Bullets in the Laundry -- Should that be Normal? No.

This morning I found live bullets in the washing machine (which explained the banging noises I heard while the cycle was going). Suitable for a semi-automatic machine gun (M-16 to be exact) the bullets seemed to have enjoyed their time in the suds, came out looking quite clean and ready for “action.”

Why was I not so surprised? My oldest son, Adin, was home from the army this past Shabbat. That means laundry.  Theoretically there are washing machines on his base, but he wasn’t on his base, and anyway, he came straight home after spending  about ten days on the border with Gaza.

Now, I have been a parent for 22 years, and thus have been doing other people’s laundry for quite some time. But bullets? That’s a first.

My initial reaction was “wow, glad that all that shaking around didn’t cause the gunpowder to explode.” 

Second reaction: “hope the washing machine didn’t get damaged.”

Finally I realized I had just found machine gun bullets in the laundry. And that is not “normal.” Chewing gum – super annoying, but normal. Wrappers from various candies, ice creams, potato chips – have pulled all those things from the laundry.

Seashells, pebbles, sticks, leaves, yup all those too.

But bullets? Gevalt.

Israel has lived far too long with a level of “normal” that has hardened our senses. When I take a bus on a Sunday morning to Herzliya or Tel Aviv and I am surrounded by machine gun toting soldiers, I accept that as normal. When my kid’s youth group goes on a trip need to order a guard with a gun strapped to his wait to accompany us. OK, he also has first aid training but don’t think he is killing mosquitoes with a magnum .45.

I am not starting a discussion here on gun control laws – but there is nothing normal about a society where guns are so prevalent. Sure, statistically we have less civilian gun violence in Israel than in the US, but that’s not saying much.

The reason our soldiers carry guns with them at all times is because the “front line” is potentially every street corner. In a tiny country (land mass wise, not ego) where at the narrowest the State is less than an hour’s bike ride. We have over the past twenty years endured waves of terrorism reaching every public gathering place (malls, restaurants, beaches, etc.).  

We have “normalized” our situation (purposefully not getting into here the potential ways out of our situation) and go about our business as if 18/19 year old kids walking around with machine guns in the public sphere is  “normal.”

Our army experience is very different from the US and many other countries. Our soldiers come home on average every two weeks, sometimes every week (and there are those who are not in combat units that often live at home – but still usually carry guns). And yes, we do their laundry.

All I am saying is – it should NOT be normal to find bullets in the washing machine. 

Riding with Via (or “NE Corner of 53rd and Park, in front of Citibank”)

It is not always the first to market that successfully delivers  innovation. “Success” is measured in many ways in our business of company building. Sometimes just changing the equation slightly is what brings true disruption – and if done correctly a positive force in the world.

We all know the basic elements to success in successful hyper-growth new company creation: innovation, passion,  timing, and luck. Of course there are some other necessary ingredients, like leadership, management skills, and money.

Once in a very long time I directly touch companies that manage to pull together the above mix, and it is simply magic. The magic can be felt by all the stakeholders in the venture  -- and it is infectious. In a good way, as long as the forces stay calibrated.

In my (still somewhat new) role as part of McKinsey (more on that in a post to come) I get to play cheerleader and coach to some of the most exciting disruption going on, particularly that coming out of Start Up Nation. And I am privileged to help in the scaling up.  

When it speaks directly to issues that I feel passionate about, it’s really fun.

RidewithVia (or simply Via) is such a unique combination – determined to make a difference in the world of on-demand transportation.

 Transport is one of the major areas of life in the developed world that is crying out for serious positive disruption. Every time I watch the thousands of cars coming into downtown Tel Aviv in the morning with one person in each car I get shocked anew that in 2015 both the systems and the regulations have not moved the needle – and the result is traffic jams, pollution of many kinds,  avoidable death and injury, and poor use of our limited resources.

Uber (and it’s smaller cousins Gett and  Lyft and all the copycats around the world) basically took a very conservative view toward disrupting this space – but still are looked at as massive innovators worth tens of billions of dollars. Why conservative? They  give the same product that existed prior, but flouted regulations to make that same product slightly cheaper (at times). Reminds me of the work we did in the VoIP industry back in the 90s. We replaced circuit switch minutes with packet switched – but left the experience quite similar. An Uber driver is a car service driver with a nicer way to “call” them (button on your phone) but the experience is the same. Point to point, quite expensive, servicing one person at a time. I don’t call that disruption. If even the “Uber et al”  model made the same experience vastly cheaply I would agree to call it positive disruption. But that is not the case.

