Well Prepared Pitch Deck – Interview with Jason Shuman
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Episode Summary
Jason Shuman is an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist who has been involved with startups since he was 17 years old, and has always had a deep passion for the industry. He is currently an associate at Corigin Ventures, where he is responsible for sourcing and analyzing deals. Jason discusses the charity foundation he is a part of, why there are so many young VCs these days, branding, and so much more on today’s show.
Well Prepared Pitch Deck – Interview with Jason Shuman
Hi. Welcome to The Successful Pitch. Today’s guest is Jason Shuman, who is a venture capitalist at Corigin Ventures in New York City. Jason has a really interesting background coming from the University of Miami. He has been involved in some startups himself, but he is now a big time VC in New York City. Jason, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much, John. How are you?
I’m good. It’s great to have you. We met through Judy Robinett. The two of you were down in Puerto Rico judging a pitching contest.
We were. We got back from sunny Puerto Rico a couple weeks ago. Now, I’m up here in the cold and windy New York weather.
Quite a contrast. I always like to ask my guests, how did they get started? If you would, take us back to the days when you were in college and you were saying, “Hmm, what am I going to do with my life? I’m going to be a VC in New York.” How did that all happen?
Well Prepared Pitch Deck: They were people that gave me a lot of confidence to go out there and follow my passion of entrepreneurship.
I think, to go back even further, I was born and raised right outside of Boston. I really grew up in a family of nothing but entrepreneurs. They were people that gave me a lot of confidence to go out there and follow my passion of entrepreneurship and starting companies. Really, I started getting into startups at around seventeen years old, when I graduated from high school a semester early. I went to work for an identity theft protection company that my aunt and uncle had spun out of a company my grandfather started way back in the day. They did background checks for the US Federal Government and had been really doing well growing the business. I’ll never forget, they told me, “What do you want to go do?” I said, “I’d love to help create the consumer side of the business and really help build that up.”
It was there that I found one of my mentors in Rob Shavell who had come over from SoftBank. I proceeded to shred papers for about two months and shredded some incredible background checks while I was there. As soon as those were done, they let me run free and really put together a plan and help build that side of the business. I decided to go to the University of Miami for college and study entrepreneurship there. Got my real estate license while I was there and started doing that when I was eighteen. I did identity theft protection again and then actually started my first company while I was in college called Category Five.
It was an eCommerce based men’s footwear company where we made boat shoes and driving moccasins. Grew that out for about two years, including for a year after graduation. Before you knew it, I was consulting for startups and got a phone call that ended up leading to an introduction to a VC here in New York because I was making so many introductions between startups in Boston to VCs in New York. Finally, somebody wanted to pay me for all those introductions and that was Corigin Ventures. Here I am today.
What a great story? I like the spirit of giving so much and making introductions. You really are a walking case study of your network is your net worth.
I think that paying it forward is the most important thing here. Ever since I wanted to get into startups, probably around fourteen or fifteen years old, everyone paid it forward. A big piece of that, it also goes back into my background, which is the fact that I was born with something called primary immunodeficiency. It basically means that your production of white blood cells is a little bit lower than the average human being. I would have to get infusions every three weeks. That whole growing up with a health condition like that led me to really be around doctors and donors a lot of the time for a nonprofit that I was heavily involved in. I was always about giving my time and my energy, and continue to do so today, which is one of the things I love about venture capital, is that we can add value to a very wide range of people. Not only the people that we’re invested in, but people that we just meet as well.
Let’s not be shy about the charity that you’re involved with, because we’re going to put that in the show notes. Tell us how people can be aware and contribute to the charity you’re involved with.
It’s called the Jeffrey Modell Foundation. It is a nonprofit that was started by Fred and Vicki Modell in New York City after their son, Jeffrey Modell, had passed away from primary immunodeficiency back in the 80s. Honestly, they’ve been another set of grandparents to me. It’s really helping out with research and trying to come up with a cure for primary immunodeficiency. They do some great things.
That’s now led to your passion for investing in health-related ventures?
Well Prepared Pitch Deck: There’s new types of technologies that are powerful and can really add value to our healthcare systems.
That it has. It’s really interesting. Outside of my own health issues, I’ve had a grandmother with Alzheimer’s, a grandfather that’s had heart issues for a long time. I’ve had mental health issues in my family. I think that in today’s innovation economy, whether it’s the mobile phone or the IoT, there’s all these new different types of technologies that are truly powerful and can really help assist and add value to our healthcare systems and us personally as human beings, as well. I really would tell people out there that the next five to fifteen years, not only do I think that they’re going to be impacted personally, but I think our healthcare system’s going to start to save money because of it. I think that it’s going to improve outcomes and increase access for consumers.
How great? Let’s talk a little bit about Corigin Ventures. To me, it seems a little interesting. They’re a VC firm that does both early stage seed and series A. I usually don’t see that. Usually, it’s just the Angels doing the seed and the ventures doing the series A and B, etc. What is it that makes you guys do both and do you often find that the people you invest in for seed, you become the series A as well?
It’s a great question. Corigin has a unique setup here. Corigin itself actually is a holdings company where, on one side, we’ve got a billion dollar real estate arm. The CEO here is a guy by the name of Ryan Freedman. Truly incredible story, but long story short is that Ryan started to invest in startups about four or five years ago. When he was doing that, he was investing in companies that A, he knew he could add value to and B, that were in verticals that he really understood and had some expertise in. He was being approached by these companies, but he was writing checks between 100k and $1.5 million. With that comes both seed and series A. I think for us, seed in my background, my boss, David Goldberg’s background, we are able to be more hands on and add more value because we’ve been in the trenches before. With series A, we can add value in other ways as well. That includes the check size. We do prefer to follow along with our companies from seed to series A, but you don’t really see us leading too many deals in series A.
