the many ways in which Israel is using its human capital to leverage its place in the world and continue to be the innovative nation for which it has become renowned.

Lior Schillat is the head of the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research (JIPR), an organization that collects data on multiple aspects of Jerusalem. Although statistics don’t tell the whole story, the data collected by Schillat’s institute shed a great deal of light on how people in Jerusalem live, work and play. He explained that the city is constantly faced with a power struggle between three groups with very different worldviews: ultra-Orthodox Jews, Arabs and “the general public.” These groups have not only diverse needs and interests but also huge variances in almost every part of daily life. JIPR attempts to use the data they collect to influence lawmakers to try to minimize conflicts and use the city’s diversity to empower everyone, said Schillat, “instead of the zero-sum game we used to play, where we win and the others lose. We want to turn Jerusalem into a win-win for everyone.”

Schillat’s optimism was shared by the second presenter, Maya Halevy, director of the Bloomfield Museum of Science in Jerusalem. Although her goal is to promote an interest in and love of science, her ultimate objective is to ensure that Israel has a workforce equipped for the future. She explained the programs in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) that her museum provides to all segments of Jerusalem’s population.

“We need to make connections with families and students,” she said. “Over 200,000 Arab and ultra-Orthodox visitors use our museum. We serve all communities with STEM literacy.”

Halevy said that, while it is easier to attract ultra-Orthodox families to the museum, Arab families as a whole stay away but they send their children through school programs. Her message, similar to Schillat’s, was that Israel will thrive when all segments of the population are educated and have equal chances to be successful.

Meanwhile, Yonatan Avraham is living his dream of becoming a physicist and an entrepreneur. He is an example of someone who is thriving because of the education he is receiving at Hebrew U. He is also the beneficiary of Toronto philanthropist Seymour Schulich’s scholarship program. Avraham expressed his gratitude regarding the place where he is studying.

“I am at the intersection of three unique resources that are ecosystems for innovation: the academic knowledge at Hebrew U, Jerusalem as a municipality supportive of start-up companies and a young, dynamic student atmosphere,” he said. “The combination has produced many innovators who are able to take their ideas to market and grow the Israeli economy.”

Helping smart people turn their ideas into companies that make money is how the final speaker of the night fit in. Tamir Huberman serves in several capacities at Yissum, Hebrew U’s technology transfer company. He works with researchers who are constantly asking the question, “How can I make this better?” What “this” is depends on the scientist, he said, but, with Israeli chutzpah, tachlis (getting to the point quickly), problem-solving ability and the pressure of existential threats fueling the process, Huberman explained that Israel is producing many great companies. Yissum is the exclusive owner of all intellectual property produced at Hebrew U and has created 120 spin-off companies since its creation in 1964. Profitable for the university, Yissum helps monetize the brain-power Halevy nurtures, Schillat influences and Avraham exemplifies.

Marketing of technology

Yonatan Avraham, student ambassador of HUstart, left, and Tamir Huberman of Yissum are two of the four speakers who will be participating in Jerusalem of Gold: Capital of Innovation & Tech on July 16. (photos from CFHU Vancouver)

“I have always loved the thrill you feel while creating your own project, seeing it grow and being responsible for the outcomes – and the satisfaction you feel while convincing a stranger to give his or her resources (time or money) for your product,” said Yonatan Avraham, student ambassador of HUstart, Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s entrepreneurship centre, about what excites him about being an innovator and entrepreneur.

Avraham is one of four speakers who will participate in Jerusalem of Gold: Capital of Innovation & Tech, which will take place on July 16 at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. The event is being hosted by Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, the Jerusalem Foundation and JCCGV. Avraham will be joined by Lior Schillat of Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research; Maya Halevy of Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem; and Tamir Huberman of Yissum, HU’s technology transfer company. The Jewish Independent’s interviews with Schillat and Halevy appeared in last week’s issue (see jewishindependent.ca/jerusalem-a-high-tech-hub).

“All of the speakers are coming from Israel especially for this tour in Western Canada. We will be in Vancouver on July 16, Calgary on July 17 and Edmonton on July 18,” said Dina Wachtel, Western region executive director of CFHU, of the tour, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem.

