Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Adam Singolda, Founder, on joining the NASDAQ and Investing in Yourself

Episode Date: August 6, 2021

Adam Singolda went from flipping through channels on a teeny TV in Israel to taking his multi-billion dollar company public.Today he tells Nicole how he did it… plus, he shares how he crashed a barmitzvah to get an initial investment and his thoughts on what it takes to be a founder. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Well, it doesn't. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. As you know, every Friday we talk with a public figure making change in every sense of the word.

And along the way has been in, or might still be, in money rehab. Today we're talking to Adam Singolda. Adam is the founder and CEO at Taboola. And not to take his thunder, but you definitely know that company if you've been on a news site and you're reading an article, let's say, and you see at the bottom kind of a little carousel that says you might also like this article or that article. That's what his company does. His story starts with flipping through channels on a teeny tiny TV in Israel. And fast forward to present day, his company is now a public company

and valued at a cool couple billion dollars. I wanted to hear that story and what lessons he picked up along the way. So Adam, welcome to Money Rehab. Thank you for having me. Have you ever played Never Have I Ever? Money Rehab, Never Have I Ever. Basically, if you've done something, say you have.

If you haven't, say you haven't. Are you ready? I'm ready. Never have I ever played the lottery. I never did. I never have. I ever maxed out a credit card. No. Never have I ever bought crypto. Never. I also, by the way, I also don't have any public equity outside of my own taboo equity at this point and some private equity that I have. But I don't, I don't, basically I buy, I invest in myself exclusively at this point. So I have no crypto and no other public equity of any kind. Never have I ever. So, okay.

Sold a stock at a loss. So you've never bought or sold a stock? Never did. Unless it was taboo stock. I did buy taboo stocks and I did sell Tabula stock. Because it's now public. Mazel tov. Thank you. We went public about three weeks ago or actually a month ago, which was, Nicole, what a moment. I mean, you know, I started this company in my parents' house. My mom flew in. I was ringing the bell for the open web in the NASDAQ. My mom was there. I cried. I couldn't believe it. Amazing moment. I really recommend anyone

listening to this who's building an amazing business. Go all the way. Go all in long-term. Consider going public and keep growing and having a good time. So yeah, we just did that a month ago. You have to really pinch yourself in that moment in time. It's because when you build a company, you never stop. You never really stop to smell the roses. You never really say what a great day today was because there's always tomorrow and more to do and more risks and more issues. And then suddenly in that moment in time, you really do stop. It's a short moment. The whole thing is quite short, by the way. How does it go down behind the scenes? Because it looks very fancy on TV. I know. It's so not... That's what I thought. On TV, it looks like you're spending days over

there, but it's really... You arrive in the morning within 10 minutes or so. Everybody's taking pictures. It's kind of like a wedding day and everybody's taking... Only you remember everything. But everybody's taking pictures, which is really nice and really fun. We flew in also anyone that's been at Tabula for 10 plus years, you know, the OGs. So it was just really great, um, moment for everyone. And then afterwards you give a speech, two minutes, you ring the bell. Um, people take videos, you go outside and see pictures in Times Square. You have lunch and this is it. A lunch is a requirement.

It's on the agenda. You do not have to eat. But I mean, it's there. It's there for you to opt in if you want to. But you don't have to. And you're not looking at the stock. You're just building, you know, keep building and shipping. But it's exactly. But it's there. And you brought your parents in from

Israel. This was so cute. I saw all the photos. It was amazing. I mean, my mom was there with me pretty much every big event we've had when I was in Japan for the first time, giving a keynote. She was there. When Tabula was more than 30 people and we rented like this cool place to have a first party, she was there. You know, when Tabula made $10,000 a day for the first time, which I thought was true madness, you know, because after four and a half years of not generating revenue and almost shutting down Tabula three times, I was in London and I called my mom and I told her, mom, I was sitting down. We just crossed the $10,000 a day. Google should be concerned. And my mom was- Watch out, Google.