Fantastic. Let’s talk about, are you one of the youngest people that has ever been hired by Corigin Ventures?
Well Prepared Pitch Deck: I think you’re going to see a lot more younger VCs getting into the game.
I guess as far as Corigin Ventures is concerned, I am the youngest person that’s ever been hired by Corigin Ventures. I was actually only the second hire here on the venture capital side. As far as New York City is concerned, I have some other young colleagues, whether that’s Heston Berkman over at BoxGroup, Ash Egan over at CommonAngels, Mike Falb at KEC. You have a lot of young people in venture capital now. I think my reasoning or the way I like to put it is that we grew up with technology. For the most part, we understand consumers that are around our age. It’s a target demographic that a lot of companies want to go after because our wallet’s only going to get bigger and bigger. Between those two factors, I think you’re going to see a lot more younger VCs getting into the game and hopefully, getting some good returns for investors as well.
I think I’m going to look back on this day and brag about being the first person to get to interview you on their podcast, because of the branding awareness that you have that’s so smart, where you talk about VCs like Brad Feld, for example, that have branded themselves. What are your plans to brand yourself? How does that help you get good deal flow?
It’s a great question. I think that the Brad Felds, the Mark Susters, the Fred Wilsons of the world, they have an ability to brand themselves because they’ve been around for so long and they’ve seen so much. Therefore, they’re really talking and speaking honestly about their experiences and their opinions, which really do matter because there’s some substance and background behind that because they’ve seen it and they’ve proved that what they’re talking about can be right. With younger VCs, positioning and branding is a very interesting thing. To me, what it means personally is two things.
Well Prepared Pitch Deck: It’s better to put something on paper and look back ten years from now and be right.
One, I like to share my story, my personal story and why I’m interested in certain verticals, how I look at certain verticals, how I try to look at certain companies, so on and so forth. On the other hand, I want to be able to share my story on how I got into venture capital because I think that’s a big thing and a big question that I get a lot as well. If I can, I guess, both A, add value and B, give people my opinion in the same way that the Susters and the Felds and the Wilsons of the world do. Whether it’s right or not, who knows? I’ll tell you what, it’s better to put something on paper and look back ten years from now and be right than not put it on paper at all and everyone just say, “Oh, yeah, I thought that too.”
Absolutely, you have to put it out what you think and feel at that moment. If it changes, that’s fine. You can’t be afraid to know what you stand for because that’s what branding is all about. You’ve shared your story of how you started at such a young age becoming an entrepreneur and leading into that. Is there any other details about how you got the job offer? Was it just strictly making introductions and then getting those connections and then they said, “We want to tap into you because you already have a good network”?
That’s a great question. I was living in Boston. If you ask Sumeet Shah at Brand Foundry, he’ll probably tell you that I was the only free venture capitalist, the only non-paid venture capitalist out there. The reason why is dating back to November of 2014, I started doing a consulting for startups. Prior to that, during what I would call my first failed startup, I had met a lot of venture capitalists. There’s a gap in Boston right now for some seed stage startups. A lot of that gap is in the consumer space. NextView Ventures and Dave Beisel and the guys over at Founder Collective like David Frankel, they do a great job investing in the consumer, but outside of that, there’s not a lot of seed funds that can do it.
I was making those introductions and then at the same time, as far as how I got in, I was adding value before I got in, but I was also maniacally focused about venture capital and startups. I read every single blog post, every single news source I could. I came up with my own opinions. I’ll tell you what, before I went into interviews, which, by the way, the interviews in venture capital are very, very basic conversations with these people. There’s not one size fits all.
Before I went into these interviews, I made spreadsheets on my computer of every single venture capital firm that I was about to go into, every portfolio company of theirs, which partner did it, when they funded them, how much funding they had, the background of the founders. I came up with my own thesis and my own opinion based on what was publicly available about those companies. God blessed me with somewhat of a photographic memory or good memory recall so I was able to pull up some of that in my meetings.
I think that’s one of the things we’re going to tweet out is, “Focus maniacally on what you want because that shows passion.”
[Tweet “Well Prepared Pitch Deck: Focus is the key to getting funded.”]
It does. Have you ever read the book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill?
Yes.
That is one of my favorite books in the world. In November, I was doing a lot of soul searching, candidly. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go into venture capital or work for another startup. Once I figured out that I wanted to get into venture capital, I said I was going to get a job by January 15th because I actually had to get a hip surgery later that month and I knew I was going to be out of commission. It’s like, “Look, go to work and say you will get a job in venture capital by January 15th,” and I said it every morning when I woke up and I said it every night when I went to bed. Luckily I did. It was great.
I love that. That’s the same passion and preparation that founders need to do before they go meet with an investor like you. It’s very complimentary and it shows you’ve done your homework, it shows you’re serious. For you, you did that to get a job. If someone’s pitching you to give them money, they need to do the same kind of focus, maniacal, read every blog post you’ve done. Like what I like to do before I get a guest on the show.
[Tweet “Well Prepared Pitch Deck: Read the investors’ blogs.”]
Totally agree.
Speaking of that, one of the things you wrote about is, while there’s long lead times, sometimes, or feedback loops, sometimes it’s a short one. You spend some time with somebody helping them with their pitch and their narrative. Please share with me that story and also what you look for in a pitch.
