Leaders of Tomorrow: Hillel Fuld, Startup Advisor
Welcome to my “Leaders of Tomorrow” Interview Series, where I interview those who have made, and are making an impact on the world of tech as we know it. I ask them to share their stories and explain what it took for them to get to where they are today. My hopes are that this can inspire and educate aspiring entrepreneurs in their journey.
This interview is with Hillel Fuld, Tech Columnist, and Startup Advisor.
About Hillel Fuld:
Fuld has been recognized as one of the most influential people in the Israeli tech industry, and has been ranked in the top ten of global technology bloggers. He was named “The man transforming Startup Nation to Scale up Nation” by Forbes.
For someone who may not know who you are and what you do, can you give a quick overview?
So I live in Israel. I've been in Israel for 28 years. I'm originally from New York, and from a very young age, I had a very deep passion for technology. I'm talking about, before it was cool to have a passion for technology. And basically I came here when I was 15. I went through the schooling system and went to the military in Israel. And then I studied political science, which obviously had no connection to my love for technology. And I found myself at my first job as a technical writer writing user guides for a big tech company, which was, as you can imagine, a very unoptimized career choice for someone with ADHD like myself and super bored at my first job. And I literally was like, I have thoughts on tech. I'm going to write them down. And I just opened a web browser and I started to write. And there was no business model. I didn't care who was reading it. It wasn't for anyone else, it was for me. But pretty quickly, entrepreneurs started to reach out to me and wanted to meet. I'd meet with them. I try to help with whatever it may be, telling their story a little better, their pitch, connections to people in my network. And then one thing led to another, and then I basically built a career out of that company, coming back to me and saying, let's work together. So that's what I do. I work with tech companies to help them grow.
Is there a time where you felt like your career was not panning out and what did you do to overcome that struggle?
So what is interesting about this is that none of this was a strategic decision that I made, thinking that if I continue to write, I'll be a strategic startup advisor. These things didn't exist when I started writing. There was no iPhone. There was nothing. So none of this was a plan. I said I'm doing this because I love tech and I love writing and because the only thing that was driving me was passion. That's why this thing succeeded…
How do you balance family, religion, work, and keeping a healthy mental state? Are there any tips you would give someone who, as an entrepreneur, finds it very difficult?
So for starters, there's no magic answer here. There's no like, oh, if you do this and you'll have enough time in the day, that's obviously not the case. All I can say is that I've set up a lot of shortcuts (for lack of a better term), that help me optimize my time. And what I do is I find shortcuts where shortcuts are relevant and applicable and I don't find shortcuts where they're not….it's all a question of prioritization. I'm home every day with my kids at 05:00. I drive my kids to school every morning. You know, what, if I have to miss a meeting, so be it. And the same applies to religion. Google once asked me to join the summit in Silicon Valley, and it was on Shabbat. It was an amazing opportunity. And I was like, Listen, I can't do it. It is Shabbat. It is just a question of prioritizing. What's important, what's not important? And once you have that clear hierarchy of what's important in your life, I think things become a lot easier. And yeah, you are willing to compromise things that are less important because they're less important. And this has manifested in a thousand different ways in my career where I have to make a choice. Every single night I'm invited to another tech event, another demo day, and I'm like, Dude, I'm not going to events at night. Like, rarely do I go to events at night. And if I do, I bring my wife with me. I rarely go because to me, night is family time. So prioritization to answer your question in one word, prioritization.
Being based in Israel and being prominent in the tech/startup scene, what are your thoughts on its future? Are there any insights that you have? And have you seen a difference working with both US or Israeli companies?
I came from New York when I was 15. I didn't do this there, but I now work with companies both in Israel and in the States, so I definitely have a global perspective. There are some cultural differences like, for example, how entrepreneurs relate to failure. In Israel, failure is not only acceptable, it's celebrated. When you fail, when your startup fails, the biggest advantage is that you learn from the mistakes that you made. And so it's no longer a failure because you're learning lessons that you're then implementing in your next round. And so I think that that's very Israeli just kind of celebrating failure. But yeah, listen, in general, in terms of the startup scene in Israel, the market is definitely not sympathetic right now. And many companies are laying off employees and struggling and doing down rounds. It's not pretty, but I wrote a post about this recently. I'm not worried. I'm not worried about the long term. I think, yes, I think markets correcting itself, which was necessary. It was clear it was going to happen. It was inevitable because you have companies valued at billions of dollars before they have a product. So that's clearly not normal. And so the market is correcting itself, and that's fine. But I'm not worried about it long term because you see some companies and I can name examples, but you see some companies that their stock is crashing and burning like plummeting beyond anything. And you look at the company and they have unbelievable technology, unbelievable business traction, with billions of dollars of deals in the pipeline, they'll be fine. So, long story short, to answer your question, right now the market is struggling, startups are struggling, tech companies are struggling, but I believe we're going to bounce back. And as far as Israel, we're in a good position because traditionally over the last ten years valuations in Silicon Valley were ballooning up like crazy. And Israel was always conservative, which was a very, I would say, frustrating aspect of building companies in Israel because every entrepreneur knows that their $50 million company if they get on a flight to SF (San Francisco), all of a sudden that same company is worth $500 million. And so it's very frustrating. But now that the market is correcting itself, Israel is like, okay, well, we're barely suffering because we were conservative in the first place. So in an ironic kind of way, we're in a better position than Silicon Valley when it comes to the market correcting itself.