Yeah. My mom was like, is everything okay? I'm not sure Google is completely concerned, but she was there, you know, and then she came to our IPO day, which was just amazing. So 13 years ago, I think is when I met you. Yeah. You're an important part of my story, Nicole. You, you met me in Israel. You agreed to meet me just yet another guy who has an idea. And then not too long after that meeting, you said you need some more storytelling, dude. Like this is not, this is not good enough. You need to tell your story. Come on TV and let me interview. And I was so scared. I've never done TV before in any language, let alone in English. And it was Bloomberg and it was you

and you're this famous person. And then you were so great because actually what you did, you said your first question, I think it was one of the first questions you said, so how do you fight Google? And I said, that's a great place to start. How do we and Google compete? This is this is framing the narrative correctly. So you put me on TV. 13 years ago, you were just a baby company.

You were just starting. This was even before your $10,000 day. It's my first job. Before this, I was in the Israeli army for seven years as an engineer. I didn't know what the deck was. I never had a salary. No one ever hired me. I never interviewed for a job before this. So you just made it up as you went? It's interesting because you think of Tabula, the first four and a half years, we had no revenue. We were seven people, eight people, six people, something like that. We were seven people, eight people, six people, something like that.

And you ask yourself, what made you go? How do you continue running your business almost five years with no revenue when you three times reach a point that you almost shut down your business? And in many ways, I feel like because I was naive and it was my first time, all I had was the dream. I thought that's how it goes. You just push through and you keep doing the work, you know. And I guess maybe if I was an experienced executive, I would know better, but I didn't know better. And, you know, and then years afterwards, we, you know, it became a smaller business, bigger business.

Last year, $1.2 billion in revenue. Casual. But this is what's so interesting about the tech scene in Israel is because everybody has to go to the army if listeners don't know that. And so you've been shot at and bombed at and all these things like dealing with decks and investors like that's not scary comparatively. protesters, like that's not scary comparatively. I wasn't in that line of, you know, area in the army. I was an engineer. So I was closer to the equivalent of the NSA here, but in Israel for almost seven years. So I was in a really cool, geeky place and I got to know amazing people. And together we've built things that were very important to the country. And that experience was fantastic because it's very flat.

Everyone wears the same, looks the same. There's no chief anything. Promotions rarely happen. So you just have to succeed with what you have all the time. And it's a very humbling experience. It's actually much like a startup. Nobody cares about seniority and what did you do before and all those things. We just care about, can you create value now or move aside? So it's very much, for me, it was helpful for what came

after, which was Taboola, just in terms of building our culture and asking myself, what should it feel to be here? So that was my contribution. And it was, and I feel like I was very lucky to have experienced that. And when I was 18 years old, then, you know, six and a half, seven years after. So how did you come up with the idea? I was in my parents' house and with a little money I saved, I bought this big TV. I think at the time it was 27 inch, big, huge. You mean binoculars? Yes, exactly. And I thought I should not be looking for TV shows.

TV shows should be looking for me. I said, you know, you got to search engines when you know what you want. But what happens when you have no idea what you're supposed to be searching for? And that was the idea. And that's still the idea, you know, to build a recommendation engine for the world. But how did you get it off the ground? So you had this idea, you were chilling on the couch, and then what happened? I went to my mom. You know, my mom is an important piece of my life. So I went to my mom. She's my

best friend. I told her the future will be different. You go to search engines when you know what you want, but what happens when you have no idea? We only have 24 hours a day. And she says, I have no idea what you're talking about, but there's a guy who's an investor. I don't know him that well, but his daughter is celebrating a bat mitzvah. How about I get you an invite? So she arranges an invite for me to go to the bat mitzvah at 7 PM. And I'm asking myself, when do you pitch an investor who's having a huge moment for his family? So I figured I'll go to him at 10 PM, A few hours into it, a few glasses of wine, he danced with his family.

So I go to him at 10 p.m. And I tell him, hi, my name is Adam. There's a huge opportunity to drive a revolution for the world. The open web will be surrounded by recommendations that are all personalized. A search engine, but in reverse, it's the next generation of Google. And he says, who invited you? So I told him, my mom. And he says, who is your mom? So I told him who is my

mom. And I wasn't sure he knew who she was, but he was kind enough to invite me to his house. And he was kind enough to offer me a seed investment. It was about $180,000. That's a big seed investment. Yeah. At the time, to me, that was like raising, I don't know, a billion dollars. I couldn't believe someone would give anyone so much money. And I was trying to, I was asking myself, should I say yes on the spot? Because I'm so excited.

