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00:00:01
Jake Levant
59 Plays4 months ago
We talk about going from Canada, to the Israel tech scene; starting in consumer apps and moving to enterprise.
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Transcript
Introduction to Jake Levant
00:00:01
Joe Waltman
All right, today we've got Jake Levant. Jake, thanks so much for making the time.
00:00:05
Jake
Super to be here, super to be reunited.
00:00:09
Joe Waltman
First question, two-parter, refresh
Early Career at ExxonMobil
00:00:12
Joe Waltman
your memories. What were you doing before in SEAD and what have you been up to for the last 21 years?
00:00:18
Jake
Holy smokes. Okay, I hope I don't ramble too much. I'm a Canadian born and bred and prior to INSEAD I had a pretty staid career starting off in big bad oil as it was known at
Transition to Tel Aviv High-Tech Scene
00:00:31
Jake
the time. It was ExxonMobil. I was doing some channel strategy and optimization.
00:00:36
Jake
and It was very big numbers and you know very brown clad offices with carpet on the walls It was a pretty safe place for a young guy with a little bit of mojo um so I had started there and then I Thought you know what there was calm and I wanted to try that so I made a career shift from Canada To where calm stuff was happening one is could go to the valley but I actually tasted what the Tel Aviv scene was like and so I I Join with all those skills a couple years of experience at ExxonMobil It seems like a perfect fit ah to join a high-tech company and I was starting to do product management in a high-tech company in Israel and I was just thinking this is not only the place for me but probably the temple that was the
00:01:22
Jake
The work that I did before, I really got turned off of some of the big industry stuff and the big company. And then I came and tasted the dynamic pace of you know startup culture.
Dot-Com Era Reflections
00:01:33
Jake
And somehow i with my North American experience in big company, I was seen as a valued asset. I guess I pulled the wool on that one.
00:01:43
Joe Waltman
And what what year would, would this have been that you moved from, from Canada to, to Israel to do the the tech stuff?
00:01:49
Jake
It was right around 2002.
00:01:53
Joe Waltman
Okay. Right before it's yet.
00:01:55
Jake
So I moved there from 2000 to 2002, right as things were peaking and ah yeah things were peak peakking and then subsequently crashing
00:01:59
Joe Waltman
Okay.
00:02:01
Joe Waltman
And crashing.
Choosing Business School in Israel
00:02:06
Jake
and I remember all the hype and all the excitement and the fact that I spoke well and I could have this brand name on my CV.
00:02:06
Joe Waltman
Yeah.
00:02:12
Jake
made me somewhat of a catch, which was really not real as we came to understand. um But I had a couple years of product management in a high tech company in Israel, and I was certainly enjoying it. But we forgot about the revenue and the monetization aspect as many other companies did.
00:02:29
Joe Waltman
So like many people, I assume, you myself included, I assume you're sort of a dot com refugee that decided to you know seek shelter in business school.
00:02:38
Jake
That's a great way of framing it. I mean, the opportunity cost here, there's the business repackage of that. The opportunity cost of going back to school was really about less than. And so I had a few ideas about, you know, maybe I should go back to the States or Canada and do B school there.
00:02:54
Jake
But I like the idea of building my career back in Israel because I did think that that has a strong ecosystem. So I wanted to stay local. And not necessarily in Israel, I wanted to be international.
00:03:06
Jake
I thought NCI had a great alumni network. And so that's what pointed me to to go to NCI over returning to New York or what have you for B-School.
Social Dynamics at INSEAD
00:03:15
Jake
And that was, I think, a
00:03:16
Joe Waltman
And unlike, you you know, Canada or maybe even more so the U.S., the INSEAD was a known thing in Israel. Right. It was, it had, it had some, it was respected. It was.
00:03:23
Jake
Right, right. and There was also the idea of, I'm going to go back and, you know, at the time I was already married and, you know, just to note, we had a ah kid in Fontainebleau, so we were already starting young with our family.
00:03:30
Joe Waltman
Oh, wow.
00:03:34
Jake
like So we were not, if we were going to go and plant in some place for two years in America, it would be hard to do another transportation and relocation back to Israel. So the idea was, let's do this. It's going to give us probably the educational stripe and badges that we would want and also the network that's highly relevant back in Israel and for that chance of relocating. And yes, it was well known, but so too were many of the brand-name schools in America. But not only the the cost, but also the network and the time was very important for us for our stage of life.
