Afternoon Tea in Jerusalem Blog

In addition to my work as a business coach, one of my interests is blogging about life in Israel. This is a country full of contrasts – over eight million citizens living in an area the size of Wales. You can see snow and the lowest place on the globe in the same day. Although surrounded by geopolitical extremes, Israel has achieved a decade of high economic growth. My work brings me in contact with an array of new companies, exciting technologies and dynamic characters. Sitting back with a relaxing cup of strong tea (with milk), you realise just how much there is to appreciate in the Holyland. Large or small operations, private sector or non profit, my clients provide experiences from which others can learn and benefit.

Earlier this week, I attended a meet up session in London, whereby ten Israeli start-ups pitched to an audience of potential investors, capital funds and strategists. Hosted by a Tier 1 financial services company, surely, this was a special opportunity for the visitors to link up with international players?

I had expected a crisp set of presentations. Depending on the type of company, each one was allowed between three and ten minutes to excite the audience. The unhidden rules were:

  1. Look the part. Dress accordingly. Most of the audience were attired in “City of London” suits or equivalent.
  2. Know your lines. Each spokesperson was expected to be word perfect, as on the opening night of a play in London.
  3. Have an effective powerpoint presentation, not overburdened by unnecessary wording
  4. Have 7-8 key slides.
    • A dummied-down one liner of what you do
    • The reason you have created the start up – the pain in the market place
    • How you are doing it – What is unique / clever, and the validation
    • The specific market size
    • The business model, and the validation
    • Who is the team, and why are they special
    • What you are looking for and why
    • Next steps

To cut to the chase, in my book, nobody scored more than a B+ for their efforts. I was astounded as to the low standard on show. The issues seem to repeat themselves, speaker after speaker – dressed for an outing with the kids, insufficiently rehearsed lines, awful graphics, meaningless slides, etc, etc, etc.

I was left asking myself the following question. If these people had paid good money for these meetings, in addition to their flight and travelling costs, why had they not invested a fraction extra in themselves?

With some ironic timing, also this week I came across an article surmising What The Best Mentors Do. Itemising four points, the author referred to:

  • Put the relationship before the mentorship.
  • Shout loudly with your optimism, and keep quiet with your cynicism. 
  • Focus on character rather than competency.
  • Be more loyal to your mentee than you are to your company.

As a business coach and mentor with many clients in the Jerusalem region, I fully concur. And I began to wonder why those ten Israeli companies had not reached out to mentors when preparing for their trip to London. If I or a colleague had been working with them, we would have applied the aspects of the four principles, which would have resulted in many of the faults being locked away from the view of the audience.

For example? Take the issue of loyalty. I would have asked what they are prepared to do to secure a deal? What do they need to change? And I would have raised these challenges by giving examples of my own work.

After the presentations, the audience were given significant opportunity to engage with the companies on a one-to-one basis. Clearly, several left a positive impression. Hopefully, commercial opportunities will follow on from this first round.

And yet, I along with others felt that this was an expensive and wasted opportunity for some. And the concern was that for lack of investment in some practical external resources like mentoring, this miss would be repeated in the future.

1 comments

  1. Why do many start-ups commit suicide? Here in Jerusalem at Jerusalem Business Networking Forum JBNF.org we see so many great potential startups that constantly refuse to adapt themselves to presenting what investors want to hear. A business mentor is like a mirror. Who goes out to an important meeting without checking in the mirror if everything looks right? In a flash, the mirror will show what is wrong in your dress. A good business mentor can identity the shortcomings of a startup and work to create a winning presentation, saving months and years of Sisyphean efforts to attract investors.

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