As we both know, the market right now is a bit tough, for a company to raise initial, pre-seed funding, what tips would you give an entrepreneur?
For starters, we have to make a differentiation between seed and later stage. Any seed investor understands that there's no traction. That's why it's seed, right? So that's number one. Number two, I would say three things. I would tell an entrepreneur. Number one is do extremely comprehensive in depth research into who is a relevant investor for you. Now, that could mean they're an investor that invests at this stage, invests in your space, and they're not invested in a competitor. So make sure you build that list of relevant investors. That's number one. Number two, always understand and this is a general lesson for marketing, but you have to put yourself in the other side's shoes. So get into the mindset of an investor. An investor has one goal and one goal only, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. The only goal of any investors is to return their money to their investors, period. And they know that 95% of startups are going to fail. You have to convince that investor you're part of that 5%. That's your goal. And you do that by creating FOMO, by showing them that this is a deal, that is a home run. And why is it a home run? It could be a home run because the technology is unbelievable. It could be a home run because the team is unbelievable. It could be a home run because the previous investors are unbelievable. Something has to be unbelievable because nobody is taking out a check for just a mediocre team, mediocre product. They need something that's a home run. So that's number one. Number two, I think a lot of people, especially entrepreneurs, like to focus on a solution because they're building something that is their baby. Don't do that. Focus on the problem. Get the person you're sitting with. Identify the problem. Your solution is secondary, but first you have to get to identify this real pain point because solving something that doesn't exist, coming up with a solution to something that's not even a problem is just silly. That might sound funny to you, but trust me, I've met countless entrepreneurs that are building things that the world doesn't need. So figure out the problem. Focus on the problem. Get into the mindset of an investor, figure out your home run and make sure you come prepared to pitching investors and you're not pitching someone who is a late stage investor on your early stage startup.
What company/founder that you have worked with has most impressed you and why?
Do you want to get me in trouble? Yes. To name one. That's like asking which kid I love best. I work with a lot of companies.It would be hard for me to name one person. It's not someone I worked with, but I very much admire and look up to Michael Eisenberg, who's an investor in a VC called Aleph who was previously Benchmark Capital. The guy manages hundreds of millions of dollars, spends time with his eight kids, plays baseball, learns Torah with them, writes books on Torah. He's got it all figured out in terms of prioritization and balance, and he balances life in a way that I am extremely envious of. So I very much look up to him. I haven't worked with him in a formal capacity. He's an old friend, but he's someone that I definitely look up to.
Outside of work, are there any hobbies you've taken on?
So for me, my work is my love and my hobby and my passion. So I can't disconnect the two. Having said that, I love drones. I would test the drones. I love drones. So again, that's related to tech, but if you're telling me to choose something that's completely unrelated to my work, I would say Israel. Obviously, I'm super passionate about Israel, super passionate about Judaism, food, I am a foodie, those are some things. But for me, Judaism, again, I can't disconnect. I think that those that follow me know that every Friday I write a lesson on the weekly Torah portion for business. And I think there's so much to learn from Judaism. A lot of people ask me if my Judaism is an obstacle, that's where I am going to go or whatever. And not only is it not an obstacle, it's become part of my brand. People respect me for being religious, and I was in Silicon Valley, and a senior executive at Google ordered me kosher food from outside of Silicon Valley because he knows I'm strictly kosher. So it's become part of my brain that people respect you when you own it. And so those are some of my passions. I said also, obviously cars. I love cars. So we said food, cars, Israel, Judaism, and drones. Five things.
Last question, just because you mentioned food, what's your top three Kosher restaurants in Israel
The first one is a restaurant called Sphera. Sphera. And it's in Rehovot, which is like the most random place for you to find the restaurant, but it is by a huge margin the best kosher restaurant in Israel. It is phenomenal. So that's number one. And I guarantee you anybody who's reading this has never heard of Sphera. The second one is also a restaurant in a strange place outside of Ashdod. It's called Space, as in outer space, also beautiful, ambience. Food is great, service is good, like, it's a great place. And the third one is in Tel Aviv, in the Royal Beach Hotel. It's called West Side. Also remarkable. But the only reason I named those, because you said three, but if you ask for ten, I'll give you ten. If you ask for 20, I'll give you 20. Tonight I'm going to a place in Petah Tikvah again where you would not expect to find an amazing restaurant called Pit Master. It is an unbelievable culinary experience. They have screens all over the place and they show the chef preparing the food, and it's wild. So there are a lot of amazing cultural restaurants in Israel. It's endless. I think I have a list of about 40 of them, but those are my top three.