An Uber ride from JFK airport to downtown Manhattan costs similar to what a yellow cab cost BEFORE Uber came on the scene. An experience out of reach of budget conscious folks.

Uber is at best slight disruption for the elite that took cabs BU (Before Uber).  For the rest of us who consume public transportation (for reasons of budget, convenience, or ideology), AU (After Uber) and BU look the same.

Then Via comes along, and using algorithms designed to make the world’s best Humus, they create a new experience. Via demands of its users to change their behavior and accept different conditions precedent as well as travel in ways that perhaps were not part of their lexicon. Via saw the matrix – the industry spaces left untouched and the pathways to people’s consciousness that would allow for trans-formative experience.

Via takes people out of their comfort zone. It says to the multi-millionaire, “hey dude, you are heading downtown, so are a whole bunch of other folks – why not travel together?” Better for the planet, the pocket, and there is a chance to meet folks who think like you.

As Via is real disruption, the price is within reach for the average person as well, the guy with a metrocard, who knows the subways, and can appreciate paying just a little but more for a much nicer experience that takes you to where you need to be (not where the designers of the subway lines think you need to be).

Via is ride sharing without the end user needing to think about the massive logistics and computing power that go into getting it right. And more and more New Yorkers (currently VIA only operating in Manhattan) are getting hooked on the service. Initially flat priced at $5 anywhere in Manhattan, Via is used by student and stock broker, hedge fund manager and hair stylist.

In order to use Via you need to be ready to walk a block over to benefit from common sense. If you are standing on Madison and want to head south, you are asked to walk over to Park. If you are on a busy side street you will be asked to go out to the corner. You enter the car (currently all Suburbans) and chances are there will be a few people already in the car. Via requests that you do not speak on your cellphone during the trip – so often you strike up conversations with the people in car – how quaint!

Via has a lot of challenges ahead as it continues to scale (company hasn’t publicly released usage statistics yet, but when I saw down to lunch with a friend and mentioned Via, he immediately pulled out his phone and showed me the Via app in a prime spot – he and his wife use it daily).

If Via it doesn’t [quickly] figure out answers to some of the big questions it could stumble. But for now it is magic at work. Give it a try if you are in Manhattan, but be ready for a new experience. 

LinkedIn [Growth]Hacked my Account. Again. Am I now worth more?

Like many of you, I try to multi-task. While talking to someone I sometimes will scan emails to see if there is something I need to deal with...especially if I am on a call.

But I learned my lesson in the past with LinkedIn -- as their company name attests, they live and breath creating links between people. Sometimes without asking. Or against our wishes.

In Facebook I am somewhat selective with friend requests (both issuing and accepting), but somehow still have over 1000 "friends," with many of whom I have very superficial connection.

In LinkedIn, on the hand, I accept almost every request -- putting aside that are clearly spam or with a negative agenda. And sometimes issue LinkedIn requests (or as they put it, invitation to be LinkedIn). But I usually only do that with folks that I think I will have some reason to reach out to, and easier than creating new contacts.

In one of my gmail accounts, I have some default setting on that creates a contact for anyone I have been in "email connection" -- either sending or receiving email from. That's a lot of people, even for an address I rarely use.

Today while mutli-tasking an email came in with an invitation from someone I like, and relevant to my work (he is a marketing manager at a major tech company). I automatically clicked yes...and then the LinkedIn hacking started -- asking me if I wanted to enter that email into my list of associated email addresses -- I thought, why not...and clicked yes. Then was asked if I wanted to "share" to all my contacts a LinkedIn invitation. I clicked "skip this step." Then I was asked again -- and again I clicked "click this step." Finally I was asked a third time, and again clicked "skip this step."

Within seconds my phone started to buzz constantly, I looked down and saw endless push notifications from LinkedIn telling so-and-so has just "accepted my invitation."

But this was an invitation I never intended to send, because I hate spam, and had no idea who was in the default list of contacts for that email address.

How did this happen? Well, once I had agreed to associate this particular gmail address with my LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn proceeded to suck out my contacts AGAINST my choice and spam all my "contacts" with LinkedIn invitation. 