First off, I got started here at Corigin and it was David Goldberg and myself. One of the big things, like I said, is we like to add value to our companies. One of the ways that we like to add value is we like to help them go out and fundraiser, whether that’s to fill out the remaining part of the current round or to go raise series A. When I first got here, there was a portfolio company of ours, whose name I won’t mention, but they were in the FinTech space. The founders are brilliant. When I say brilliant, that is an understatement. They are two of the smartest people I’ve ever met in the world and their solution is pretty incredible.
Well Prepared Pitch Deck: It’s very difficult to tell the story and the narrative and sell it in the way that is most effective.
One of the things is, and I don’t care if it’s a founder in our portfolio or outside of our portfolio, being in the company day in and day out sometimes blurs your vision. It makes it very difficult to tell the story and the narrative and sell it in the way that is most effective for either A, raising capital or B, selling to a certain type of population. Investors are not the buyers of your traditional product. The way that you need to position your company is a little bit different. With this specific company, they came in my first day, we had gone through their pitch and then we went, “Look, let’s, candidly, we need to blow up this deck and we need to start from scratch.”
It starts, to me, by the way, the pitch deck creation starts with nothing but blank slides. Then you write a narrative across the top of each one of those slides and you work your way through that, talking about the problem, talking about the solution, what’s your unfair advantage, why you guys, how big is the market. You make all these pieces of the puzzle come together to tell one beautiful story and why you guys are going to win. I think that’s what gets people excited. I will tell you, though, I spent more hours probably working on that pitch deck and the storytelling and networking my first two weeks than I did sleeping or hanging out with any of my friends that are living here in New York City.
I think that’s so great for you to show how much preparation goes into a good pitch. The analogy I tell my clients is, “It’s like the Super Bowl of meetings. It’s your Olympic moment. You only have ten minutes but think about how much preparation athletes do before they go to a big game or a big Olympic moment. You need to do that same preparation and focus and honing.” Because people think, “Oh, I’ll just wing it. No practice. I don’t really have an easy to follow story line.” You’re never going to get funded.
Ever. I put it this way, a pitch deck will never get you funded but it will not get you a meeting. Meaning, if you make a terrible pitch deck and you send it to an investor, they’re not going to even have you in their office. If you make a really, really good pitch deck, it’s going to get you in their office, it’s going to help prepare your pitch actually better. For me, my opinion and putting those into blog posts, it helps me flush out my ideas. A pitch deck does that for founders and it does that for their pitch. I think that that’s a very good way of getting the process going in the right direction when meeting with VCs.
[Tweet “Well Prepared Pitch Deck: A bad pitch deck kills your chances of getting funded.”]
Let’s talk about the process. Let’s assume you get a warm introduction, because most of the investors that I’ve talk to, that’s their preferred way of meeting founders. Would that be true for you?
Yes, 100%.
You get a warm introduction, and do you like to see the pitch deck first or do you like to have a chat with the person and then have them present the pitch deck? Do you have a preference?
It depends on where the warm intro comes from. If it’s a very trusted source that knows what types of deals we like here at Corigin Ventures, I’ll take a meeting and I’ll look at things fresh as soon as the person walks in. The reason why I like to do that is we’re trying to analyze things on the spot as well. It brings up some interesting questions. I’ll speak personally, my brain starts to move very, very fast and I start to think about things that if I come up with those before the meeting, it’s a little bit different and it doesn’t flow, the conversation as well. If it’s just some good friends of mine that are introducing me to another friend of theirs, I may just take a look at the deck. If it makes sense, I’ll have a meeting. That’s definitely the first step, is getting that meeting.
How important is it for you that someone you invest in lives in the New York area? Or do you invest in people anywhere?
Not that important. We’re willing to invest in any company that has a presence in the United States. One of the other investments we made is in a company called ClassWallet and they’re down in Miami. We had a company portfolio from a Chicago called Stylisted. We had one in the westcoast called Vintana. To me, especially in this day and age, companies and investments can be anywhere but as long as you’re transparent and have an open-minded communication with them.
Great. The things that you are particularly passionate in is anything related to healthcare. I think Corigin is also interested in the Internet of Things, is that true?
Well Prepared Pitch Deck: The Internet of Things is a very interesting space in a variety of ways.
The Internet of Things is a very interesting space in a variety of ways too. One of the ways is healthcare, like you had mentioned. The Aging in Place Movement is a really interesting one where baby boomers are becoming seniors by the thousands right now on a daily basis, by the way.
I know.
It’s pretty crazy. I think that a lot of them, research shows that a lot of them want to stay at home and not go into assisted living facilities. With that comes a pretty high level of discomfort for the caregivers, meaning their sons and daughters and grandchildren. I think that the IoT is going to play a very major role in how those people remain at their homes and increasing the level of comfort for their caregivers. On another note, I also think that what people currently view as their daily routines or daily activities at their home are going to change completely for the masses because the IoT is really going to take over those daily routines, whether it’s like an Amazon Dash Button or a latch lock. It’s just going to get rid of the inconveniences of your life and just make it so much easier at home.
Nice. Let’s talk about one of your other blogs, which is all about this great word you made up, which is hilarious. Platformation, did I say it right?
Yeah. Was I too young to create a word?
No, why would you ever put that restriction on yourself? I’m sure it’s the first of many you will create. You’ll have your own dictionary, your own book. If I understood it right, it’s basically when you’ve created a platform that’s so successful that it then generates the ability for other people to create platforms, IE, Facebook has generated so many other spinoffs from it. Is that a pretty good definition?
