A few years ago, actually 10 or more now I come to count, I was involved in another business in Israel. It was all a bit high-tec, venture capitalist, and rather speculative. At the time, however, it felt like the next sure hit and we’d be making a trillion dollars in no time.
Well that company went south with the collapse of Asia and degenerated into a dogs breakfast of breakups, liquidations and other investors stealing things from locked warehouses in the middle of the night. The only good thing to come out of it was meeting my wife on one of my many trips to Israel and the avowed intent never to do business with those kinds of people again. Things went badly wrong when we hired a local business manager who was a complete shark, there was something about the 9mm he carried in his briefcase that always made me nervous in meetings.
So when I had the chance to set up my own business from the start in Israel (instead of just putting money and time into someone else’s pre-existing mess) I still thought very hard about it.
But it all came down to the people. This time I felt I could trust everyone I’m working with. Most important is my local business partner who is also my brother in law. That is a double edged sword of course, some say to avoid business with family but in this case he is an ace guy. Fiercely loyal to his friends but rock solid and strong with anyone else in a professional sense. It’s really his business into which I brought overseas connections, business knowledge and some capital. He couldn’t do this without me, and very importantly, I’d be mad to do something here without him.
For one thing he can both read and write Hebrew. I’m in awe. I mean he’s functionally literate. He can even, by and large, do the same in English so he’s like way ahead of me there. If your going to come to Israel and set up a business it really is useful to have someone you can trust, reading all the documents.
A few ground rules: I’m going to shy away from directly identifiable information. Dave does this too so it shouldn’t be so shocking. The business I’m in is a fairly basic story of importing goods and selling them but we don’t sell (by and large) to the general public. The goods might be considered high tec, but really its the most basic form of business: buy at one price, sell at another and try to make sure the second price is higher than the first. My brother in law was in this field for years so he knew everyone in the market and, because he’s a decent guy, he’s liked in the field.
