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Being a founder, let alone a CEO, can be a very lonely place, very stressful and demanding constant peak performance. This often makes it difficult to find a work-life balance. Maintaining strong relationships with co-founders and investors is also not an easy task, where clarity and empathy are not always present. As one of my entrepreneurs says, “We’re not facing a technological challenge, we’re facing a mental one.”
“In my +15 years as a professional, I have always been drawn to the intersection of business and psychology through entrepreneurship – What makes people excited? How do people think and act? And what motivates people in business? What drives me is being there for the amazing entrepreneurs who are under constant pressure to be able to make our world a better place. That’s what I’m here for and that’s my podcast – The Human Founder.”
ep. 86 – With Gal Gitter, Partner and Managing Director at Ibex Investors
Adapting to change
Gal’s childhood was full of moving back and forth from Israel to the US – “Change was a constant thing for me, for better and for worse, and it taught me to adapt very quickly.”
The most important part he had to figure out very quickly was the culture of each place he moved to – what does it mean to be a good student there? good friend? How do people behave towards each other? and how do i sign up?
This skill was developed in him from a very early age as he learned the importance of balancing listening and adapting to his environment and staying true to himself in all of this. It’s easy to get lost in the heat of trying to get people to like you, so much so that if you don’t know what’s important to you, you can lose yourself. We need to be aware of the strong pull that our environment has on us, because it always will, and ask ourselves – what parts of our environment do we want to accept and what parts do we want to leave behind.
The same goes for startups—as founders and CEOs, Gall explained, you always need to make sure you’re listening to your investors, for example, but also know what to push for to preserve the essence of what makes you passionate about your startup and not to give up and give up on it. As Gall said, there is no right or wrong answer, but awareness should always be present as part of our decision-making – “After all, that’s why investors chose you.”
The importance of diversity in startups
Working in Israel is something relatively new for Gal. He shared that one of the things he loves about working in the US is their commitment to diversity, something that is not yet as strong in Israel. He had the opportunity to meet with the amazing organization Tech Career, which focuses on helping high-potential Ethiopian youth by training them for entry-level roles in technology and placing them in good companies.
Gal shared, “We learned through the process of engaging with them how much unconscious bias there is in the ecosystem here against anyone who doesn’t exactly fit the mold of what a tech employee is here in Israel.”
There are many misunderstandings that happen due to cultural differences that we are not aware of, such as in job interviews where often interviewees will look down at their shoes as a sign of respect for the interviewer, but if you are not aware of this, it can be perceived as a sign of insecurity. These cultural biases happen here all the time, blocking many truly talented people from realizing their potential, which is something that ultimately hurts the ecosystem as a whole.
This is also a struggle for many Israeli startups going to market in different parts of the world – they are not familiar enough with the culture and market they want to work with, and this can be very detrimental in the end – we need to we keep our minds open to new ways of doing things.
As the founder’s first call
“One of the things we try to achieve and pride ourselves on when it happens is being the founder’s first call. Whether it is a professional or even a personal issue.
The difficulty with this, he shared, is that they as investors have to prove on a daily basis that they are here for them, really put in the work and be available and reliable every time.
Many times founders will call for advice on something and the first response from them as investors will be – “I don’t know. But here are a few things I’d think about if I were you.”It’s about being with them in the fight, with all your experience and knowledge, but not acting like you know better than they do what needs to be done to do with their own startup.
Gall explained, “We have a lot of experience and experts, but still every company is unique and every situation is unique.” What’s most frustrating for him is seeing investors automatically give fixed answers based on their own experience, which is valuable, but should only be seen as one input – “If you want to be useful to the CEOs, you have to put in the work. You have to get to the problem and think about it with them, listening and asking questions rather than giving answers.
Finally, Gall concluded – “When we work with CEOs and teams, we have to remember that they are people – they are parents, partners and friends before they become CEOs, CTOs… If they are not in a good personal place, they will never be in a good place professionally.”
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