Building a Career in Israeli High-Tech
00:04:10
Joe Waltman
Gotcha. Gotcha. and you I've got a question because i've i' ah we didn't know that each other very well. didn yet i think I think I know why, because there were there were two yeah there are many ways to to sort of slice and dice the social dynamics. One of them was single people and married people. ah And you know the the the two groups didn't didn't mingle very often.
00:04:32
Jake
So I think that that's true. um I mean, but not as a bad time was early, but we managed to have fun. But when I had a built-in play partner, she had to hang out with me. So I kind of ah dragged her with me. And it so I think that that was a strategic move because I'm not sure if I would have been the coolest cat at the party, but it was really fun.
00:04:51
Jake
to go with the friend already and so we built her network together and what was actually great about it was i had my own circles and she had her circles and when we had overlap it was double the fun so you're right there was a little bit of a different tempo so not every party was uh suitable or for us but i certainly had someone to go and hang out and we did trips together and that was a lot of fun
00:05:11
Joe Waltman
Yeah, I can remember hearing about these great trips that partners would take to Paris and whatnot. It was it was somewhat somewhat jealous of of all the things they saw that you know some of us didn't. Anyhow, but let's move on. ah We're now ah finishing up in Seattle. Let's get into what's been up for the what you've been up here for the last 20 years.
Brand Marketing at Procter & Gamble
00:05:28
Jake
Yeah, so I think that the strategy was to find a way to build a proper career in Israel. And I think that that was um a whole bunch of lessons about I'm not necessarily a big company person. I'm pretty feisty. I like the international markets. I use my language and commercial skills to go back into the the primary markets. But there's a lot of technology coming out of Israel that I thought was um underrepresented and so my goal was to get one day get back into Israel but to continue on that path of taking international um technology or companies internationally. When I graduated I think the tech market was still fairly soft um and so I was just trying to find a way to get me back there and lo and behold it was a time of proctoring gamble was just localizing so I thought you know I'm a marketing guy
00:06:17
Jake
And here's a pretty substantial company, but I get to be on the cutting edge of an international company, but in a fast paced market where there's a land grab. So i I thought that that had some of the elements of it that I was looking for.
00:06:29
Jake
I was looking for the tempo, which I was going to get. I didn't necessarily want the overhead of a big company, but I was going to get it in a brand new developing market where they were just saying that there's enough growth in GDP and consumption that we need people here to to help build that.
00:06:43
Jake
And so that
From FMCG to High-Tech Sales
00:06:44
Jake
was really, ah yeah.
00:06:44
Joe Waltman
so had had Sorry, I'm going to interrupt you throughout this conversation. I apologize in advance. but So Pete Proctor and Gamble didn't have a presence in Israel before this?
00:06:53
Jake
So they had what it was often is through distributors. And so at the time they were vocalizing and bringing in marketing talent and other, they were putting it down.
00:06:57
Joe Waltman
OK.
00:07:02
Jake
Generally these things were run regionally, but because of the profit opportunity of localizing, they started putting more and more attention there. So it was a faster land grab in the FMCG space that was not common.
00:07:14
Jake
Most markets are going three, five, 8%. And so the fact that they were bringing brand names is The economic buying power and the brand savvy of the Israelis was so aggressive that they thought there's a market here and so they started vocalizing.
00:07:26
Joe Waltman
Yeah.
00:07:28
Jake
And so that's I enjoyed that and I took ah a traditional brand marketing path there. I was there for about four years. um And then I think that that was a great um ah great time for me. I certainly planted my family by that time we had a couple of kids in Israel. And so we were establishing ourselves as this is our new home. How do we manage without you know any other family support? We build our own friend structure. And then you know as a career progression, I thought this is good. But the nature of proctoring animals, then you go abroad again. And then you could go back to Geneva or you go to Cincinnati.
00:08:03
Jake
And I think, you know, just like before, that just wasn't the strategic path. And moreover, I thought that FMCG, that wasn't necessarily a strategic choice. That was a temporal choice of, yeah, I want to be in a fast moving place because it had localized. That was a great move.