Q: Any real harm done? 
In this case, not really, apart from folks asking me who I am...and there those who say any publicity is good publicity.
But that is not the point. This easily  could have led to sharing of information that I did not want to share, or giving access to people I did not intend.

Often the term "Growth Hacking" is used to describe tactics to quickly generate users and that infamous "traction" that all are seeking.

In the end of the day, however,  growth is growth and hacking is hacking. If you need to hack -- it means you are not playing by the rules, which often are in place for good reason!

I am a big fan of real growth -- and at times I am a hacker. But I don't believe the two belong together, certainly not from multi-billion public companies like LinkedIn. Let them find real ways to grow, and leave my random assortment of gmail contacts alone.

Oh, and results of the LinkedIn spam -- I am now connected to an additional 250 people (at the time of writing this, few hours after the "incident.").Am I now worth more? 

"Configure your email client (e.g. Outlook, Eudora, Netscape Mail)": SAY WHAT??

"Configure your email client (e.g. Outlook, Eudora, Netscape Mail)": SAY WHAT??

Been a long time since I wrote a blog post, but in looking at Gmail settings today (as to why is subject for another post...) I noticed the above. 

How many of you can even remember Eudora or Netscape Mail? Anyone still using those applications? I am sure some people. Outlook has held on because people have it at work, almost noone outside of an office chooses to use it. 

And yet nobody at Google has changed the above. 

Why?

Well, it's in settings that are buried and only an explanation, not a feature itself ("e.g"). 

In addition it is not something that is broken, just awkward. 

But why did it trigger my interest? 

Because how quickly our habits change -- especially in area that is close to my heart, in communications and messaging. 

Not so long ago desktop email clients were the standard way consumers and worker bees alike managed their email traffic. In addition there were desktop applications for what we called then "Instant Messaging." (as opposed to email that was seen as less than instant and more formal as well as cluttered) 

The web/cloud picked up steam obviously for many years, but messaging remained application centered, Sure there were servers out there helping our mail move from place to place but it felt more like a traditional letter, especially if we deleted from server as we downloaded (anyone remember that?). The more geeky among us knew that even if we deleted from server chances were there still were copies somewhere, but for most consumers once email was downloaded it was only on their computer, especially for consumer email. 

Hotmail (which came before Gmail) and other webmail providers started to change the user experience paradigm. But it was only with Gmail that it went completely mainstream. And even gmail at first assumed that many, as indicated above, would continue using a desktop client to manage their email. 

Today gmail can handle it all, multiple addresses, and can even work in off-line mode. We have gmail apps on our deskptop, ipad, iphone, android, etc. 
And yet that certainly wasn't enough, Google continues to try and improve the experience, with layers like "Inbox" and third players like Sanemail try to help Gmail work better. 

On top of that even in Google, clickable from Gmail, are other products like Gchat, and then there are hangouts, Google +. 

All within Google! 

Once we leave world of Google we see Facebook Messenger (they gave up on email product). WhatsApp. Skype. Zula. 

Which of these will people still be using in 5 years? 10 years. Difficult to tell. Eudora has not been available to download for many years, and the same goes for Netscape Mail. They live on only in the buried settings of Gmail. 

However less than ten years ago they were both very much alive. 15 years ago Eudora was a major check of the email application market. 

I personally don't think Outlook will survive either. Recently tried Office 365 Online, painful experience. But in the enterprise market things live on for a long time. Heck, many big companies still have IBM mainframes and need COBOL engineers to maintain their code. 

While Zula is my direct interest in this market -- I am fascinated in general at the trends in communication, and the increasing speed at which new things come (and sometimes go). Will Snapchat be around in 5 years? I wouldn't bet too much on either possibility. Too early to tell. But I guarantee will be VERY different in 5 years. 

OK, need to go look for my Palm 5 to see my meetings for rest of the day. Peace. 

Story of Why I am Typing on Windows 8 (Toshiba version); and By The Way -- Zero on Intuitiveness Index

Given that I am CEO of a company (Zula) developing a user facing service, I am sensitive to  user-friendliness of new apps/gadgets/”computers”. In order to understand why I ended up with a Toshiba laptop running Windows 8, a little background.