You got it. I think that we’re going through an interesting time. The mobile phone has already received mass adoption. All these other companies and all these other new concepts have been built on top of the mobile phone or the smartphone, specifically, which was built as a platform to begin with. But then there are these other companies out there, like Uber or AirBnB, that were not specifically built as platforms but are now becoming platforms because they have reached such a scale.
For AirBnB, you have Smart Lock companies that are going after those user bases. You have property management companies that are going after only AirBnB owners. You have plenty of companies there. For Uber, you have companies that are trying to put the taxi TVs in the back of Ubers to increase revenue for the drivers. You have a portfolio company of ours called SherpaShare, which is literally just trying to service the drivers and help make them better with managing their finances and keeping track of all their mileage and usage and making themselves more productive and more efficient.
Let me just ask about that. That’s an incredible focus. Talk about a niche. It’s not just financial planning and keeping track of your finances for everybody’s taxes. This is strictly for somebody who is an Uber-like driver, is that accurate?
Yeah. Really, they’re going after 1099 workers as a whole. That is probably the strongest use case that they went after originally. I think that they were maniacally focused at going after those people. I think you get a lot of natural word of mouth marketing that goes around there. They see such a great value proposition that they become more likely to tell friends about it and then to eventually, if the market size gets large enough over time, the spending and the lead generation that may come through a platform like that, the possibilities are really endless for them. They’ve just created such a sticky product that it’s really incredible.
I love what you just said about that. This is what I’m constantly telling the people I work with on their pitch, which is, “Don’t try to cover everything that you could possibly do. Pick your lowest hanging fruit. Show the investor, like Jason, how are you going to make your money with one niche first, get that before you start talking about everybody else.” This applies to everybody who’s 1099, but we’re going to focus on Uber drivers or taxi drivers first, and then we can go into waiters and things like that.
It’s unbelievable. I think I’m a perfect example of somebody who was once a young entrepreneur that failed to focus. Every time I go in and I speak to college students at campuses across the country, the one theme that I actually speak about the most is the idea of being focused. The reason why is you can’t boil the ocean. If you come into our office, one of the biggest mistakes that …
What did you say? You can’t boil the ocean?
You can’t boil the ocean. It’s easier to boil a cup of water than it is to boil the ocean.
That’s such a great imagery. We’re going to tweet that out, “You can’t boil the ocean.” That’s fabulous.
[Tweet “Well Prepared Pitch Deck: You can’t boil the ocean.”]
The reason I say that is that, if you come into our office as a 24, 25 year old or 23 year old first time entrepreneur, there are plenty of advantages. One of the disadvantages that we see though time and time again is a lack of focus. If you come in and say that you want to go after two, three, four different target demographics, you want to be a B2C company and have a B2B side to your business. Our heads start to spin and it’s just a huge red flag for us. It’s a mistake that I think a lot of first time entrepreneurs make and then they realize, and that’s why their second venture is a lot more successful, because they know that they just need to absolutely dominate, saturate one market, take that business model that they’ve realized is A, working but B, scalable and repeatable, and then move out into other cities. I think the more I get to hang around incredible entrepreneurs, like Sam, the founder of Zeal, I get to see that because they expand on a city by city basis. He is very patient to put the pedal on the metal and go into that next city unless he knows he’s ready.
What I like to use the analogy is, people don’t remember this probably, but Amazon used to just sell books.
That is true. That was a long time ago, but that is very true.
Until they figured that out and mastered that, they didn’t start selling anything else. That’s my favorite example of focus. Jason, do you have any other advice you want to leave our listeners with? Any other books you want to mention or anything at all about giving a good pitch?
I’m definitely available for any specific questions that anybody has. Feel free to tweet me. You may put my Twitter out there, it’s @BoatShuman. Happy to answer questions. I really think that fundraising is very difficult. The media in movies like The Social Network and the TV shows like Silicon Valley, they make fundraising and entrepreneurship seem very easy. I think I want to tell people that startups are not easy and they’re not exactly a ton of fun. They’re a lot of hard work and it takes a very special human being to do a startup and it takes a very special human being and a very special type of business model to go get venture funding. Venture funding is not for everybody. I think just make sure you’re going into the fundraising process prepared. Focus on it, make it a full time job and continue to learn throughout the process and make iterations based on feedback. Hopefully, you’ll get there and we’ll see you be successful. Because at the end of the day, even if we pass on the deal, we’re all rooting for you.
That’s so great. I like what you said, “It takes a very special type of human being to be an entrepreneur, as well as an investor.” That’s certainly who you are, Jason. Thank you for being on the show.
Thank you very much. I appreciate you having me.
Links Mentioned
JRobinett Website
Selling Secrets For Funding
Corigin Ventures
Jeffrey Modell Foundation
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Platformation Today
Jason Shuman Twitter
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Author, Podcaster, & The Pitch Whisperer(TM) John Livesay
Posted by John Livesay in blog | 0 comments
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As a funding strategist, John Livesay helps Tech CEOs craft a compelling pitch that makes them irresistible to investors. He hosts The Successful Pitch podcast with investors from around the world. The media calls him The Pitch WhispererR John won salesperson of the year during his 20 year career at Conde Nast.
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TSP066 | Eitan Chitayat – Transcription
Posted by John Livesay in Uncategorized | 0 comments
John Livesay:
Welcome to The Successful Pitch. Today’s guest is Eitan Chitayat, who is the founder of natie.com, which is a ad agency that works not only with advertising, and website designs, and branding, but much bigger things than that. He had different clients from AMEX to now working with Facebook, and Google, and Apple. One of his clients is Valtech, which makes heart surgeries and they worked with them. All they had was a logo on a website to getting bought. It was the largest buyout ever: $929 million from having the clear focus and storytelling in place.