“Tamir is going to give a talk on Friday, July 14, at Simon Fraser University titled The Power of Social Networks: Boosting the Marketing of Innovations, organized by Fred Popowich, executive director of Big Data Initiative at Simon Fraser University,” she said. “Part of our mandate is to create these living bridges between Hebrew U and our local universities; hence, this is part of this initiative.”

Huberman is Yissum’s vice-president of business development and director of information technology. At the JCCGV, he will talk on Marketing Innovation: Changing Israel and the World.

In the press material, Huberman notes, “As the only university in Israel with a school of agriculture, research in non-GMO hybrid seeds at Hebrew U is changing the way millions of people eat now and into the future.” He also notes that Mobileye, which recently sold to Intel for $15.3 billion US, was founded by HU Prof. Amnon Shashua.

Yissum “operates on a royalty-based model which channels proceeds from successful products back to the researchers, their labs and the university itself,” he explains. It also generates funds “by attracting corporations to collaborate with Hebrew University labs to find the answers the businesses are seeking.”

About what B.C. (and other) universities could learn from HU, Huberman told the Independent, “I believe that the top lessons are how to be more effective and how to remove barriers for doing business. In most cases, tech transfer companies around the world are [viewed] as a bureaucratic entity that complicates things. The greatest lesson is making adaptations that would make things simpler for the companies that want to do business with us…. The second lesson is the realization that, for each new technology, there either has to be someone in the world that would be interested in acquiring a licence, or someone in the world that knows the technology does not have a chance. It is the ‘job’ of the tech transfer to find that ‘someone’ and, from my experience, the best way to do that is by using social networks. The revolution of social media allows getting fast replies from people all around the world, even if you’ve never met them.”

Huberman has always loved innovation and, he said, “it was a big dream of mine to be an inventor and work with new inventions.”

While working for the company Medis from 1996 to 2002, he was exposed to the world of patents and the process of writing patents as an inventor. “After my own experience as an inventor,” he said, “I knew I had to find a place that works with new patents at a massive scale.”

It was his “strong passion for new patents and ideas that was the top reason for joining Yissum,” he said. “Second was the opportunity to work with some of the most brilliant researchers in their fields. Third was my realization that there was something missing at the time before I joined Yissum, which had to do with the very low use of the internet in order to expose the technologies from the universities to the world.

“Before I arrived at Yissum, I made a simple search using freely available patent databases and saw that only a small fraction of the patents I found [were] on the tech transfer websites. When I realized this, I had a vision of changing how tech transfer companies worked…. My dream materialized when I created the first portal for all the technologies at Yissum and later created the ITTN website (Israel Technology Transfer Organization). ITTN was the first website in Israel that allowed all of the inventions from academic institutions in Israel to be found in one central portal.”

He added, “I believe that there is a lot that can be done to make a better and faster connection between companies seeking talent or innovation to the offerings of universities…. [B]uilding a portal that connects more universities in Israel and the world could help make that matching much more efficient.

“Another realization is that tech transfer companies traditionally showcase technologies and I believe that this is not the best approach…. [T]he portals should focus on the researchers and their capabilities, rather than just the patents that a small portion of them invented. We have multiple examples of companies that were interested in researchers that we did not even know [because] they never had any patents.”

One of the jobs of HUstart – of which Yissum is part, along with HU’s science faculty and business school – is to provide “practical education, support, mentorships and connections needed” for students and others “to become effective entrepreneurs.”

Avraham is a third-year physics student at Hebrew U and is in the first cohort of the new Physics and Entrepreneurship program, which connected him – during his second year of study – with his business partners. Avraham and fellow students Michael Levinson and Tom Zelanzy co-founded the start-up Gamitee, which “links social media and shopping websites, making it possible for friends to easily invite others to join them in a shopping experience.”

Avraham has other ideas, such as one for an “infant sleeper that monitors a baby’s vital signs, a technology that could potentially prevent SIDS.” And he and his wife – who is an archeologist – also run a tutoring business. In Vancouver, he will speak on The Making of a Serial Entrepreneur.

