eretz

COURTESY/AVISHAI FINKELSTIEN

Entrepreneurial

Spirit

Birthright
Excel
Ventures
program
teams
young
Israelis and
Americans.

ANNA KURITZKES
TIMES OF ISRAEL

ABOVE:This year’s
cohort of Birthright
Israel Excel Ventures
entrepreneurs.

A

Birthright Israel program
brought together Israeli
and American entrepre-
neurs — graduates of elite units
of the Israeli Army and leading
North American universities — for
10 weeks this summer to come up
with ideas for joint projects and
startups.
These initiatives ranged from
creating an app for increased
safety at construction sites to
monitoring employee engagement.
The six teams, part of the new
Birthright Israel’s Excel Ventures
program, spent time working,
brainstorming, hanging out with
local entrepreneurs and soaking in
the startup scene in Tel Aviv.
Last week, they presented
pitches for their products to CEOs,
mentors and leading members of
Israel’s tech community in a clos-
ing ceremony for the program.
Bringing Americans and Israelis
together “makes the most sense in
the world,” said Adam Lazovsky,
co-manager of the Ventures pro-
gram. “The Americans bring in
the business savvy, marketing and
sales skills, maybe finance a little
bit, and the Israelis bring the tech-
nology side and the chutzpah.”
Lazovsky came up with the idea
for adding an entrepreneurial
component to Birthright Excel,
which pairs its 30-40 participants
with internships in Israeli busi-
nesses, in 2015. One team tackled
the problem of employee turnover
by creating a platform to moni-
tor employee engagement, while

another tried to increase safety
and productivity on large con-
struction sites by devising a track-
ing system for workers.
The teams’ presentations illus-
trated the technology they devel-
oped and set out polished business
models that demonstrated their
potential market success and
described how the company would
make money with their develop-
ment. Different skill sets make for
good stuff.
This creates “a very big gap”
for young entrepreneurs who are
just getting started in the mar-
ket, as well as an opportunity for
Ventures.
“I thought — this is a market
failure where we can provide
value,” Lazovsky said.
Ventures began last year as an
entrepreneurial track within the
Birthright Excel program. Instead
of working at a structured intern-
ship, participants on Ventures
work in teams to build their own
products.
Entrepreneurs on Ventures were
given both an educational program
and the support of Israeli mentors
along the way, including Waze
founder Uri Levine and Adi Soffer-
Teen, CEO of Facebook Israel.
Each team also worked six times
this summer with individual men-
tors through a matchmaking pro-
cess, Lazovsky said. The 10-week
program started with setting up
the teams, creating the idea and
outlining the end customers. The
teams then built models of their

products and finally did a little bit
of marketing and fundraising.

WORKING SMART, WORKING FAST

Not every team stuck to this
model, however. The ideation
stage often lasted longer than
intended, with some teams begin-
ning with one idea and then com-
pletely scrapping it to work on
something new. Tori Seidenstein,
21, Or Cherfas, 24, and Darren
Jacoby, 22, created their app only
in the last five days of their pro-
gram.
They set up Sapiyen, a plug-
in that saves news articles from
social media websites for its users,
adds them to a read-later list, and
then reminds users about the arti-
cles when they are procrastinating
by browsing Facebook or YouTube.
The app aims to prevent its users
from missing out on a news piece
because they didn’t have time to
read it before. It also allows read-
ers to set reading goals and track
their progress.
In their presentation, the
Sapiyen team outlined the roller-
coaster process they had that sum-
mer, which included scrapping two
ideas. After hitting their “lowest
point,” when they sat in their office
with no product and only five days
left, they rallied and decided they
wouldn’t give up. So, they spent
the final five days building Sapiyen
from scratch.
Jacoby said at this point he
saw the value of working with his
Israeli partner, Cherfas.

2017 Jewish

“Americans can’t lock in and
build from nothing,” Jacoby said.
But Cherfas, an Israeli who previ-
ously served in the IDF’s elite 8200
signal intelligence unit, coded the
entire platform for Sapiyen in only
120 hours.
“The military develops differ-
ent attributes than you get from
school,” said Cherfas. While he
brought the coding expertise to
the table, his American partners
were more business savvy. “In
general, the business mindset
is American. Everything [ for
Americans is] about how you can
connect it to business and not the
product,” he said. Despite their
initial struggle, by the end of the
program, Sapiyen was downloaded
more than 100 times from the
Chrome store, Jacoby said.
Lazovsky said he pitched the
idea for Ventures to Mark Gidi,
international CEO of Birthright
Israel, two years ago, because he
envisioned the meeting of the
mindsets between Americans and
Israelis would lead to entrepre-
neurial success. The expansion
into entrepreneurship was fitting
for Birthright, Gidi said.
Although Excel Ventures is just
the beginning for these young
entrepreneurs, two teams from last
year’s program have already turned
their products into running busi-
nesses, said Noa Meir, executive
director of Birthright Israel Excel.
The Sapiyen team hopes to con-
tinue working on their project in
the future, they said. •

A rt Festival

Jewish Artists Wanted

The Toledo Jewish Arts Festival is looking for Jewish Artists to
participate in our 2 nd Jewish Arts Festival
Sunday, October 8 | 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. | Toledo, Ohio
$25 Entry Fee – includes table, table cloth, 2 chairs,
lunch and more.
Contact Hallie Freed at
Jewish Federation
419-724-0362 or
& Foundation
hallie@jewishtoledo.org

jn

August 10 • 2017

37