Archive for Must Reads
After 7 years my Aliyah Dream is Finally Complete! Hunts Vanilla Pudding Comes to Israel
Posted by: | CommentsMy wife called me in the office yesterday and said “You will never believe what I just bought for you at the Makolet”. I was a bit busy so I asked her just to tell me and then the euphoria set in. “Hunts Vanilla Pudding!” she answered. And just like that my Aliyah that I started 7 years ago on the very first Nefesh B’Nefesh flight has become complete.
For the last 35 years when anyone would ask me what my favorit food was in the whole world the answer is always the same “Hunts Vanilla Pudding”. I simply could not get enough of the stuff and I’m sure that this is the closest taste to Mana for Shamayim that we have today.
(As I right this, and I kid you not, my two year old is crying since he saw the pudding and my wife asked if I could give him one and I said No. She said she is giving him one anyway and when I go to the makolet I could by more. “But what if they are out?” I ask her in all seriousness.)
Anyway, the obesession started when I was a little kid when the puddings use to come in little tin tuna can type of things. I found a pic of the packaging online as you can see here.
My favorite lunches where when my Mom would put one of these babies into the bag. It brightened my whole day.
When I made Aliyah I realized that this is something I’m going to have to sacrafice with moving to Israel. I figured there was no way it would ever be imported since Israel was known for their puddings and was even an accepted breakfast for kids. And the truth be told the puddings in Israel are ok, just not as good as Hunts Snack Packs. In the end I came to terms with it and I figured from time to time I can get someone to bring some back from the States or I could pick some up myself.
But I have been filled with frustration since last year. My parents went to the states and as a Birthday Present they bought me a four pack of the pudding. It would have been the best present ever except that it was the “lite” version. You know, the one that comes without the taste. So that was a huge disappointment for me, but about a month later I went to the States myself and I made sure that I would not make the same mistake. I bought my self a couple of 4 packs the day before I was leaving back to Israel. When I was packing my bags I realized that I could not pack them in my luggage since they could get squished and opened up and that would be not cool. So I kept the treasures in my carry on making sure to have them close.
Well, when I was going through security them stopped me and guess what they took out of my carry on? That’s right, my Hunts Vanilla Pudding. Apparently they were a bomb threat. I was so disturbed making up stories on how one of my kids needed it because of a medical condition and the man basically gave me two choices.
1. Leave them there to be thrown out
or
2. Eat them on the spot
I will leave which one of the two I chose up to your imagination.
In anycase it seems I will have no more worries since my local makolet in Ramat Bet Shemesh now has them! When I came home early I went straight to my prize to make sure it was the real deal. Below are a couple of pictures for your review. At first I was a bit nervous because for some reason the word “Hunts” was missing from the packaging even though the rest looked the same. Then I looked at the pudding themselves and Thank Hashem it said Hunts and was the real deal.
It is incredible that I am able to wait till Shavous tonight before I have one in order to make my Chag really special. Ok, gotta run to the makolet. Apparently we still need a couple of things!
Chag Samayach everyone!
Failure is an Option! To be a successful entrepreneur you must fail
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Real entrepreneurs are not afraid not fail. Not only are they not afraid to fail, but they don’t look at a failed business as a failure but as an experience to learn from and to make their next start-up a success.
The first thing we need to do is define the word “fail”. What do we mean by fail or success? Is success the fact that you can pay your bills from your business or is success when you have an exit? The same for “fail”. What does it mean to fail? If you struggled for a year to get a business of the ground and during that time your business paid your bills for you then did you fail? What if you sold it for a small amount because it was not bringing you the success you hoped for? Is that failing? Or is failing simply when you need to shut down your company because it is not paying the bills and you could not sell it to someone else? Obviously there is no simple answer.
It is very rare that an entrepreneur is successful with his first venture. Often it can take a few failures before he finds his success.
A lot of entrepreneurs failed or never finished college. They couldn’t be tied down to a strict regement or program. They needed to get out, break out of the system and learn what they need to know on their own.
Experience is the greatest education.
I often wonder why young entrepreneurs go to college. With the money they spend on a 4 year college degree they could have invested in a real world business and be four years ahead of the system. Even if after four years the young entrepreneur fails, his education of starting and running a business, even a couple of businesses can be a greater education then what he could have gotten in college.
There is no embarrassment in failing, there is only embarassment in not getting up and giving up on your dream. Entrepreneurs are dream driven not business driven. If one business fails they will start another one and continue their dream of living life on their terms and becoming a successful entrepreneur.
This post was inspired by a post on Feld.com. Brad Feld is a very successful entreprneur and investor. He asks:
What makes a better CEO of a new startup – an experienced entrepreneur who’s last company was a failure or a big company executive with a stellar pedigree who has never worked in a startup?
His answer?
Give me the experienced entrepreneur whose last company was a failure 100% of the time.
You should read the rest of this excellent post and most investors will feel the same way. I’m 36 years old now and I am proud to say that I “failed” many times and in many different ways and for many different reasons. Like the time I launched a new website on September 11th 2001 with Newspaper ads that I spent a lot of money on coming out on September 12th. I wonder why the ads didn’t work? But I never considered myself to having failed. As long as I learned something along the way and used my knew knowledge for my next business then I do not consider having failed, but consider it having been a learning process.