“I think they have a lot of similarities,” he said about physics and building a tech start-up. “In both, you need to solve complex questions and problems that are comprised of several independent factors. Both of them are professions that people rarely choose. And they are both very, very hard to understand. I think my physics background [increased] my range of abilities needed [to be] an entrepreneur.”

Jerusalem of Gold: Capital of Innovation & Tech is open to the public. Tickets are $45, though students who register at the CFHU office can receive a free ticket. For tickets and the speakers’ bios, visit cfhu.org, email [email protected] or call 604-257-5133.

Summit’s sage advice

Gwyneth Paltrow, left, and Zooey Deschanel at the Sage Summit in July. (photo by Dave Gordon)

Some 15,000 entrepreneurs gathered in Chicago July 26-29 for the Sage Summit, to hear keynote speakers, network and browse the exhibitors’ stations, which spanned the length of 10 football fields, according to Sage chief executive officer Stephen Kelly, who oversees the accounting software giant.

Celebrity speakers included entrepreneurs and actors Gwyneth Paltrow, Zooey Deschanel and Ashton Kutcher, all of whom have Jewish connections.

Paltrow, most known lately for her role as Pepper Potts in the Iron Man film series, was also the head of Goop, which touts itself as a “weekly lifestyle publication.” (She left the publication days after the Summit.)

photo - Some 15,000 entrepreneurs gathered in Chicago July 26-29 for the Sage Summit
Some 15,000 entrepreneurs gathered in Chicago July 26-29 for the Sage Summit. (photo by Dave Gordon)

“The more you create a vision of where you’re going, the more you can create a vertical. Where do you want it to be, where do you imagine it to be, and ask people ‘where do you want it to go?’ – that’s how you form an execution strategy,” she advised entrepreneurs at the Chicago gathering.

She also offered a morale boost for budding entrepreneurs.

“Unwavering self-belief is everything. Everyone’s going to tell you why you can’t do it, and you have to know in your bones that you can do it … and take disappointments with as much grace as you can,” said the actress, whose late father, film director Bruce Paltrow, was Jewish.

Paltrow’s co-panelist, Deschanel of television’s New Girl, is founder of the website Hello Giggles, an online magazine for young women launched five years ago and acquired by Time Inc. in 2015. She has also invested in a hydroponics company that grows sustainable and eco-friendly organic food.

“Trust your gut and be yourself – and watch your bottom line. Customers will thank you for that,” said Deschanel, who converted to Judaism last November.

Chiming in about knowing one’s limits – and about social media engagement – was Kutcher, who has invested in high-tech ventures including Skype, FourSquare and Airbnb.

“I learned by sitting in the rooms being the dumbest person in there and asking a lot of questions,” he said.

Kutcher last year married Jewish actress Mila Kunis. He has been a student of kabbalah and has visited Israel several times.

“I was aggressively into social media early on,” he said at the summit. “From a business perspective, I think it’s valuable from a customer service, customer relations perspective. Building a social media environment for their feedback in a dramatic and visible way creates transparency and delivers a high-quality product and service. From a marketing perspective, if used right, it can be beneficial.”

But, he noted, there’s a critical caveat regarding marketers.

photo - Aston Kutcher with Yancey Strickler of Kickstarter
Aston Kutcher with Yancey Strickler of Kickstarter (photo by Dave Gordon)

“They come up with these elaborate social media marketing plans, which inevitably fail along the way,” he said, “because marketers tend to forget it’s a conversation, and they don’t account for feedback.”

Kutcher cautioned against having fingers in several social media platforms, noting it’s more about quality than quantity.

“I feel a lot of people aggressively chase the latest in social media marketing and waste a lot of time in it. It’s this sort of race to be on the cutting edge, but, in another sense, it’s time on inefficient platforms. It’s like in acting – the fans don’t go to the actor, the actor should go to where the fans are.”

Twitter, Instagram and Facebook already have “huge swaths of people and have really great tools for targeting,” he added.

Co-panelist Yancey Strickler, one of the three founders of Kickstarter, which he described as “the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects,” has also been the crowdfunding site’s CEO for the past three years.

Despite Kickstarter’s online base, Strickler had his own warning about social media.

