15 Israelis Making a Mark on Silicon Valley’s Tech Scene
15 Israelis Making a Mark on Silicon Valley’s Tech Scene.
Silicon Valley may have competition from Tel Aviv and New York today in terms of where a blue-and-white startup should base itself, but that hasn’t stopped the Israeli entrepreneurial community in California from growing.
“Now it’s easier to make it elsewhere but if you want to be where it’s at, that’s still Silicon Valley,” Moshik Raccah, cofounder of IEFF (Israeli Executives and Founders Forum), tells ISRAEL21c.
“This is where the future is happening.
This is where all the big technology companies are, this is where your partners are and this is where the best talent in the world is.
Like New York for the money people and Hollywood for the movie industry, this is Ground Zero for tech.” Israel’s Consul General to the Pacific Northwest Andy David recently estimated that there are 10,000 to 15,000 Israelis working in Silicon Valley today.
ISRAEL21c is itself a product of Silicon Valley, founded in 2001 by Israeli-American entrepreneur Zvi Alon (founder of the California Israel Chamber of Commerce, NetManage, Netvision and other startups) and later joined by Eric Benhamou (3Com, Palm, Benhamou Global Ventures) to highlight Israel’s creativity and innovation at a time when no other website was focusing on broadening public understanding of Israel beyond typical portrayals in the mainstream media.
They are starting wonderful companies in Silicon Valley and they’re collecting talent around them which is not just Israeli,” says Raccah, who relocated from Israel in 2001 while working for Amdocs.
The two share a sense of responsibility for grooming the next generation of Israelis in Silicon Valley.
Zeev, founder of Zeev Ventures, was an early investor in Chegg, Houzz, Audible, Tipalti and others, and sits on numerous boards of directors.
CSI globalVCard Incubator Calls For More B2B Payments Innovation
CSI globalVCard Incubator Calls For More B2B Payments Innovation.
CSI Kick Start, a FinTech incubator operated by corporate payments company CSI globalVCard, said it has officially kicked off its second year of searching out B2B payments innovators.
The company said Thursday (Jan. 12) that the application process for its incubator is now open, with CSI Kick Start looking for companies innovating in the areas of virtual cards, ACH, foreign exchange and other B2B payments issues, like fraud and digitization.
It marks the incubator’s quest for a second round of startups to support; its first round included Yoke Payments, which won the PYMNTS.com Best POS Innovation award last year, as well as Spend Secure LLC, which offers mobile payments, accounts payable and travel expense management solutions.
“We are extremely proud of these young entrepreneurs and their business growth,” said CSI Kick Start CEO and President Keith Stone in a statement.
“Much of this success can be attributed to their passion, dedication and willingness to learn from our experiences and the advice we share.
We genuinely care about their long-term success, which is what really sets our investment model apart from most other venture capital funding models.” CSI Kick Start offers a mentorship program, as well as an investment round starting at $500,000, to startups accepted into the incubator.
Last year CSI globalVCard announced plans to expand its global partnership initiative and ramp up its staff count as it plans to strengthen its focus on corporate FX and other B2B payments needs.
The firm also introduced new cross-border corporate payment solutions in 2016, with capabilities to transact in more than 140 currencies.
BSE’s Rs. 1,500-cr initial public offering to open on Jan 23
BSE’s Rs.
1,500-cr initial public offering to open on Jan 23.
Shares likely to be listed on NSE on or after Feb 3 New Delhi, Jan 13: BSE, which is Asia’s oldest bourse, will launch its nearly Rs.
1,500-crore initial public offering (IPO) on January 23.
The IPO will close on January 25, according to the red herring prospectus filed with SEBI.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India had last month given its final nod for BSE to launch its IPO.
BSE is expected to list its shares on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in the first week of February.
The BSE public issue involves sale of 1.54 crore shares by the existing shareholders through the offer for sale (OFS) route.
As on date, Multi Commodity Exchange of India is the only listed stock exchange in the country.
Comcast Is America’s Most Hated Company
Comcast Is America’s Most Hated Company.
In business, perception is everything: A single bad experience can burn a brand name and ruin a company’s reputation.
So it’s no surprise that well-known tech companies including Comcast, Facebook, Dish, Sprint and Charter Communications landed on a list of America’s most hated businesses.
But it seems service providers can’t catch a break: Dish Network came in at No.
8 with one of the lowest employee satisfaction ratings of any major company reviewed on Glassdoor.
