Presentation delivered to the JCCA, November 2, 2015 in Jerusalem, Israel. Zack Miller presented on the Israeli high tech industry and provided case studies and lessons on how to emulate Israeli technology tactics to help grow local Jewish Community Centers.

1. BRINGING THE STARTUP
NATION HOME
LESSONS FROM ISRAELI HIGH TECH
Zack Miller
November 2, 2015

2. BRINGING ISRAELI HIGH TECH HOME
AGENDA
• Little about me
• More about what makes Israel the
Startup Nation
• Examples of Startup Nation
successes
• Discussion, Q&A: How to apply the
lessons you’ve learned in Israel to
your JCC experiences

3. ABOUT ME

4. General Partner, OurCrowd
Founder, Editor-in-Chief,
Tradestreaming
Forbes columnist
Published author
(Tradestreaming Your Way to
Profits: Building a Killer
Portfolio in the Age of Social
Media — Wiley, 2010)
Financial technology industry
consultant
About me

5. GROWING UP IN
A JCC
A PERSONAL STORY

6. Growing up in the JCC, my family was:
• Connected Jews (though not religious — we became more religious later)
• Went to public or private, non-denominational schools
• Zionistic
• Socially Jewish (camps, holiday activities, Federation, March of the Living)
• Active in local Jewish organizations
• Friendly with Jews across spectrum
• Present at most JCC events, camps, sports leagues
OLD MIAMI
BEACH JCC

7. All in the family

8. The New MB JCC

9. IN 2002, THE MILLER
CLAN MADE ALIYAH

10. SECRET INGREDIENTS
ISRAEL AS STARTUP NATION

11. BRINGING ISRAELI HIGH TECH HOME
ISRAEL HIGH TECH LANDSCAPE
• 4000+ startups
• 50+ accelerators, working spaces
• 250+ R&D centers
• #1 startup ecosystem outside the US
• #3 in NASDAQ traded companies
as per Rackspace’s Alan Weinkrantz

12. “IT MAY TAKE A
VILLAGE TO RAISE A
CHILD, BUT IT TAKES
AN ECOSYSTEM TO
RAISE A SUCCESSFUL
STARTUP”
- Zack Miller

13. BRINGING ISRAELI HIGH TECH HOME
WHAT IS A TECH ECOSYSTEM?

14. BRINGING ISRAELI HIGH TECH HOME
PROOF IN THE PUDDING: ISRAEL IS THE TOP STARTUP ECOSYSTEM OUTSIDE THE US

15. Israel vying with
Silicon Valley as the
best place to launch
an innovative
company

16. MICROSOFT IS
ALMOST AS MUCH
AN ISRAELI
COMPANY AS IT IS
AN AMERICAN ONESteve Ballmer

17. Israel’s greatest resource is its ingenuity
Lack of resources creates resourcefulness

18. IF YOU’RE GOING TO THE MIDDLE EAST TO
LOOK FOR OIL, YOU CAN SKIP ISRAEL.
IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR BRAINS, LOOK
NO FURTHER.
Warren Buffett
BRINGING ISRAELI HIGH TECH HOME

19. OOPS!

20. $10M $650M
$67M $1B
$30M $900M
$6.5M $475M
Israeli companies tend to be more capital efficient

21. WHY COLOR IN THE LINES
WHEN YOU CAN DRAW
YOUR OWN MASTERPIECE?

22. Rest of World Israel
Contemporary Rorschach Aptitude Proof

23. Creating the Israeli Banana Peeler Machine

24. CROSS POLLINATION IS KEY
ISRAELI SCIENCE

25. BRINGING ISRAELI HIGH TECH HOME
ISRAELI SCIENTISTS FIND NOVEL SOLUTIONS TO NAGGING PROBLEMS
▸ Example:
▸ Problem: Blood borne diseases are hard/expensive to
detect in emerging economies, where testing is needed
the most
▸ Solution: Take engineers, computer programmers,
algorithm developers, machine vision experts and
biologists and come up with a machine that detects blood
borne diseases quicker, better, cheaper than human lab
techs

26. SCRATCH YOUR OWN ITCH
SOLVE PROBLEMS IMPORTANT TO YOU

27. BRINGING ISRAELI HIGH TECH HOME
ISRAELI SCIENTISTS SCRATCH THEIR OWN ITCHES
▸ Spinal injuries confine people to a life in a wheelchair
▸ Solution: Create a bionic exoskeleton that with a push of a button,
enables a paraplegic to stand and walk
▸ How: Amit Gofer experiences an injury that left him paralyzed. He
envisioned a world not of better wheelchairs but of getting people
back on their feet, moving.

29. IF IT’S STARTED
UP, SCALE IT UP

30. WE ARE NOW SIMPLY
SEEING COMPANIES
THAT START HERE
HAVE BIGGER
AMBITIONS.Ravi Mhatre, Lightspeed Ventures

31. WIX.COM
CASE STUDY #1

32. “Maybe it’s time for us
to think about
ourselves as a country
going from a startup
nation to a high-tech
nation, where startup is
the first step, but
companies are still
built in Israel,
maintained in Israel
and grow from Israel.”
— Wix’s Avishai Abrahami
Scaling up Israeli high tech

33. WAZE
CASE STUDY #2

34. BRINGING ISRAELI HIGH TECH HOME
ACCORDING TO ALLTHINGSD:
• Google acquires Waze for >$ 1billion
• Facebook acquisition talks with Waze in 2013
failed in part because of conflicts over whether or
not the Waze team could remain in Israel

35. BRINGING ISRAELI HIGH TECH HOME
SUMMARY: THE STARTUP NATION
▸ Create ecosystems
▸ Establish a culture of resourcefulness
▸ Color out of the lines
▸ Cross pollinate
▸ Scratch your own itch
▸ If it’s working, double down

36. How do you bring the lessons of the Startup Nation back to your local JCC?
Think about:
Local ecosystems
Culture of resourcefulness
Cross pollination
Scratching your own itch
Doubling down on success

37. –Mick Weinstein,VP Marketing,
BillGuard (formerly, Editor in Chief,
Seeking Alpha)
“Zack is a must-read
for anyone in fintech. ”
Published author,
sought-after speaker,
top podcaster,
Forbes columnist,
About.com Expert
Contact:
zack@tradestreaming.com