“I think social media is bad for our brains, and it’s hard to have introspection on these platforms.… I wouldn’t doubt, in 20 years, if they found what social media does to our brains is what smoking does to our lungs.”

“I’m worried about my brain now,” Kutcher retorted.

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than a hundred publications around the world. He is the managing editor of landmarkreport.com.

Helping businesses expand

In August, the Jewish Independent connected with Gary Brownstone about a Winnipeg tech incubator he was working on called Eureka. In the short time since then, the entrepreneur has already moved on to his next adventure.

photo - Gary Brownstone
Gary Brownstone (photo from Gary Brownstone)

“Most of my career has been characterized by taking on multiyear projects,” said Brownstone. “In many cases, I’d be involved with or invest in small companies needing help growing to the next level. I’d grow them to the next level and then I would exit. But, generally, the projects I get involved in have a Point A and a Point B, and my mission is to take them from A to B.

“When I went to the Eureka Project, which was an incubator in Winnipeg that a group of individuals together with government and the U of M [University of Manitoba] had tried to launch, for all intents and purposes, [it] had failed. They hadn’t achieved what they’d set out to.”

Brownstone was brought onto the Eureka team to try to save it. They needed answers to three questions. Was there enough world-class talent in Winnipeg to make a venture like this worthwhile? Could the incubator help advance their causes and spin off commercial enterprises? And could Brownstone help make the operation sustainable?

“A big challenge with incubation is that early- stage companies can’t always afford to pay market rates for help, but governments don’t want to pick up the costs forever,” said Brownstone. “When I got to the project, the Manitoba government was covering about 90% of the operating budget.

“The first two [questions] we solved in a relatively short period of time. But, the sustainability issue was longer and … this year, we saw a third of those solved with the signing of a multiyear funding agreement with the province – with them only needing to cover about 30% of our operating budget.”

Seeing that a service like the one he was providing in Manitoba was needed everywhere in Canada, Brownstone move on to create a small practice under the name of LucraTech. He soon had several clients across Canada, the largest one situated in Vancouver, where he now spends about 60% of his time. The other clients are located in Manitoba, Ontario and Nova Scotia.

“I’ve got some associates that I bring into jobs as needed,” said Brownstone. “We are building up our business across Canada and have been for about six months now with some pretty decent success.”

The Vancouver-based company with which Brownstone is working is Canada’s largest technology incubation platform, Istuary Innovation Group. “This is a group of Chinese Canadians who see an opportunity to invest in or acquire Canadian technology for which there could be a market in China,” said Brownstone. “Their expertise is taking Canadian-developed world-class technology into China, where there’s a big market and hunger for this technology … so, these guys are trying to bridge the gap.

“Let’s say that you are an engineer and you have some unique approach to internet security, and they know that, today, in China, on an industrial level, there’s a huge demand for internet security. If they feel that your technology is suitable for that market, they will offer to do a deal with you, and they are very flexible about how they do that. They may offer you employment in one of their innovation labs or, if you had an existing company and were looking for investors, they would invest in you and help you access that market, or they could represent you on an agency basis.”

According to Brownstone, any Canadian technology looking for a home in the Chinese market can likely be aided by Istuary. He believes that Canada is in a unique position and has an advantage over other countries, due to the quality of its schools for engineering, computer programming and related fields, like clean technology and light sciences.

“There is also very strong R&D support in Canada, both federally and provincially,” said Brownstone. “The government will often match every dollar I invest. There is also a very strong tax-credit program, [and] rebates offered will sometimes offset the big costs of R&D.” As well, he added, Canada is an attractive place for developing technology at the moment with the low Canadian dollar compared to that of the United States.

LucraTech aims to take on a series of projects with each client and create a support team to work with that client, beginning by identifying a starting point and an end point.

“Typically, the companies we start working with are small,” said Brownstone. “They have some customers, they have some revenue, but they are trying to grow to the next level. Maybe you have a company that is doing $300,000 a year in revenue and you want to grow that to $3 million in the next couple of years. We create a road map and a plan that will get you from $300,000 to $3 million, and work with you to achieve that.