My first start-up when I moved to Israel I spent 3 1/2 years putting in blood sweat and tears and it eventually failed, but I can not even begin to explain to you how much I learned from the mistakes that were made that have saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars in the success of my current company. It was a tremendous education that you simply can not get in any University. I didn’t fail because the next day I got up and starting planning my next company which now has 9 employees and is on it’s way to B’Ezras Hashem tremendous success. In fact, looking back, I never really failed at all.
Oh, and by the way, when you do succeed, no one remembers that you failed in the past.
How to demo your start-up or product
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We talked in the last post about raising money and how it's like dating. Well just like when you go on a date you want to make sure you shower, brush your teeth, and wear clean clothing, so too there are things you should know about preparing yourself before you present to a potential investor. Actually you should do the things above as well, but also you should make sure you have a proper presentation or demo ready to show. Now there are a lot of "rules" about what works and what investors want to see and a lot really depends on who you are presenting to and what level you are in your start-up.
In this excellent TechCrunch post which is largely about an email Jason Calacanis sent out, is a must read. As with most TechCrunch posts you can learn even more by reading the comments.
Below are the first 3 of 10 of the suggestions Jason makes, but make sure you click this link to read the whole post!
1. Show your product within the first 60 seconds
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Most folks start their presentations with information like the size of
the market they are tackling (tens of billions, we only need 1%!),
their inflated corporate bios, the philosophical approach they’re
taking, and boring Powerpoint graphics explaining some convoluted workflow of their product.
The longer it takes for you to show your product, the worse your
product is. Folks who have a kick-ass product don’t spend five or ten
minutes “setting the stage” or “giving the background.” Folks with
killer products CAN’T WAIT to show you their product. Their demos start
with their homepage and quickly jump into the users experience. If a
picture tells a thousand stories, then a product demo tells a million.
Show your product immediately, and if you don’t have a product to show don’t take the meeting.
2. The best products take less than five minutes to demo
——————————————-
The greatest tech products over the past 10 years would take no more than five minutes each to demo. For example:
a) Larry and Sergey could demo Google search in less than five
minutes. Here’s a box, type something in and you get a huge reward.
b) Steve Jobs could demo the iPod in less than five minutes. Plug it
in, put in your CDs and it syncs your music. Turn it on and use the
wheel to select what songs you want to listen to.
c) Chris DeWolfe could demo MySpace in less than five minutes. Sign
up, fill out your profile, and add your friends. For bonus points add
some widgets to your page.
I think you get the idea: the better the product the LESS time it
takes to demo. If your product demo takes more than five minutes to
demo, it probably sucks. All the tiny little features that matter to
you are of course important–God is in the details–however, when
presenting your company, you don’t have to show them. Larry and Sergey
wouldn’t open up the advanced search tab and the list of operators you
can use in Google during a demo.
Steve Jobs does take the demo details to a fairly detailed level,
but you and I are not Steve Jobs. There is only one Steve Jobs and
there is only one Apple. You’re never going to build something as cool
as Steve, and as such there is no need for you to talk about your
product for five or ten minutes.
3. Leave people wanting more.
——————————————-
If you take my advice in point two, then folks should be either blown
away or intrigued by your core product. If they are not somewhere in
that spectrum, you need to rebuild your core product.
When I pitched Mahalo to investors, I had five sheets of paper with
different search results on each. I put them on a table and said which
one is the best. Obviously I knew my result was the best, and that
simple demonstration lead to MASSIVE discussion: how was the page
built? how long did it take to build? what would it cost to make that
page? how often do you need to update it? how can you scale that
business? how many pages can you create before it breaks even?
It’s best for folks to discover the merits of your product for
themselves, and it’s up to you to make such a compelling core product
that they are intrigued enough to explore it.
Venture Hacks Archives – A must read for any serious Entrepreneur
Posted by: | CommentsEvery now and then you find a resource that is a must read for any serious entrepreneur. Reading the posts by Venture Hacks is one of them. Truth be told this is a site that is geared more for the serious entrepreneur that is looking to build a big company and make a difference in the world as opposed to the serious entrepreneur that is happy running his local shoe store, but there are great lessons to be learned for everyone.
Who are they? I will let them tell you in their own words:
We like helping entrepreneurs succeed. We provide advice and introductions. We’re hamburger helper for entrepreneurs.
Our Hacks provide advice. They answer a common question from entrepreneurs: “Can you help me understand term sheets?”
Recommended introduces entrepreneurs and investors. It’s like match.com for investors and entrepreneurs.
Our team members have founded Epinions and helped start companies including Songbird (Sequoia), Grockit (Benchmark), and Kovio (Kleiner Perkins). Previously, we’ve raised $100M or so in financing from firms including Sequoia, Benchmark, August, and Bessemer—we’ve also invested another $20M in about 12 companies.
Feel free to cold call us at ‘founders at venturehacks dot com’.
These guys are out to help you and are asking you to cold call them and ask for their help, so do it! I plan on doing so in the next month and I will post here what happens. In the meantime start your reading by clicking the link below.