He talks about when you are truthful of who you are, your story is authentic and relevant, and people relate to that. He’s got an amazing video that went viral called, “I’m That Jew”, that he talks about, about not being afraid of who you are and putting it out there. He said, “You know, when you trust your team and you connect with your gut, you make the best decisions about who to have on your team.”
Are you a founder struggling with your investor pitch? Do you need warm introductions to the right investors to get your startup funded? Do you need a funding road map to get you there fast? All of this and more can be found in Crack the Funding Code. Join host, John Livesay and Judy Robinett, bestselling author of How to Be a Power Connector and board member of Illuminate Ventures, on their free Crack the Funding Code webinar. Simply go to judyrobinett.com – that’s J-U-D-Y-R-O-B-I-N-E-T-T dot com – and click on the webinar tab to see how to tap into their network of investors from around the world. There’s a link in the show notes as well. You’re only one click away from getting funded fast.
Hi, and welcome to The Successful Pitch Podcast. Today’s guest is Eitan Chitayat, who is the founder of a brilliant creative agency called natie.com. He’s worked for amazing companies and has clients that anybody would kill to have, including American Express. He’s going to talk to us about one of his clients, Valtech, that was just recently bought for over $900 million. So, clearly, he is an expert in branding and positioning. Welcome to the show.
Eitan:
Hey, it’s nice to be here. Thank you.
John:
I always like to ask my guests about their background. In other words, what were you like in college? Did you know that you wanted to get in and be in the creative world? Did you want to do something else or was it always about branding and advertising?
Eitan:
I was totally confused when I did my first degree. I actually started in political science as a major, and I minored in English lit. Then I flipped it, majoring in English lit and minoring in political science and I just really enjoyed that. Then I moved to Boston to do my master’s degree and that was in integrated communication marketing at Emerson College.
So, I’ve always kind of liked the communications field, but even that degree was more marketing, and it was only in my last semester that I actually, totally by accident, did a creative course in advertising and I kind of got the bug. As all of my friends were leaving college to get these high-paying jobs in marketing, I kind of sat in the computer library for six months and I put pictures with city headlines together and shopped a portfolio around and landed a job in advertising and branding as a copywriter. So, it wasn’t the plan but it kind of just happened and it was good that it did.
John:
It’s your own creative process. Well, you’ve worked with some of the major agencies: OgilvyOne, BBDO, TBWA, which used to be Chiat, and even working at Google’s creative lab.
Eitan:
Yeah.
John:
What was it like? What’d you learn at Google?
Eitan:
Google was interesting. I mean, I was there as a freelancer. They brought me over when I was in Israel and I worked there for a few months. The talent there is extraordinary and the amazing thing about the lab is — I also worked with a creative lab in London, but the amazing thing about the New York lab when I was there was that you have direct access to everything that Google is working on that they want to promote. They found a way under great creative leadership in the form of Andy Berndt and Robert Wong how to translate over that crazy technical stuff into things that people can actually feel.
It really is crazy technical, some of the things that they’re doing there, and to be able to translate it simply in their communications and in their branding was eye-opening. The teams that we worked with, some of them were really senior and some of them were really young. So, that mix and just being around it was great. I got to work on some incredible things and I’m just very lucky to have been there.
John:
Well, that’s one of the reasons – there are many – why we’re so excited to have you as a guest on the show because most of the listeners are somehow involved in technology and they have to somehow figure out a way to take all that tech speak and turn it into a very simple pitch for investors. That starts with figuring out a good tagline and figuring out a good logo and a good brand, which is what you’re an expert at.
Now, I also want to ask you about what made you decide to say, “You know what? I’ve worked for all these big agencies but I’m going to go out on my own now.”? I’m always fascinated by that decision and some of the challenges that you’ve faced that you weren’t expecting.
Eitan:
I think that I’ve always been a little bit of a troublemaker even when I was working at the bigger agencies and I’ve always had a pretty strong opinion. Even when I was working for some of the bigger agencies, I always had a little independent something going on the side. When I got back to Israel, I was the executive creative director of TBWA Digital here for around a year, and within that year, I realized this isn’t working for me. I’m not able to do the things that I want to do, and to be able to deliver the standard that I’m used to delivering, not because there was anything wrong with TBWA Digital. They were amazing. It’s more that I came from a different culture and an international background and it was more for the Israeli local market.
So, I decided to just quit and do my own thing and it wasn’t some type of revolution for me because I’ve always been entrepreneurially inclined. But, working on projects that really allowed me to do what I wanted to do and work with the people that I really wanted to work with without all the bureaucracy and ulterior motives which were very fair and fine, but they weren’t mine.
So, my team and the people that I worked with who are in my team now are, ultimately, people that I just connect with that strategically, creatively, and who kind of get what I want to bring out of whoever I work with in the form of a client. That is super important when you’re kind of creatively driven to be able to have the freedom and to work with the people that you can also give them freedom but they also give you back what would you want, as well, and what you need, and of course, working with the right clients too. So, the long answer is what I just said. The short answer is I wanted to do what I wanted to do, and that little nugget has always gotten me in trouble and now it’s kind of like working for me, which is great.
John:
It is. I want you to speak a little bit more if you will, because all of the founders, whether they’re just starting out and they only have a co-founder and maybe two or three people on their team, eventually want to get funded and grow their company, and you are an expert in finding the right people that fit your culture and your strategy. Can you speak a little bit about how you find the right people that are going to be a corporate fit for where your culture is?
