Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Uri Levine on Fall in Love With the Problem, Not the Solution EP 242

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

I am joined today on Passion Struck by Uri Levine, co-founder of Waze and author of Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution, who shares his advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. What We Discuss About Falling in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution Tesla, Waze, Google, WhatsApp, Facebook, Uber, and Netflix are some of the most successful tech firms in the world that were start-ups not long ago. And according to our guest today, Uri Levine, the co-founder of Waze, the next generation of industry leaders will have an even greater impact. But to do that, he believes that you must fall in love with the problem, not with yourself or money. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/uri-levine-fall-in-love-with-the-problem/  Brought to you by ZocDoc. --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  --► Prefer to watch this interview:  https://youtu.be/zP2ar44anuc  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Want to hear my best interviews from 2022? Check out episode 233 on intentional greatness and episode 234 on intentional behavior change. ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m  Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/ 

Coming up next on the PassionStark podcast. The realizations that the faster that you fail, you actually have enough time to make another attempt, another attempt and another attempt. And you realize that the biggest enemy of good enough is perfect. You don't need to be perfect in order to win the market. You need to be good enough.

And the way to get to become good enough is starting when you are not good enough. When your product really sucks. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armyles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality

so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews, the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become Passion Struck.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 242 of Passion Struck. And thank you to each and every one of you who comes back weekly to listen and learn, had a lift better, be better, and impact the world. And if you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you would simply like to introduce this to a friend or family member, and we so appreciate it when you do that. We now have episode starderpacks, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes

that we organize in convenient topics to give any new listener a great way to get acquainted to everything we do here on the show. Just go to either Spotify or PassionStruct.com slash starderpacks to get started. In case you missed it, last week I interviewed Robert Waldinger, who is a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist on his new book The Good Life, which describes results from the Harvard Study on Adult Agent, which is the longest-running study of its kind. I also had on Jennifer Edwards and Katie McCleary, and we discussed their book, Bridge the Gap, which is all about how do you improve

your communication both in your personal life and in your career. I also wanted to say thank you so much for your continued support of the show, your ratings and reviews. So such a long way in helping increase not only our popularity, but the community of listeners where we're helping weaken and weak out. Now let's talk about today's episode, Pezla, Ways, Google, WhatsApp, Facebook, Uber, and Netflix. Are just a few of the most successful tech firms in the world

that were just startups not too long ago. And according to our guest today, Buried Levine, the co-founder of Ways, the next generation of industry leaders will have an even greater impact. But in order to do that, he believes that you must fall in love with the problem, not with yourself or money. Falling in love with the problem entails valuing the customer as the key to success, rather

than your own creations and concepts. As a mentor and teacher, Yuri and I will explore the most important factors in being an entrepreneur and solving big problems, including how to determine whether a business idea has potential, how to determine if your product is marketable. Had a settle on a business model and growth strategy, the essential elements of creating an innovative startup that will challenge broken markets. The significance of choosing the right people to fire and hire, yes, in that order. How to prepare entrepreneurs for their ultimate exit, including when to sell, the value of helping others and mentoring budding

entrepreneurs. Marie Levine is a passionate entrepreneur, as well as a disruptor, a two-time unicorn builder. He's the co-founder of Ways, the world's largest community-based, driving traffic and navigation app, which was acquired by Google for 1.1 billion in 2013, and former investor and first Ford member in Move It, the ways of public transportation, which was acquired by Intel for 1 billion in 2020. Levian has built more than a dozen startups and has seen everything from raging failure mid-level success to immense success. So much for you to take away from today's interview. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me

to be your host and guide on creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. ["Piano Music"] So excited today to welcome Erie Levine, the PassionStruck podcast. Welcome, Erie. Thank you. Happy to be here.

I understand, Erie, that like me, you served in the Israeli Army in special intelligence. I also worked for the Navy in a branch that served the National Security Agency. And I know for me that experience had a profound impact on my career path. How did that experience impact yours? So for a second, I would say while yours is pretty unique.

So I haven't met a lot of American that did military service. In Israel, military service is mandatory. So pretty much everyone that I know did military service, right? And it's a military for two or three years. And I spent about six years. Obviously, I would say what military service, right? And in some laboratory for two or three years and then I spent about six years. Obviously, I would say what military service does, it's mature you faster, right? And there are few insights and takeaways that you take with you through your entire life and part of it is about giving up is not an option. But Israel is an enough tough neighborhood and if you grew up in a tough neighborhood, you grew up tough. That's it. So working in teams and the leadership and inability to do extraordinary things is something that I think that many Israelis have experienced

during their military service and they are taking that with them for the entire life. Yes, I'd know for me, it taught me so many things that have been valuable throughout my career, but as you said, only about 2% of Americans have served in our military, so it's far different. I wanted to jump to your book and I'll put a cover up here and on YouTube, we'll make sure we make it even more pronounced, But it's called Fall in Love with the Problem Not the Solution. And it's got an incredible forward by Steve Wozniak, a co-founder of Apple. And I thought it was one of the better written forwards that I've come across. And getting that endorsement from him is huge. But what I liked about what he said is how when he read your book and he doesn't read very many that he found that the way

you laid out the information was so applicable to so many entrepreneurs. And I know from reading the book that a major reason why you wrote it was because of the value that you place on helping others and mentoring budding entrepreneurs. Why is this so important to you? Because for a second, I would say, this is my destiny, my destiny is about value creation and I can create value in multiple ways. I can build ways or build startups that serves a lot of people.