00:08:19
Jake
But where is the engine of this economy? And it's in high-tech. And so that's where I started looking for ah opportunities to move into international sales and represent and build businesses using ah both the ExxonMobil, big corporate, and some of the structures that I had done at P and&G and some of the tools in my
Marketing at Fring
00:08:37
Jake
connections. And I started moving into high-tech from there. So I went into several companies. I think those were great long stints. I think it was at P and&G for almost five years.
00:08:45
Jake
Which um for a guy who's got a lot of attention and issues, that was a big win for me. But thereafter, um you know, I think that the pace of high tech is get in, see if you can make a big impact and and and then move forward. So I did that several times. um Into technology companies, some in the financial services space, I had a great, great move.
00:09:07
Jake
into one of the early voiceover IP apps that was really feisty. Really feisty. It was like an aggregator play. This predates even the the app store. It was called Fring, which was an aggregator. of You can plug in your Skype and you can plug in your AOL and all these ah over different things.
00:09:26
Jake
And then we would have, you know, long distance calls. It was a very aggressive thing. I remember doing tens of millions of dollars of revenue in a non-app store environment, which I thought was, you know, that was pretty aggressive. I even remember getting to a legal scuffle with Skype.
00:09:39
Jake
So those were really fun early days of, um you know, we'll call it the chutzpah of Israeli technology and not just the technology, but you have these technologists.
00:09:47
Joe Waltman
Yeah.
00:09:50
Jake
But then we were also able to bring that to the commercial layer if it was the positioning, the marketing and the sales. so you know that was ah an exciting b to c play that we worked on um and then
00:10:00
Joe Waltman
yeah And and was this was this helping foreign tech companies enter the Israeli market, or these were native Israeli tech companies, and you you were helping them sell outside of Israel, or or sell period?
00:10:11
Jake
all israeli I think all Israeli tech companies selling international, all that.
00:10:14
Joe Waltman
Hmm.
00:10:17
Jake
That's a you know common thread. mean The local market is so small here. It can it has a high GDP per capita, but no one builds a business for this market.
00:10:23
Joe Waltman
Yeah. yeah
00:10:28
Jake
You build it for the North American, the European, or Asian market.
Entering the FinTech Arena
00:10:31
Jake
obviously my my sensitivities, my cultural sensitivities, and my skill set are really international and that's the value add that I would bring to a technology team and that's so that's the theme continually so that was a building a pre app store revenue aggressive app which was super fun you know in the days of partnerships with
00:10:54
Joe Waltman
So this must have been again, i sorry, again for that this must have been right after Procter and Gamble because I believe the app store was like 0708 ish, right? Or am I misremembering things?
00:11:04
Jake
So the app store was coming. so if i mean I think it was 2010. I have to look at that. But I'm just actually skimming right now.
00:11:10
Joe Waltman
All right.
00:11:13
Jake
These dates, I was in involved in the company from 2009. So it must have been 2010. It was a lot of beta users and sharing APKs.
00:11:24
Jake
And it was a very rough way. And then we had to have a PayPal. um a you know kit inside in order to get paid. And when then we had the whole discussion with the App Store about taking their tax.
00:11:37
Jake
It was a huge amount of tax.
00:11:39
Joe Waltman
Sure.
00:11:39
Jake
and was it So all those things. It was interesting. And that we had you know our usage base in one country and our paying base in another country. Lots of interesting things before the infrastructure.
00:11:48
Joe Waltman
yeah
00:11:49
Jake
The App Store was really well-developed. And we were like, oh, the Nokia push that they were we were pre-embedded on phones. So there's a lot of interesting ecosystem things there in the mobile. environment. It wasn't necessarily Mekong, but it was a great place to be an aggressive marketer.
00:12:06
Joe Waltman
I have a little bit of experience with this from a previous life. And yeah, yeah weve we quickly forget how different all the hardware was too back then. You had you know smaller screens, different button sets, different just dumb crap like that that would make it really challenging to develop across you know um almost an infinite you know matrix of of of devices.
00:12:26
Joe Waltman
you know
00:12:27
Jake
There were so many new operating systems that kept on saying, well, we're going to take them down there, take them down.
00:12:30
Joe Waltman
Yeah.