Sprint customers report the lowest customer satisfaction of any wireless telephone enterprise. “Sprint is in the midst of a multi-year turnaround and in the past 12 months we’ve made substantial improvement in important metrics including customer and employee satisfaction levels,” a company spokeswoman told PCMag. “We know we have more work to do, but with an internal motto of ‘Getting Better Every Day,’ we will continue enhance our experience for our customers and our employees.”
Fresh off its Time Warner Cable acquisition, Charter Communications, meanwhile, has one of the poorest reputations for customer service in the subscription TV industry, 24/7 Wall St. said.
6, thanks to recent criticism over its privacy policies and mass user data collection, not to mention the spread of fake news leading up to the U.S. presidential election.
Facebook to Team With News Orgs on Story ‘Packages’
Facebook to Team With News Orgs on Story ‘Packages’.
Facebook on Wednesday launched a new program aimed at establishing stronger ties with the media.
Though Facebook has worked with members of the media in the past, the social network plans to ramp up that collaboration by involving news partners in its product development process from the start.
The company said it wants to work with media to tweak its current formats, like Live and Instant Articles, and build new ones “to better suit their needs.”
One idea it’s working on: Giving editors the ability to present “packages of stories” on the platform. “We’re going to start testing this using Instant Articles, so that readers can start to see multiple stories at a time from their favorite news organizations,” Simo wrote.
In the future, it may also be easier to get local news on Facebook.
These new efforts come as many media organizations feel an increasing reliance on Facebook.
As of May 2016, 62 percent of U.S. adults said they get news from social media sources, according to Pew Research.
The company is now working with third-party fact-checking organizations to flag fake news, which might in turn show up lower in people’s feeds and with a warning.
Need Inspiration? This Crazy Billiards-Golf Trick Will Remind You Anything Is Possible.
Need Inspiration?
This Crazy Billiards-Golf Trick Will Remind You Anything Is Possible.. Lucky shot?
Not exactly — but it is pretty genius.
It took 11 hours of labor for Allstar Sports Bar in Bristol, England, to set up an elaborate trick golf-slash-billiards shot.
The configuration resembles a Rube Goldberg course composed of pool tables, pool balls, some artificial green and one golf ball.
It takes two minutes for the golf ball to travel down some stairs and through multiple rooms across a series of pool tables.
General manager Shane O’Hara and bar assistant Tom Woolman were the brains behind the seemingly impossible shot.
After spending some time and effort building the 500-foot maze, they successfully scored a hole-in-one — and a video gone viral.
Watch this crazy trick shot and get inspired to achieve the impossible.
London set for biggest IPO in six years as warehouse giant plots 2017 float
London set for biggest IPO in six years as warehouse giant plots 2017 float.
Private equity giant Blackstone is aiming to list warehouse business Logicor, which is valued at around €13bn (£11bn), on the London Stock Exchange in 2017.
Sources told City A.M. the initial public offering (IPO) could come in the first six months of the year.
Banking heavyweight Goldman Sachs and real estate specialist Eastdil Securities are advising Blackstone on the blockbuster float, with other London banks competing for involvement.
Senior bankers and lawyers, who asked not to be named, told City A.M. they are quietly confident about the IPO market this year after a tough end to 2016.
Tech giant Misys, Pure Gym and TI Fluid Systems were among the companies to ditch their plans last year after formally announcing intentions to float.
Compare The Market owner BGL Group and O2 are among the companies advancing with flotation plans.
“There’s still the uncertainty around that we had towards the end of last year after the referendum,” Lucy Tarleton, PwC’s director of capital markets in the UK, told City A.M. “However, despite all the risk and uncertainty, the IPO pipeline here in London looks relatively healthy.” Nicholas Hyett, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, is also hopeful of an IPO recovery following 2016, “the most disappointing year we’ve had in terms of public offerings in a long time”.
That helps.
The other thing is that the UK economy hasn’t fallen off a cliff as people predicted it would.”
The 4 Costliest Mistakes Businesses Make on Social Media
The 4 Costliest Mistakes Businesses Make on Social Media.
Every couple of weeks, you’ll see a story in the news about a company that made a social media faux pas, later deleted the post or tweet, and is now making an apology to save face and restore public relations.
If you want to be successful with social media, you must narrow your focus, and make sure you’re reaching the right people.
Every successful social media strategy starts with a detailed understanding of who your target audience is.
Paying for likes and followers.
It’s at this point that some companies make the mistake of paying for followers.
Think of these social media accounts as robots doing the same thing for everybody.” The danger of buying likes and followers is that you’re now speaking to an audience that’s either totally fake or entirely irrelevant.