For the past two years I have mainly worked off an iPhone, an iPad, and sometimes an old (3-4 years)  “desktop” in my winery office.

My favorite, hands down -- the iPad, along with a Logitech cover keyboard. Unfortunately it was stolen two months ago, and since then I have trying to figure out with what to replace it. A healthy combination of procrastination and "too-busy" have had me limping along with my iPhone and borrowed time on winery desktop. Definitely cut into my productivity.

On the home front, various wintel (Intel based running Windows) laptops died or slowly ground to almost a complete halt when trying to do anything beyond stare at the screen saver. My almost-seven year old son is going through a phase where he needs to lose himself in  computer games to calm down. My older kids have long figured out that having no cable does not mean they need to miss the latest content (what we used to call TV shows and/or movies) -- but rather they can tune in via Hulu, Youtube, Amazon, and more. But all that requires an available surfing device.

I bought two HP Chromebooks, but unfortunately found out days after that that version of HP Chromebook suffered from a defective charging system. Google sent me new chargers but they didn’t work. Now I need to go chase HP/Google to replace them.

Which means at home we are down to an old laptop running Windows XP that turns off randomly and has zero battery strength left (needs to be plugged in to work) and Haviva’s Mac Air. Now Haviva is justifiably sensitive about kids using her Mac Air, but regardless they take it all the time, challenging Apple to fight off all the viruses they seem to attract.

So I have been under pressure for some time to get something new for the house…

At Ben-Gurion Airport this morning I had some time to check out laptops in the duty-free. And realized that I was embarking on 4 day business trip with just my iPhone, which is bit risky. On top of that, I thought of typing long emails (or blog posts, like this one) on my iPhone and the pressure mounted to get something.

There was a table of Mac laptops, which with all the different configurations, but still a small table. Apple makes beautiful machines without too many different options. And there were tables and tables of WinTel laptops. Toshiba, Assus, Lenovo, and more. Prices all over the place, options way too confusing to understand.

Finally I said to the salesman “look, I just need a computer for the kids to use.” He suggested the Toshiba, it was a reasonable price and I said OK. Then I saw it even had DVD player -- I thought that was a cute retro touch, but will allow us to play the hundreds of DVDs Haviva made me keep when we recently moved (our DVD player died last year).

Salesman asked me if I wanted him to “take it out of the box and set it up.” I wasn’t sure what he meant by that but said OK, however explained that I wanted the settings and all commands to be in English (I love the Hebrew language but even after 18 years I simply can’t follow Hebrew computer speak, gives me a headache). Of course, after I opened the computer waiting at the gate (plane was delayed so had time to play) I saw he chose Hebrew as the default language….

OK, back to the computer itself. The laptop is running Windows 8. Very pretty tiles. First problem -- how to get online? I could not find in any of the pretty tiles something like good old wireless network manager. Anything I did push simply said I wasn't connected (which I knew). Finally I found a way to get to a familiar looking screen which had the network doo-hicky [that is a very technical term for the traditional network icon]. Clicking on that allowed me to select the free WiFi network in the airport (supplied by Netvision, talk about a blast from the past).

OK, now on-line. Uh…what to do now? I clicked on Office icon, but that just asked me to sign up to buy license. I just bought a computer, I should be able to type some text without paying -- no?  Finally found my way to email app, which asked me to sign up for an outlook email address. That seemed to be free (also could have signed up for Hotmail but that would have been way too anachronistic). I sent myself a test message to my gmail address and -- it worked! Very exciting.

Allowed me to be comforted that at the very least I will be able to use the email application to type on the plane (which I am doing). Almost every other tile was an add for something, clicking on resulted in Internet Explorer being launched and needing to buy a subscription.

Couldn’t figure out how to set the time and date.

Bottom line, on my experience so far this laptop, and it’s rendering of Windows 8, gets a big fat ZERO on the intuitiveness index.

I am sure Microsoft had many, many UX/UI experts involved over several years to deliver the experience I just went through. I am sad to have to say that outside of team meetings not sure what they were doing all that time. Outside of the pretty tiles, which does take us away from the standard and very-tired “start” button, Windows 8 needs a lot of work before regular people like me will enjoy using it.

But soon I will be back on line, will download Chrome, and use the laptop as glorified Chromebook. Hopefully with a charger that works! 