“By the time you are at $3 million, you’re probably at a size where you can get and manage the support talent in-house and you can now afford more full-time employees, so maybe we aren’t needed anymore at that level of expertise.”

LucraTech offers other services, as well, such as turnaround, wherein they take on medium-sized companies that, for one reason or another, have encountered some trouble and need help. In this scenario, LucraTech goes in and tries to fix the problem and make the company healthy again. Their typical timeline with clients can be anywhere from one to four years.

“If we believe in a company and the entrepreneur and we can add value to the whole equation, we are very flexible on how we work with companies and usually give them two or three choices. We know we will only get paid if the project goes ahead,” said Brownstone.

“Sometimes, we work just for success fees, where we set out to raise money for a company … sort of a finder’s fee. If we are successful, we get paid. If not, we don’t. Sometimes, we will work for a piece of the business or a small number of shares in the business. We’re really flexible. Once we believe in the concept and the entrepreneur, we will find a way to make it work, whether they have a lot or a little money.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Funding for entrepreneurs

Digital Shmita is one of four projects that received 2015 Natan Grants for ROI Entrepreneurs.

A digital Shmita project, Israel’s version of the radio show This American Life, a global initiative promoting tourism to Jewish communities and a foundation supporting Israel Defence Forces soldiers who served in the Yahalom unit were all awarded 2015 Natan Grants for ROI Entrepreneurs.

In late January, the Natan Fund, a giving circle for young professionals, issued its third annual round of dedicated grants for ROI Entrepreneurs, totaling $40,000, to four ROI (“return on investment”) Community members from the United States, Israel and Latin America. These grants will kickstart projects that invite young Jews and the broader community to explore and experience diverse and creative ways of bringing Jewish values and culture into their lives.

The partnership between Natan and ROI Community was formed to connect Natan Fund’s young philanthropists with ROI members who have developed cutting-edge projects to deepen global Jewish engagement. The recipients of the 2015 Natan Grants for ROI Entrepreneurs are:

Digital Shmita (Israel): Digital Shmita is taking the idea of Shmita (Fallow) to the internet. Digital Shmita works in collaboration with Labshul’s FallowLab and the Print Screen Festival for digital culture in Israel. Its ultimate goal is to produce free solutions that will allow everyone to experience Shmita in their daily connected lives. fallowlab.com/digitalshmita.

Israel Story/Sippur Israeli (United States and Israel): Israel Story is a new radio program dedicated to telling the story of a different, diverse Israel. Modeled after National Public Radio’s This American Life, this show seeks to portray the intricacies of Israeli society and showcase its plurality. It seeks to amplify and humanize voices that are rarely heard on the airwaves; to tell long-form, non-fiction tales by, and about, regular Israelis. israelstory.org.

Judaic Tourism (Latin America): Judaic Tourism is a project that works to strengthen Jewish identity through the preservation and enhancement of Jewish heritage. It connects people with history, culture and Jewish life in cities around the world, promoting tourism to Jewish sites and communities and connecting visitors to local Jewish culture. turismojudaico.com.

Yahalom Foundation (Israel): The Yahalom Foundation will be the first nonprofit organization benefiting current and former soldiers of Yahalom, a special forces combat engineering unit in the IDF. The foundation is dedicated to supporting Yahalom commandos during their active-duty service and afterwards, during their reserve duty. amplifiergiving.org/organization/131/yahalom-foundation.

The work of these ROI activists and entrepreneurs dovetails with the Natan Fund’s mission (natan.org) to provide early-stage funding for creative approaches that seek to address some of the central challenges facing the Jewish people and Israel. Among Natan’s goals is to create new access points to Jewish life, especially for younger Jews who are less engaged with existing communal organizations. Its members pool their charitable contributions, set the philanthropic strategy and agenda for the foundation, and allocate funds to organizations that are building new visions for the Jewish people and the state of Israel.

Founded in 2006, ROI Community (roicommunity.org) is part of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, a global organization that encourages young people to create positive change for themselves, the Jewish community and the broader world. ROI Community members channel a diversity of perspectives, skills and interests toward a shared passion for advancing ideas and partnerships that will strengthen Jewish communities and improve society.