Make social media an asset.
Unfortunately, many businesses launch social strategies without a proficient understanding of what successful social media marketing looks like.
This often leads to costly mistakes that can damage your brand’s reputation for years to come.
How Your Public Relations Effort Should Look Like a Military Assault
How To Get Rid of Your Alarm and Still Wake Up on Time
How To Get Rid of Your Alarm and Still Wake Up on Time.
I started tracking my sleep and movement a few years ago and at the time realized that 7 hours and 45 minutes of sleep had me at the perfect amount of exercise for the day, but anything past 8 and a half hours and I would keep wanting to sleep.
The the amount of sleep you get feel like enough?
When I first started doing this, I quickly realized that I needed around 8 hours to wake up and really feel like I could start my day.
Step 2: Waking up is really about going to sleep What time do you usually wake up?
So, about 30 minutes before I’m heading to bed, I make sure to turn off electronics and start winding down.
Step 3: Listening to your body and keeping consistent I’ve learned to trust my body when I wake up.
Not to pay attention to the time and decide if it’s too early to be awake, but to ask myself how I feel when I first wake up to make sure I got enough sleep.
I would then set my alarm to 7:30 a.m. (depending on the day) but found more regularly I would wake up right around 6:30 a.m.
I’ve read in a few places that it’s healthy to get the same amount of sleep every night, and keep a consistent pattern.
Promote Diversity Of Thought
Promote Diversity Of Thought.
Esquify is a productivity application in the legal space that helps document reviewing attorneys do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.
Drew Stern, Co-CEO of Esquify, shares a tip on starting a business — it is all about connecting, engaging and selling.
He goes on to say that not all employees should think the same way, so he emphasizes promoting the diversity of thought in the workplace, and reward it.
His advice on being successful is lay the groundwork for your business right away, but more than that, be patient.
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Common Sense Is Key If You Want to Be a Business Innovator
I’ll let you in on a little secret that might help: Every one of these 15 things is drawn from and connected to the six innovation mentality characteristics, like the following, for example: Measure and reward performance: See opportunity in everything (characteristic #1).
How can each characteristic propel innovation and initiative in your business?
How do others experience each characteristic in your leadership in the workplace?
Consumers want brands to be deliberate with their identity — straightforward while at the same time forward thinking.
They force CMOs to be accountable to their needs and take responsibility to keep the momentum of the relationships moving forward.
Which pretty much sums up the feedback I got from CMOs and marketers to that list: CMOs are “naive to other avenues of marketing” for ROI; “most brands are not structured to handle these!”; or “CMOs are only familiar with strategies they have used in the past.” Responses like those are why I anchor change of this scale to something simple: the six characteristics.
For example, look again at that list of 15 things leaders must do automatically, every day, to be successful in the workplace.
The important point is that leaders and businesses must understand the need for balanced proficiency.
Over time, leaders must master the fundamentals of the six characteristics so they can understand, propel and implement the innovation mentality throughout their companies and the people who work there — to instinctively apply them, moving in and out of each characteristic to achieve mastery of them.
It doesn’t do any good if you have a leadership team of, say, seven people in the C-suite, but only one is thinking with the innovation mentality and the rest have mastered only some of the skills and characteristics.
These Are the Oldest Businesses in Every State
These Are the Oldest Businesses in Every State.
A number of businesses have been around since before our nation was even established.
These companies have consistently offered their products and services for centuries.
In some cases, they’ve become the backbone of their communities.
One can’t help but wonder what’s kept these companies afloat for hundreds of years.
Most have had to adapt and find their niche.
For others, it’s their reputation that sustains them.
Peacock Jewelry in Chicago, which opened in 1837 — the same year Chicago officially became a city — is Illinois’s oldest existing business and has a history of selling to the rich and famous.
From local restaurants to statewide manufacturing businesses, these long-standing companies vary by size and industry.
To find out the oldest business in your state, check out Busy Beaver’s infographic below.
3 Lessons Coach K Can Teach You About Building Your Team
3 Lessons Coach K Can Teach You About Building Your Team.
In our regular meetings, I find myself feverishly jotting down notes as he talks about his teams — both Duke and USA Basketball — and how he’s approached different situations as a coach.
A true leader moves beyond “my idea” to “our idea.” One of the words Coach K uses commonly with his teams is “ownership.” Recently, he shared an example of how he created this atmosphere with the USA Basketball team.
You can’t assume culture.