00:12:32
Jake
And then they would go to the top, um, downloaded apps and they would try and do deals with us in our, these lean, mean machines. Like we've got, you know, a kid on Android and we got a kid on, you know, iOS and then ah come on Nokia, we'll pre-install you.
00:12:46
Jake
Come on blackberry. We're not dead yet. Like. there's all these microsoft operating things So remember all these conversations and we were here we are trying to you know make a huge land grab. We had tens of millions of users and made tens of millions of dollars which was unheard of. um you know The exit of that was not as exciting as you might have wanted. It ended up we probably missed our Mr. RQ is to when to get out, but okay, those things happen. That was lessons learned. And I think that from actually from now that I spun into something that was myself about monetization and trying to think I could do better. So I played a little bit in the affiliate space with his social affiliate idea. um And that was like a more of an entrepreneurial venture. So really went into, yeah, I can monetize these things. And I'm pretty good at monetizing the traffic.
00:13:34
Jake
um I think that from there, you know the ecosystem here, I'm not sure where it is elsewhere, it became more and more difficult to do B2C plays. And so my attention went to business to business. I think that what I was seeing is my skillset could be repurposed for higher ticket deals.
00:13:52
Jake
and So we got involved in business to business in the financial sector, being auxiliary services to the financial sector. So we got involved in building companies in there, always in the commercial team, always leading either the sales or the marketing and building those teams, always with Israeli technologists, but towards international market, particularly US and UK.
00:14:18
Jake
And I think that that's probably the reputation of what Israel is good for, i mean especially cyber tech or what have you, but it was much more in the fintech area. So I've been spending a lot of my time in the last six or so years have been in that arena.
Modernizing Financial Transactions with Letica
00:14:33
Joe Waltman
So from from consumer apps to to to FinTech, B2BE kinds of things, ah always on the go-to-market, sales side interesting.
00:14:39
Jake
Yeah.
00:14:43
Joe Waltman
Can you talk a little bit more about some of these these FinTech companies you're working for?
00:14:47
Jake
Sure. Um, so it was very early into a company called Letica, which basically they, if you're a consumer facing, um, then there's endless documentation that has to support compliance for, for any transaction, financial track transaction. So the idea would be to put documentation signatures, ID verification, the whole kit and caboodle into, uh, a bank.
00:15:12
Jake
environment such that they could deliver direct to a mobile phone for the end user. So they don't care why you have are making me come into the bank branch. A consumer doesn't care that. So how do you equip a bank to get into the modern world by giving them a tool set that's both compliant, secure, all these different aspects, and then you can deal with the paperwork. And if you imagine the boost that that company had during Corona where branches were shut down,
00:15:40
Jake
or even if you have telephone centers that have to call, you can get voice authorization to do a different transaction. So putting all that into the convenience of a text message or WhatsApp, or just um so really taking those heavy paperwork processes and making them consumer-esque, that's the value out of the company.
00:15:51
Joe Waltman
i see I see, okay.
00:16:00
Jake
um And so thank God that company continues to build strong with you know a great list of customers and those are really enterprise customers if you can think about you know what it's like to if you issue a loan um you always need signatures and you need how it done in the olden days someone would call you on the phone and hopefully the voice record that and they would call you back if you didn't get it right if they didn't hear the yes never read out the terms and conditions so a lot of financial transactions would be done in the You know, it really comes away.
Innovation in Financial Services
00:16:31
Jake
So this company was it's not the financial product, but it's selling into the financial ah environment by offering, you know, easier workflows for the bank, better compliance and a better user experience.
00:16:43
Jake
It cuts the cost of service. um So that's, you know, that is go ahead.
00:16:47
Joe Waltman
Yeah, I mean, I mean, interesting in in in the sense that boring stuff can be very interesting, you know, that then there's there's a there's a clear need for that.
00:16:55
Jake
Interesting in that the sense that consumer expectations um can be repackaged. It's something we expect from every conversation. But when you go into regulated environments, it seems so difficult to deliver that.
00:17:04
Joe Waltman
Yeah.
00:17:08
Jake
And so thankfully, there was a tech team that could uphold the standards of the most regulated you know environment in America. and so yet still deliver the consumer-friendly interface that you and I expect when we're talking to our girlfriends. Also, when I talk to my bank, why can't it be that easy?