And I said, no, I must show him that I can hold myself. So I left his house. I told him, let me think about it. And I took the elevator down, called my mom. She said, what are you doing? Take the money immediately. So I called him from the lobby downstairs and I said, I thought about it seriously. I think we should do it. And that's how we got going. And that was the beginning of what was the first four and a half, five years before we became more of a business. Hold on to your wallets, boys and girls. Money rehab will be right back. Now for some more money rehab. Obviously, if listeners don't know, you are Israeli, you have this Israeli accent. Has that ever been an issue for you in

business? No, I actually think, you know, and I don't know if it's a New York thing or if it's an American thing, but I just became an American. I held, you know, I held a small flag. I was so excited. You know, I moved to this country, you know, 12 years ago. So I actually, you know, obviously as an Israeli, I feel at home in Israel, but I feel much at home here too. And a lot of times I feel like if you're not a foreigner, you're a foreigner, at least, you know, here. And I don't know if it's a New York thing or not, but I feel like people really appreciate the diversity or different kind of experiences. And I think also that, you know, there's a lot of good things that blend. I always feel like I'm an American with an Israeli superpower. You believe everything is possible here in America

as an Israeli. You have the chutzpah to go and ask for anything as an American being from Israel. So all these flavors as they blend and mix, I do feel that people here like it most of the time, not all the time. And it's it made me feel at home here. There's obviously a lot of anti-Semitism going on in the world right now. I I've not felt that myself. Has that ever affected you? It did not. I was, you know, like I told you, I always I'm very proud being Israeli. I spent many years in the army. My entire family is in Israel. I have almost a thousand people working for Tabula in Israel. So I'm, you know, I'm big, I'm big on Israel and everything around, you know, the Holy Land. And I was very fortunate to always see this as a superpower.

For me, it was always a source of strength. Yeah, I think in general, it's important to turn what some people perceive as a weakness into your greatest superpower. But you have many, many superpowers, which is why I think the investor believed in you first out of the gate, gave you $180,000? Why? Because you're so cute? All modesty aside, why do you think he believed in you? I actually think he didn't understand the idea at all. In fact, he told me things that will waste his money when he agreed to invest. But I also think that he was betting people. In general, by the way, if you're listening to this and you're asking yourself, what type of investor should I go and pitch for my startup? You should always think about people

that would choose you versus your idea because your idea is almost a commodity before you even thought about it. There are many more other people that have a variation of your idea for sure. There are many people that will have a variation of your idea a second after you started for sure. that will have a variation of your idea a second after you started for sure. So really the best matchmaking process is when someone is choosing you and then you should ask yourself, who's that person?

It could be someone that grew up with you, someone that understand you, someone that went to school with you. But he and I, we connected really well from the very first date, and he chose me. And that's why, by the way, he will forever be my angel. Has there ever been a moment where you wanted to quit and close shop?

I really never did. And I told you, I think it was in part because I was such a believer, but also because I didn't know there was an option to stop. I never had a job. I never seen anything begin and stop. I only saw beginnings. So I thought the only gear was go, you know? And so that's what I did.

I kept on working. I did Tuesday office. You know, we used to sleep at the office on Tuesdays. And I loved it. You know, I loved working hard. Did you make that up? Tuesday office? Is that just a...

No, no, we did. I didn't know that was a thing. Is that Tabula Tuesday? It was early days. We slept in the office and we pulled all nighters with pizzas and just really having a great time and building that culture around this passion and energy and working hard. And we've also realized through those moments that nobody cares who did anything first. It was only about who does it better. Or faster. Better, faster, bigger.

And so, and you know, sometimes it's funny because the beginning being so difficult and facing failure multiple times was such a big, you know, paid such a big dividend afterwards because Taboola now, bigger, profitable, you have 18 offices around the world, piano in every office. You can get confused. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. Treat yourself like any other investment. Keep your wits about you if things take a turn for the worst, but double down on good ideas.

Borrow from Adam's playbook and treat yourself as your own best investment. Money Rehab is a production of iHeartMedia. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Catherine Law. Money Rehab is edited and engineered by Brandon Dickert with help from Josh Fisher. Executive producers are Mangesh Hatikader and Will Pearson. Huge thanks to the OG Money Rehab supervising producer, Michelle Lanz, for her pre-production and development work.

And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.