Coach K likens this to “renewing your vows.” In the Olympics, the USA Basketball team faced a one-and-done elimination format, something these NBA players weren’t used to.
While those are good reminders, they are not enough for your team to build that emotional connection to the culture that’s needed.
Culture is not a static thing — it needs to be nurtured to grow with your business.
As a result, there was not a uniform set of standards across the organization, which led to breakdowns in the process.
By bringing his staff and coaches together, Coach K helped them set clear organizational standards, which each person then felt responsible for upholding.
That’s what Coach K would do; you should, too.
15 Marketing Tools To Check Out in 2017
Here are 15 of the top tools every marketer should consider using to make this year’s campaigns a success.
Select from templates using a drag-and-drop builder and integrate your landing pages with existing software.
AgoraPulse AgoraPulse is a social media dashboard that includes offers scheduling for posts, multi-site management and built-in analytics.
AgoraPulse integrates with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Todoist helps you keep up with the many tasks on your to-do list every day.
Nuzzel As you’re pitching ideas to blog hosts, you’ll likely find it important to keep up with what people are currently talking about.
Keyhole Brands use hashtags in their marketing with little insight into how to make them work.
Bananatag Monitoring your email marketing efforts is as important as watching your website and social media platforms.
A/B testing is an important part of marketing.
Choose from 30 different templates and customize to meet your needs.
Pre-IPO Insider: Your Last Chance At A Social Media Startup
When the company went public just eight years later, Thiel’s investment was worth $1.67 billion.
Shares of Facebook have done well over the last several years… but nothing close to 175% a year.
There is still one social media giant that has yet to go public.
This Could Be Your Last Chance At A Social Media Startup Pinterest is the sixth-largest U.S. social media site by users.
The four largest social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, booked an average of just 15% user growth in 2015.
Andreessen’s venture capital firm has guided some of the biggest startups in the space including Facebook, Groupon and Twitter — and as a pre-IPO investor, that’s the kind of expertise you want on your side.
In the world of pre-IPO companies, Pinterest is very “late-stage.”
Based on my exclusive analysis at the time, which still holds, I estimated that an investment in the company could yield an annualized return of 38% over the next three years.
And you may still have time to invest because crowd-funding platform Microventures is raising money for a secondary offer in the company.
While the Pinterest deal is only open to accredited investors, I highlight opportunities every month in Pre-IPO Millionaire that are open to all investors, and for as little as a $100 minimum investment.
What You Need to Know About Preventing Burnout
What You Need to Know About Preventing Burnout.
If you constantly work without breaks, you’ll eventually burn out.
Being exhausted doesn’t just affect your productivity, but your emotional well-being and physical health too.
But if you’re a business owner, a recent survey found that it can also affect how frequently you have to bring in new hires.
So what can companies do to mitigate this?
The study identified the three top factors that can cause burnout in employees: unfair pay, an unreasonable workload and too many late nights.
Additionally, 29 percent of HR managers also cited the lack of a concrete connection between employees’ jobs and companies’ broader goals, and 26 percent said that a negative company culture could also play a role.
The study found that having the right tools to do the work you need to do is also a central part of avoiding burnout.
“The biggest priority, and concern, for business leaders in 2017 will be retaining employees in an even more competitive talent marketplace,” said Dan Schwabel, a partner and research director at Future Workplace, in a press release about the study.
“As the economy continues to improve, and employees have more job options, companies will have to provide more compensation, expand benefits and improve their employee experience.
The Surprising Reason Why This Founder Says Not to Be Afraid of the Competition
Editor’s Note: Entrepreneur’s “20 Questions” series features both established and up-and-coming entrepreneurs and asks them a number of questions about what makes them tick, their everyday success strategies and advice for aspiring founders.
They launched Boxed, a company that is dedicated to shipping bulk groceries and home products to customer’s doors at competitive prices.
That changing of the formula allows us to come in and take advantage of that.” Related: First, It Was College Tuition for His Employees’ Kids.
It kind of changed the way I thought about people who do things that change the arc of history.
When I read the book and how they did what they did, most of these people were random people who had to step up and make a strategy to make it happen.
My chief of staff writes me an email at the end of every day, and makes a list of the decisions that I need to make that people are counting on.
My mom started off as a cashier at a fast-food restaurant and ended up being an EVP of a decent sized company.
My life at Boxed started there — the CEO was packing boxes at the start, too.
I can use that time to think about how to make things better for the company, instead of focusing on email.
I have to learn something new every day.