Retraining Immigrants for High-Tech
00:17:27
Jake
Why i have to factor, come to a branch or you know all these different things? that seems Can you bring some of those into that traditional environment? so Maybe it's good that I grew up in an ExxonMobil because I'm familiar with
00:17:39
Jake
you know paperwork and regulation and I then I became a little bit more aggressive in the you know working in a high-tech environment I can try and see the delta and try and and bring the commercial teams towards addressing those needs.
00:17:53
Joe Waltman
Gotcha.
00:17:56
Jake
One of the things that I've been doing a lot is beyond Beyond the profession, actually, what's interesting is that I've seen so much opportunity. I'll just note this because it's been one of the the projects that is most interesting for me. I've been building commercial teams in Israel for, what, almost 20 years. And not always success, i might more than my fair share of failures, but this is an immigrant country where people are coming back for different reasons.
00:18:24
Jake
And so I built an organization that actually helps retrain immigrants to get into the job market. And this is beyond the professional scope, but it's really been a passion project that's taking so much of my time. And it's such a win is that when people come from abroad and then they've got to find their way.
00:18:44
Jake
And some of them have to reinvent themselves. For whatever reason, they're moving countries. So they may be 20 years old, or they may be 50 or 60 years old, and they need to keep on earning. So just to help them retool and then get back into the workforce. So actually developed a pretty successful um program, boot camp, to get people working in high-tech sales. So we've done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of immigrants. And the results have been outstanding, just because you know you don't make native English speakers here in Israel.
00:19:14
Jake
So when immigrants come, they may be a teacher or a lawyer or what have you, but they need to replant and find a new profession. And I mean, I don't know if you don't speak the language. And in Israel, they expect you to speak you know Hebrew if you're going to be a lawyer here. But if you come with an English skill set, there's a market that needs to sell abroad. And so if you have the English language,
00:19:34
Jake
Then how do we reskill you quickly and get you to be a productive member of society? And so it just happens to be my experience. I lucked into this 20 years ago that I came here and I grew up selling and you know building marketing teams that work abroad. So put together a program that time and again helps new immigrants to the country, use their language, their communication, their savvy and sell from Israel to those abroad markets and that's helping the ecosystem. It's one of the most rewarding things to do because you see people who are just really finding themselves at a
00:20:09
Jake
and at a corner. And it's not always for good that they think, oh, I've made some good decisions to come back to my homeland or what have you. And they brought their family, but the professional things have to to work as well.
00:20:20
Jake
And so they have to reinvent themselves.
Success Stories of Retrained Immigrants
00:20:22
Jake
And so I've seen miracle after miracle of people who are, you know, really different skill sets.
00:20:24
Joe Waltman
Hmm.
00:20:26
Jake
I've seen 60 year olds, you know, be the best salespeople after going through a training program because, yeah, they can talk to executives. They've they've been doing this they are experienced and so they can you know put a ah little shine on it they know the problems and then we put them out into the market and they find their work and they're doing incredible work selling back into their native countries for israeli tech companies similar to what i started doing 20 years ago it's been the most rewarding project
00:20:55
Joe Waltman
That's fascinating. now Is this a for-profit thing or is this sort of ah a side project, ah you know?
00:21:00
Jake
Yeah, it'ss it's just it's a side project and unfortunately, for the most part, it's been ah um it's been a profit-taking thing. It's just taken for taking some. So thankfully, some of the other sources, and the you know we've been fortunate to partner now in the later years with some um semi-governmental organizations to help immigrants find their way so they give some stipends for success and so the numbers are incredible um and even in a tougher tech market like today the numbers still are incredible and one of the things I can attribute it to is okay yeah the program is good I don't think it's you know that I think that the people are motivated and what you see is just this awakening of
00:21:41
Jake
ah Do I want to work again? Do I want to push an extra hour in my day? But you see people who are come with high motivation, they've changed their lives, and then they're getting a second chance to build a career and their for evolving their dreams to move to a new country. And so it's inspiring to see people um you know take this skill set of this the the gift for the gab, basic empathy, communication, fine tune with a little sales talent, and then get back out there and start representing some of the greatest technology companies in the world.
00:22:11
Jake
and selling million-dollar deals. it's It's actually an inspiration um and so I'm fortunate to meet.