You want to "Crowdfund"? Start with a Crowd; or What Used to be called Friends and Family

Crowds and the effect they can have on our society has been an important part of my life for many years. Both my parents have been (and still are, thank God) active politically, organizers of "crowds," of groups of people coming together to effect positive positive change. That crowd bug passed to me, and for 45 years have lived most of the time on the edge of the crowd, helping pull and push in this direction or another (some might say that at times I fall off the edge...).

For 18 years my  "professional career" has been start-up guy. As co-founder, CEO, board member, investor, you name it, I've done it.

When I first started as an entrepreneur I was bewildered how to raise money -- how does one "start" if your bank account is at zero or close to...when I read up on it I discovered the phrase "friends and family." Back then, the recommendation was first go to your inner circle, your friends and family, and try and get them to back you (with cash or in-kind...housing/food/etc.). The theory was, these folks were essentially helping to contribute to your success -- they were not savvy financial investors -- but rather kindly backers.

Now, I don't know if you ever mixed family and money -- but usually not a good combination, or for that matter with friends. Oh sure, if desperate and need to crash somewhere, get some food, even emergency money for an operation, family and friends can be there for you and nobody will ever look back. But as a healthy well educated person, to ask family and friends to give you (ok, "invest") money in your dream of a ____________(fill in blank with appropriate business dream) is an entirely different matter.

On top of that, my parents were public servants most of their careers, and the honest kind, so they didn't have a spare $1 million to help bankroll my start-up (back then was much more expensive to start, no Google App Engine or Amazon Web Services). So what to do? I looked to my friends. Well, at the time they were a bunch of 20-somethings, either still in school/army/unemployed. None of them had any loose change of $ that was needed to create new software.

So where was this mythical "friends and family" round going to come from? I needed to go out there and get new friends (family is family!). Not to replace to my old ones, but to supplement the ones I already had (this was pre-facebook, we are talking a handful of existing friends).

Through a lot of luck, and somewhat smooth talking, I gained some friends who did have spare cash looking to take a ride on the start-up roller coaster. But it took endless meetings, presentations, wild-eyed pontificating on paradigm shifts. And making new friends. And for the past 18 years, has remained a challenge. Never "easy" to raise money, even if now I have some friends with loose change..

Which brings me to what today we call "crowd-funding."

Let me clearly state -- I am a huge fan of OurCrowd, Indiegogo, Kickstarter, and all other crowd-funding initiatives, and a direct participant in Our Crowd (who kicked off off the seed round for  Zula and currently raising follow-on) and Indiegogo (where winery I co-founded, Jezreel Valley Winery, is currently running "Wine for Life" campaign). I am an angel investor in Mosaic Solar, bringing crowd funding to renewable energy porjects.

But there are clear differences between the different platforms.

First, left me put OurCrowd aside, as they have done an incredible job, led by Jon Medved and the rest of his amazing team. Jon uses the term crowd funding, but he has gamed the system. OurCrowd has curated, and is constantly expanding, it's built in crowd. In other words, OurCrowd has signed up thousands (more than 4,000 to date) angel investors who have spent the time to register on the site and receive deal flow. The friends I didn't have 18 years ago...OurCrowd management screens and selects a handful of start-ups every month to expose to their growing investor community. From the numbers I have heard, maybe 2-3% of the deals that approach OurCrowd make it on to their platform. In this way, OurCrowd is similar to the classic VC model. What OurCrowd has done is reshape the economics behind

At Indiegogo and Kickstarter, and many other crowdfunding platforms you will NOT get seen if they do not feature you. And they will not feature you if they don't see momentum. And you will not have momentum if you do not show up with your own crowd. Yup, back to the friends and family. Your "inner circle." By all accounts, these people are supposed to make up at least 20-30% of your target raise -- and only then will "strangers" even think to support you, or get featured by the editors of the platform's front pages. These types of platforms are more egalitarian and deal neutral than OurCrowd --  anyone can create a project to fund. There is almost no screening. From Indiegogo I recently heard that they have over 7000 campaigns live on the site right now (campaigns can run for maximum of 60 days, so annually its a big number, easily tens of thousands of projects jostling to be seen).

