Aviram Eisenberg, Ignite Ltd

Why war is a proper time to launch your own startup?

StartupDnepr, Dnipropetrovsk 2014

Are you Crazy?

“A lot of people ask me if I am crazy?““You are living in Ukraine? In these times???”

Well, I live in Israel, we are kinda used to state of war…

I am just replacing this:

With this:

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The First Time I Came to Ukraine…

8 Years ago I came to Ukraine for the first time…

I put on a nice suit (so I thought) and went shopping for a good development partner

Everybody was talking with me about the IT Industry (and I thought this “High-Tech” with Russian accent)

IT = Selling Development Services High-Tech = Selling Developed Products

How do we turn the Ukrainian IT industry to High-Tech? (and actually become a startup nation)

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About Me

Father of 3 wonderful children

High-Tech professional for the last 30 years

- computer geek in my teenage days

- platoon commander in the Army Intelligence (computer related)

- computer Science Graduate from the Technion

- chief Architect at Mind CTI

- founder and CEO Of Ignite – a global IT company

- chairman of the Israeli R&D Managers forum

Lives in Kiev (Ukraine is my second home!)

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Country History

66 years

22,072 km2

23 years

603,628 km2

Territory

Age

Population

8,14 mln 44,29 mln

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Israel – the land of the entrepreneurial spirit

Wars

10 wars (every 5-10 years)

1947-1949, 1956, 1967, 1967-1970, 1973, 1982-2000, 2008-2009, 2010, 2012, 2014

Daily living under possible terrorist attacks

now

WarsWars

High level of risk tolerance!

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Just remember the proverb,“the entrepreneur that died without ever going bankrupt had a premature death…”

Israel is the Startup Nation

Tel-Aviv comes is #2 in the top startup ecosystems in the world

450-500 startups are established every year

each month 10 companies move to New York

distributed and powerful angel investors network

most venture capital per capita: 2.5 times more than the U.S. and 30 times more than Europe

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Israel - Silicon Valley in the East

spend the highest percentage of GDP on scientific R&D: 4.4% compared to 2.7% for the United States

R&D centers of Intel, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, etc.

19 companies listed on London Stock Exchange

combined market capitalization on LSEG $6.9 billion

62 companies are traded on NASDAQ, totaling $ 36 billion

* according to the World Bank

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How Did it Start?

But, it was not always like that!

30 years ago Israel’s was very much like Ukraine – selling IT services to the USA

The Israeli Army produced excellent developers

International companies came to shop for good (and cheap) developers and established branches (Motorola, then Intel, them Microsoft…)

With time, developers left the big companies and started small innovative product companies in the same vertical

Investor-friendly government policy brought more big companies

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How Did it Start?

Few startups were sold to international companies

Then came the VCs and the private investors

And the rest is history…

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Startup ecosystems in numbers

70

2000

7

50

500 +

Angel investors

VC funds

Active startups

5000 +

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Areas of IT Expertise

Israel

Homeland Security - military software - airport and objects - personal surveillance control

Cyber

Telecom

Medical equipment industry

Scientific researches

Gambling and Forex

Ukraine

Programming frameworks and platforms

Computer games

….. It is your turn to continue the list!

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War Factors

Low psychological threshold to risks of business failure Boy, you are alive! And someone is not…

Strong desire to control your own fate No fate but what we make (Terminator 2)

Individualism The curse and the blessing of Ukraine

War creates opportunities… The cycle of nature

High level of mobility War stirs things…a stirring is what you need to generate something

new

It is time to get out of comfort zone and do something useful,solve someone's problem in a quality way and money will come later!

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Challenges for Ukraine

Corruption elimination Build new and well paid army forces, police, court judges, prosecutors

Guaranteed equity rights Open registry lists and cadasters for all equity rights and assets (land, real estate, stocks, financial obligations, etc.)

Education system reform Decentralized, more privately held kindergartens, schools, universities curriculums created by professional communities

Transparent and low-level of bureaucracy E-government, ease of doing business

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Ukraine’s Strengths

High motivation for High Education

Hunger to Succeed

Individualistic and entrepreneurial spirit

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Conclusion

It's YOUR time to take action..

Just DO something!

300 kg carrying robot for ATO & Army

1 month project from Lviv

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www.igniteso.com

+38 0412 46-61-79

info@igniteso.com

Questions?

“no pain, no gain, no champagne.”