00:22:16
Joe Waltman
Well, it's the cliche of you know teaching how to fish instead of giving a fish.
Impact of Retraining During COVID-19
00:22:21
Joe Waltman
When did you start this? and like How many people have gone through it to today?
00:22:24
Jake
So that yeah that started in Corona, and it actually started when my kids were on Zoom. And I was at this company that did digital documentation, then we were hiring abroad. And I thought, well, I got people here who've lost their jobs because their restaurants have shut.
00:22:41
Jake
It just doesn't make sense. And so my friends are out of work and I'm hiring like crazy abroad and I can't see them. I can't be with them. And so why don't I merge these two things? So I grabbed some friends. I said, you're teaching, you know that you're teaching that we're doing that on zoom. And so we just put together this program and we are coming into the 18th batch of this over the last four years. I think we've done.
00:23:02
Jake
450 people and a placement rate of, you know, almost two thirds of people changed their lives.
00:23:04
Joe Waltman
Wow.
00:23:08
Jake
I mean, so I say that because it's like one of these things that you take for granted that, oh, anyone can get a job. Well, these people just needed a chance. And it is tough.
00:23:18
Jake
And it's inspiring to see um that with a little bit of top spin people can in a huge amount of motivation i've seen so many miracles and that's probably been the most interesting thing i think there's lots of other stories i mean i can talk about you know i have some interest in different you know crypto the boom and the bust and we can talk about those things but i would say over it over the last few years this has been one of the steady things so if i Please God, I'm making successful businesses in other parts of my life. I do have this, maybe one V somewhere else that i I keep on looking at. And I have met incredible people now who are half my age who are you know changing their lives around. So I think that's a nice component of being here in aid.
00:24:01
Jake
um a nice ecosystem. It's not too big, it's not too big, you know, but it is fast growing and we can see how they do need people who who are, you know, internationally minded to help commercialize this and if people are motivated then they certainly can be successful.
00:24:04
Joe Waltman
Mm hmm.
00:24:16
Joe Waltman
That's, that's, that's incredible. It's a great story. It really, ah you know, you're, you're, you're truly, you know, giving back. Um, that, that, uh, you know, maybe a good segue for the, the, the wrap up question of, uh, is there anything that, um, either we can do to help, help you, you know, either either professionally or personally, or vice versa, or there's anything that you might be able to do to help the community.
Future of Retraining Programs
00:24:38
Jake
Yeah, it's a great ah question. um And i I heard it in the other, and I was thinking, what can I do? So firstly, I would say, probably pretty familiar with a lot of the FinTech opportunities here. So if someone has interested, I mean, I'm happy to just have a schmoons about that as they say a chit chat. No promises about what can do, but I do have great history here in exposure. So that might be helpful for somebody.
00:25:03
Jake
Um, and I think professionally, thank God I'm, you know, able to commercialize a lot of things, but maybe it's the retraining thing that I would say that, um, I think it's a model that's interesting. And, you know, I was thinking about maybe it might work another.
00:25:18
Jake
communities.
00:25:18
Joe Waltman
Yeah.
00:25:20
Jake
And there's a lot to that. So it's not just something that happens overnight, you know, um but it's somewhat of a governmental project, but it has to be run. I've seen it.
00:25:30
Jake
We've repeated it endlessly. But I would say that that if you someone has the will and the way to make some introductions, and it's a model that can work in other markets as well. you know, we're internationally selling them in conversations with a few other countries who've seen what we've done there.
00:25:45
Jake
And it might be interesting for someone else. So that might be a point of help. I'm happy to guide and be involved it in some way, not necessarily have the bandwidth to to manage it as well, but I have happy to expand that model to another area, another country that wants to integrate and build a international workforce from their own home country selling abroad.
00:26:04
Joe Waltman
Yeah, maybe there's this like, you're, you're, uh, you're franchising these, uh, these, these, you know, train training programs.
00:26:11
Jake
I want to franchise the losses, not just the profits. That's what you get when you open a zero profit business.
00:26:20
Joe Waltman
Yeah. ah Scale that out. Uh, Jake, thank you. Thanks so much for, uh, for your time. It was really interesting and and great great to catch up.
00:26:27
Jake
Joe, great to see you.