Eitan:
I can answer that, minus one word, which is corporate because that’s the least thing I am but I think that you have to find people that you instinctively trust. I think that’s the most important thing. I mean, I can tell you that I’ve worked — the best relationships I’ve had and the once that I still have are the ones where you just connect at the gut level. Then, of course, there are the strategic partnerships, the ones where you might not be good at something and the other person fills that gap for you and you do the same thing for them. So, there’s that yin and yang thing going there.
Networking is huge. I think that one of the things that you really need to do if some of your audience is younger is to always stay in touch with everyone that you’ve ever met, in some way, shape, or form because you never know. I mean, there are people that I worked with 15 years ago who I’m still in touch with and you never know where they’re going to be and if you have a relationship with them and the stars align, then magic might happen. So, I think those type of relationships, just being in touch is a very good — staying in touch is a very, very important thing.
John:
Do you have a process for how you stay in touch with people? Is it through social media or something else?
Eitan:
Well, you know what? In the last 3 years, because I was in New York for a while and then when I left to come back to Israel, actually, Facebook allowed me to stay on the map, professionally speaking. You know, you write a status and, “Oh, he’s still around. He’s still on the radar.” So, that’s not the way that I stay in touch but, in the last few years, it’s definitely helped. I think I’ve always just stayed in touch with people. I think, being in communications outside of the profession, I’m just a communicative type of guy. So, just stay in touch with people.
John:
It’s part of your tagline for natie, so that makes complete sense. Since, you’ve mentioned Facebook, you’ve actually had Facebook as a client. Can you talk to us about what you learned there or about that culture and branding?
Eitan:
Yeah, well I mean, the stuff that I worked on with Facebook, which was out of the London Office, was more kind of — like Facebook has their own clients. They do advertising in-house for banks or food companies or what have you. So, we basically delivered a couple of ideas for Facebook for some of their clients to try and help them with presenting social media ideas for these clients on Facebook has a platform. That, in itself, was interesting because when we did it, which was a couple of years ago, that was new. That’s a new way of thinking. They’ve always said Facebook is not hiring an advertising agency, a corporate advertising agency. So, we brainstormed for them and we just partnered with them. It wasn’t a huge project, and then we did another thing or two. But, it’s great to be able to worked with Facebook, or Apple, or Google who we’ve worked with extensively as well.
John:
Well, I also want to ask you about one of the things on your website, which is Valtech and it — what an amazing case study in the story, but if you could, tell us about the importance of branding and I love what you talk about it in one of your interviews is strategy is only as good as the first step and the strategy that you had with Valtech and what you were able to do them and matching their design of their product to their complete logo is completely fascinating and, of course, what an amazing exit.
Eitan:
Yeah, that’s an amazing company. I mean, Valtech are doing some amazing things with heart surgery, basically, and when they came to us they had, I think, it was like eight or nine months ago, they had a logo and they had a website which was, by their own admission, stuck in the ’80s, and that’s why they came to us. They didn’t have much of a story and they knew that they needed to — they have incredible mind-blowing technology and you couldn’t get a sense of that from what you’re looking at in their presentation materials, and their websites, and animations that they’ve done.
So, the first thing that we did was we said, “Okay. Well, let’s find out what your story is,” and we had extensive, strategic, methodological meetings where we uncovered their truth, and we found out, basically, what makes them tick, and what is the product that they provide to the world, and how they intend to change the world, and who else is out there doing not the same thing, because no one was doing the same thing, but like similar things and how they differentiated from them.
So, we’ve uncovered the truth and then we were able to translate that truth into a story that separated them from the rest, was authentic and was relevant to their audience. After that strategy, we developed a consumer-facing or B to B facing or, medical industry facing narrative. Different verticals. Then, of course — we didn’t do much with logo, actually. That was the one thing that they kept. We evolved the whole brand, visually, from conference materials to brochures to a website.
The funny thing is, it’s a funny story but their exit was done when we were meant to have a website up for them around 6 weeks later, and then they called us up and they said “Listen”, without giving us any information, they said, “We can’t tell you why but we need to have this website ready in 10 days,” and it was a pretty big website. And we delivered and then like around a week later, of course, something that we guessed, that we hadn’t discussed, of course, but that they made a phenomenal exit of almost a billion dollars, which is the largest medical exit for an Israeli company ever and we were just really happy to have done everything for them and we’re still working with them on a pretty ongoing basis with all sorts of little things and big things.
They’re doing amazing things and it’s really nice to work with clients or companies that are doing things that really are changing the world, like their non-invasive heart surgery to be able to repair someone’s heart as it’s still beating is just incredible to work on. I get to work on great, great, great stuff and it’s so many different things. I mean, if you’re talking about startups, startups, basically, everyone has an idea and every one of these ideas has a potential to change, well, not everyone, but a lot of them have the potential to change the world. So, those are the things that we want to work on.
John:
Sure. Things that can inspire you and your creativity but then, you’re focusing on something creatively, that’s helping save lives. In this case, I love the fact you’re talking about Valtech being in heart surgery, and that you found the truth of their story and what makes them tick. I don’t know if you consciously did that or not, but I thought, “Oh, what a clever play on words about how our heart makes us tick.” It’s great.
Eitan:
Complete accident.
John:
This whole concept of storytelling is something I’m constantly working with my clients on when they pitch to get funded and in this case, you were able to craft the stories so well that it allowed Valtech to have an amazing exit. Is there any —
Eitan:
Well, I don’t know about that. I could swear I helped them but I think, maybe, we helped them in some way but we are just, I think, a very small — it’s not the brand that does it, you know what I mean? It’s the product and it’s the people and the brand can help but I don’t want to take anything away from them. I mean, we were just lucky to be there.