Yes, there is some mix of the above models. When we went live last May (2013) on OurCrowd site for Zula, we spread the word. Many friends joined OurCrowd because they were interested in Zula, and this allowed them to invest a relatively small amount ($10,000 is the OurCrowd minimum) which we as a company could not handle. Thus the relationship between company and platform does become symbiotic, if everyone does what they should  -- the "crowdfundee" can help bring more traffic to the platform, which can spill over into other projects seeking a crowd (and funding).

Bottom line: In the 18 years since I was first told I needed to raise money from friends and family, a lot has changed but much is the same. Just now it's called a crowd -- and if you don't have one (or the right one) don't expect to succeed at "crowdfunding."

Zula As Pop Up Community: and Mishkan

Recently I was preparing to start my Zula shpeil (or in VC talk -- my "pitch") to a VC in NY and he pre-empted me and used my words before I could say them -- and then he made them even better as he took the metaphor to a higher level.

The term I have bandying about recently is "pop-up communities" to explain the power of Zula. I will not use this post to go into the details of current and planned features and functionaity of Zula (check out our website and service itself for that). But I do want to walk through what I mean by pop-up community and how it resembles a Sukka (the "huts" Jews built in desert during their 40 years of wandering just after leaving Egypt). (the sukka metaphor comes from David Hirsch of Metamorphic Ventures -- not sure if David will invest but he already gave us some pearls of wisdom, so he is part of the Zula story now). 

And then recently, sitting with the wonderful Mort Meyerson (who has invested in Zula) we took the metaphor to an even higher level -- the ultimate sukka, which is the mishkan. 

But back to the concept of pop-up community -- what do I mean by that? (don't worry, weave back in Sukka and Mishkan). 

Over the past few years the term "pop-up store" has been trendy in retail (I fist came across in NY but now has spread all over the world). A pop-up store is one which pops up in an available space but with the intention from the start that it might be for only a limited time, whether that be a few days, weeks or months. The reasons behind the temporal nature could include excess inventory, seasonality, or simply testing the waters before committing to a long term lease. And there have been many cases of such successes that the temporary becomes permanent. 

The same can be said for many of our work teams these days. As SMBs (small and medium sized businesses) dominate (most new jobs are created by SMBs) and corporations become more fluid, ad-hoc team formation is becoming the norm, rather the exception. 

Twenty years ago (and to some degree still today) it was possible to communicate only with people who worked for the same corporation, in technical terms "behind the firewall." Today, with the rise of the consultant and the project based approach, teams tackling an issue on behalf of GE or GM more likely than not will include members who do NOT carry a company card, and are not credentialed to use the company's domain based tools. 

Over the past years we have also seen the acceptance of outsourcing, offshoring, and cross company collaboration at levels unimaginable twenty years ago. 

The Mishkan, or the tabernacle, was the first ritual space created by the Jewish people in the desert after Moses came down from Mt Sinai. According the the Bible, very clear and detailed instructions were given as to the construction of the Mishkan. But the Mishkan was not a permanent structure -- in fact a lot of the detail involved how to put up and breakdown the Mishkan so it could be carried along in the Journey (and my tribe, the Levites, were tasked with being the Mishkan porters while the Jewish people marched -- and we were responsible for the construction and breakdown...interesting that I should be the co-founder and CEO of Zula). 

The essential nature of the Mishkan was that of a non-permanent structure...it was intended to be part of the Journey. 

When the Jewish people reach the promised land the mishkan continued to move around...until King Solomon (Shlomo) builds the first permanent structure, the first "Temple" (or Holy House). It could be said everything went down-hill from there. According to many commentators (and my own reading) the whole notion of creating a monarchy, a formal structure, was itself not seen by God as an overly positive move. 

The corporation of the 20th Century was the Western world's version of the Temple -- a seemingly permanent entity that provided a focal point for much of the working class. But much like the temple of old, permanence is fleeting. No building or entity is too big to fall. 

And in the 21st century we are retuning to much more fluid ways of work -- small teams coming together, setting up and breaking down structures. The Cloud is our desert -- it is the backdrop for our journeys. 

Over the coming months I will continue to develop this concept, and touch more on how the true liberation is one in which we recognize the temporal nature of all realities, we should never feel servants to any regime be it a corporation or a monarchy. 

Zula is doing its' part to allow people to communicate in ways that don't respect the old structures.  Where will this journey take us? Come along with us and let's find out together. See you in Zula.