John:
Well, when I look at Apple buying Beats, I think a lot of the reason they bought Beats was the brand, what that stood for and how it fit their culture correctly.
Eitan:
Yeah. Yes, it’s true.
John:
So, what you did for Valtech was you made their brand distinct and you told a story that was authentic and relevant, you said, and that, to me, is what makes people want to invest, whether it’s an exit or giving initial funding, and that’s what’s so fantastic about what you do. Let’s talk about what you do with Entrepreneur Organization in Israel, EO Israel, since that’s another whole world of startups. You actually helped them with telling stories of, I saw, 8 people that you picked out of all their members. That is so important, I think, is when people hear one or two stories that they can relate to, then they can expand it beyond that, right?
Eitan:
Well, I mean, with Entrepreneur’s Organization Israel, I’m actually a founding chapter member and I was the communication chair for the first 2 years of the organization, and so I just took it upon myself to do all of the branding, and the website, and the video, and social media and all that good stuff. I think that it was important to allow our audience, or other potential entrepreneurs in Israel, to understand that being an entrepreneur, and I’m sure that you guys can relate to this and your audience and I certainly can because I’m an entrepreneur. It’s the loneliest job on the planet and you don’t have that big team. If you’re lucky, you do have someone to talk to but, usually, it’s just like at the end of the day and at the beginning of the day, and then in the middle of the day, it’s just you.
So, the organization allows you to get some support on a professional level, on a personal level, sometimes. As an entrepreneur, I’ve been working 14 hour days for 6 weeks now and haven’t seen my kids. Okay, that’s not a professional problem. That becomes a personal problem, a family problem. So, you have people that you can talk to about that. Or, I need to hire someone and I just have been trying for 6 months and I can’t find the right person. You can get shared experiences. That’s the whole point.
So, we did the branding but it came from within because I’m kind of like a chapter member and you know, again, it just was nice to kind of hit on the truth, knowing the truth, because the people that we — the entrepreneurs there are, ultimately, friends as well. So — yeah, I don’t know if that’s answering your question.
John:
No. It totally is — the fact that you’re a founding member, an entrepreneur and you can relate to it so well allows you to tell stories, again, that are completely authentic, and again, it’s changing the world because as you said – we’re going to tweet this out – that being an entrepreneur is the loneliest job on the planet. I love that quote. That’s a problem you’re solving with EO, correct?
Eitan:
Yeah, well I think the organization, it’s a global organization of almost, I think it’s around 11 thousand members and what they have done – and, again, I’m just a member – what they’ve done is they put entrepreneurs together to kind of support each other. It’s not like a support group. You support each other just because you’re like-minded people, you know? I think that’s really important when you — my agency is a core team of 4 or 5 people, and a couple of remote teams. That’s our structure.
So, if I want to make a big decision for my business, I can find and I know, obviously, a few people within the Israel chapter alone, who also have small teams but work with very, very, very big businesses. I mean, you can reach out to people in different countries who are part of the organization. When you fly to London, if you want, you can reach out to chapter members there and just say, “Hey, I’m an EO global member, what’s going on in London?” and 9 times out of 10, people reach out to you and say, “Hey, come and meet me.”
So, it’s also a networking organization too. They do some great things, also. They have big events that people from all around the world go to, universities, programs, seminars. It’s interesting and it’s all about entrepreneurship.
John:
Yes. Well, it almost reminds me of American Express with global offices, and you can always have a place, almost like a second embassy, if you’re traveling, and need a soft place to land, as I like to describe it. That’s a soft place to land for entrepreneurs who might be visiting other countries.
Eitan:
Yeah, I think I’ve heard really nice stories about people who have been there for complete strangers just because of this organization, this connection, this platform, whatever you want to call it. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s all about people. Yeah, it’s cool. I mean, if we’re talking about entrepreneurs and startups, and you’ve brought up storytelling, I think one of the most important things, really, is to get your story right and when it comes to branding, getting your story right has nothing to do, really, with creativity at its core. It’s about understanding who you are and what you’re doing, and then translating that into a narrative, and translating that into visuals and different mediums like animations and websites and stuff. But, the brand story is uncovering the truth of who you are, it’s like really knowing who you are and I like that.
John:
I do, too. Well, you’ve gone from using storytelling to help Valtech save lives with heart surgery to helping EO Israel help entrepreneurs with a place for shared resources to this amazing viral video that you’ve created to also help, not only yourself, but you’re telling a story and it’s certainly timely with all the terrorism going on, which is, I’m sure people have probably seen it, is “I’m that Jew”. Can you talk to us about, by now, how many people have watched this? Everyone’s always looking for, “How do I make something go viral?” but I don’t think that was your intent when you started.
Eitan:
Oh. Wow. Well, first of all, I’m shocked that you’re asking about it but that’s great. I mean, I’m happy to talk about it. Yeah, “I’m that Jew” was, I think, right now, with combined YouTube and Facebook, and all the different channels, we’re at around the 3 million view marks.
John:
Congrats.
Eitan:
Thanks, man. It’s been out like around 4 or 5 weeks, but it’s not the number, it’s the comments that have been the most moving. So, there’s like tens of thousands of comments and stuff like that. It started off as a blog post that I put out there, as a written narrative. After the Charlie Hebdo Massacres, some terrorists killed some Jewish shoppers at a kosher supermarket, I wrote this down, and then, in time, I just realized I want to present it as a visual story and it’s kind of meant to be a celebration of who we are.
So, it was written by me, a Jew, to my Jewish brothers and sisters, but also to anyone who shouldn’t be afraid, whether you’re black, or gay, or a woman, whatever, a man, be who you are and be proud of it. You should just be able to say it and hope that the people out there who are listening will embrace it. It’s okay to be different. We can embrace our differences. But I was saying it directly to the Jewish people for me, then actually, I was saying it to a woman who is living in France right after the time of those massacres and who was just afraid to say that she was Jewish. She’s a friend of mine.
So, I basically wrote it for her and then I produced it with some just really close-knit group of friends and colleagues, put it out there one night. I knew that people would spread it. I didn’t think that it would have this kind of impact. The response has been nothing short of — I’ve cried several times because some of the things that people write is just really moving.
John:
Well, I think it’s totally relevant to what we’re talking about, which is storytelling is understanding the truth of who you are and you were brave enough to put that story out there. You remind me of Liz Gilbert who wrote “Eat, Pray, Love”. She talks about how she wrote that book for one specific friend of hers who couldn’t travel because she had a husband and children. So, she filtered everything. And you created “I’m that Jew” for your one friend that was afraid to say she was Jewish. So, from that real specific audience and that intention, I think that is why things are so successful, whether it’s “I’m that Jew” or “Eat, Pray, Love”. The other thing that you touched on is really encouraging people not to be afraid and I read that that’s one of your key criterias of who you like to hire, creatively, is that they’re not afraid to take chances and risks. So, I think it’s full circle, right?
Eitan:
Yeah, that’s funny. I mean, not being afraid gets me into trouble, a lot of the time. I’m not talking about like putting stuff like “I’m that Jew” out there, I’m talking about just like, you can butt heads with clients and partners and colleagues, but I think you have to be who you are. You have to not be afraid to have faith in who you are and to trust your instincts and to put yourself out there because the right person who is opposite you, if it is the right person, will somehow be able to embrace that or take what you’re saying or be able to take you in another direction and take on your not being afraid and wrestle with it a bit and bring you over to their side too.
I think that it can get you in trouble, but it’s a quality that I look for. I have a designer that I worked with in Italy, and he challenges me all the time and we are constantly butting heads but in the most respectful way. The same thing with writers. My strategist, today, called me up and we – after meeting with the client – we were disagreeing, openly, in front of the client but it was all in the pursuit of what we think the client needs the most. It’s not easy to be honest in this world. Do you know what I mean?
John:
Yes, I do.
Eitan:
I hate this politically correct world.
John:
Well, that sort of leads me into my last question for you which is tell us about this 5% Club.
Eitan:
The 5% Club is a initiative that allows — it’s a platform, a social media platform, and it allows people to express what they’re really feeling. So, if 95% of your life is on autopilot, you go to work, you take the kids to school, you go and you have your standard lunch, you catch yourself thinking about something that you really wanted to say, that you really want to do one day, an experience that you went through that you haven’t really, maybe, talked about before. That’s the 5%.
So, “I’m that Jew”, that’s just one of my many 5%s. Someone recently wrote an article that we haven’t put out there yet about not finding the time in her life to reminisce on a beautiful year that has gone by with her family, so she takes the time, once a year, to go through her photo albums and put together an album. And, in doing that, she connect with that year that she had or someone will write about a custody battle that he had with his ex-wife, where the judge stood up in front of him and said, “You know, because you’re a male, because you’re a father –” he favored the mother and that really pissed the writer off and he wrote about it, and he actually won custody.
Things that really affect you and move you, the idea of the 5% Club is to be able to share that and pay that experience forward. It’s a small initiative. It’s a project that I hope will gain traction and we’re trying to gain subscribers and reach new writers, but you have to put meaningful shit down. Oh no. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that maybe you can delete that out.
John:
No. You can say that. That’s totally fine. No it’s —
Eitan:
Oh, god. I wish I would’ve known that at the beginning.
John:
You’re completely authentic. Yes. Well, we’re certainly going to put the 5% Club and all the other things that, you know, natie, in the show notes for people to check out your agency’s great branding site.
Eitan:
Thank you sir.
John:
“I’m that Jew”, we’ll put the link for that and, certainly, the 5% Club, so that people can really get a sense of if they want to contribute and spread the word. I think anytime you encourage people to tap into something that’s meaningful and pay it forward, we’re making the world a better place. We might not be saving lives like Valtech is, but, we’re doing it in our own way because we want to make our hearts strong physically, but also emotionally and spiritually, and you do that 360 better than almost anyone I’ve ever had the pleasure of talking to.
Eitan:
Wow. Thank you. I appreciate it.
John:
Yes. It’s been an honor. It’s been great having you on the show. I can’t thank you enough.
Eitan:
Wow. Thank you. Honor’s been mine. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.
John:
Thanks for listening to The Successful Pitch Podcast. If you liked the show, please go to iTunes and write a review, and encourage your friends to write reviews too. It really helps get the word out. You know, people say that the longest distance is between someone’s mouth and their wallet. People can tell you they’re going to invest but when it comes time to write the check, they don’t do it. So how do you get people to say yes and then follow through? Visualize yourself on the left side of a riverbank and you have to cross the river and on the other side of the river is where the funding happens.
So, first, you make up your idea and then you make it real and then you make it reoccur. Once you start dipping your toe into the water to get to funding, that’s where I can help. I get you across that river faster than you would on your own with a lot less frustration than you will get when you hear a bunch of no’s and you don’t know why. So, if you want some help getting funded faster with less frustration, go to my free funding webinar, sellingsecretsforfunding.com/webinar and sign up and get in depth information on how you can get funded fast. Thanks.