I can mentor and guide many CEOs to build that they can build. And the book is probably the next step of that. It is about fulfilling my destiny of creating value and essentially making the board a better place because if someone is going to read the book and take some insights and implement them and as a result, increase their likelihood of being successful, then I did my share. And now it's up to them to do theirs. And in that sense, I feel that I'd rate more value. I think that I make the world a better place.

And this is my mission in life. It's about value creation. Well, I released an interview today with the co-founder of the Home Depot, Bernie Marcus, whose recent book, Pick Up Some Dust, is also about giving back and teaching people why your service doesn't end only while you're in your career, but that it extends. And you've got this great opportunity to give back that extends far beyond your career ever could. So I love that's a core component of the work that you're doing as well.

Well, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Jim McHalvey, the co-founder of Square, but he's a friend of mine. And I interviewed him a few years ago, and one of the most important things that he told me that most entrepreneurs forget is they tend to focus not on the core problem, but over time, they lose sight of that and get distracted in so many different aspects about the business that they forget why they started it in the first place. And he said, the problem is the most important thing that you've got to keep your narrow focus on. And in chapter one, you introduce a very similar concept to that by discussing why you need to fall in love with the problem, not the solution, the title of your book. Why is this concept so important for an entrepreneur to understand? So as you mentioned, it keeps you focused, right? But this is only one part of it because at the end of the day,

there are a few elements that are pretty cool. If you focus on the problem, that remains the North Star of your journey. And when you have a North Star, then the amount of deviations that you're going to do from the planned route are way smaller, right? So you increase the likelihood of getting to the North Star, you increase the likelihood of getting to the North Star. You increase the likelihood of getting to your destination. You waste less time and less resources and less efforts in doing that. There is another part of it, which is a way easier story to be told.

So if we will be here in 2007, and I will tell you, you know what, I'm going to build an AI-based ground force navigation system. Then the reality is that you don't really care, right? But if I will tell you, you know what, I'm going to help you to avoid traffic jams, then all of a sudden, you do care. So the problem is easier story to be told to your audience, to your customers, to your users, to your employees, to your investors, to everyone. And so we have no start that keeps you focused. We have easier story to be told.

And in particular, what we really have is a mission. It's a reason to fall in love. It's so much easier to fall in love with the problem. Because then you feel that this is your mission. You are being sent by the audience to solve that. And so you are, in that sense, fulfilling your destiny. And the mission is creating alignment with everyone, with your customers, with your employees,

with your investors, with shareholders. And you never lose sight of that. Yeah, well, another thing, or a you and I have in common, is that once leaving the military, we both went into the corporate world for a period of time. And we were both in, as I understand, at technology types of roles. I know that there are a lot of listeners to this podcast who might feel stuck, that they're in a career that isn't bringing them fulfillment.

Maybe it's not bringing them the joy. Maybe they want to be an entrepreneur, but they don't know how to take that next step. For you, how did you go from that comfort of having that position to taking the leap of faith into becoming an entrepreneur, and what would be some of your advice for the listeners today on how, if they feel stuck in this position, how they can embrace it.

You're right in the sense that after I released from the military service, I went into technology space, a software developer, and I spent there additional five years as a software developer, and then I switched into product and marketing. And in one of the reasons that it happens to me is that I found myself as an engineer arguing on behalf of the users, right? And then the product asked me, how do you know? And I said, I spoke with users. And this is what they told me, right?

And they told me that you're the only one that did that. And so I realized that one of the dramatic keys is actually speaking with the target audience in order to understand what is the value that you create for that? Because if you don't get it, then you don't create the value. You might be creating value, but you might be creating something that they don't really care.

And so that was the first part of evolution. And then my initial career was at a commerce technology and this company is probably way relevant today. But in the 90s, that was the voicemail system or the co-answering system, or the mobile operators in the world. And even within this corporate, I was the one that

always trying to create new ideas, new concepts, new products, new services, new go-to-market strategy. So I was the one that creating or trying to create news done. And Converse was very good growing house because the company was growing and looking for a lot of exploration and that was received and it wasn't right. End of the day we all realized that interpaneurs are travel makers, right? And eventually when a co-operate is starting to get into the level that they don't want changes anymore or they do want changes but they don't want travel makers then usually what will happen is that the trouble-makers would either leave or get fired. Well, I found that to be the case myself and I think similar to you what I found myself becoming when I was in my corporate positions was more of an

entrepreneur and I think I did something very similar to you is that I embraced the end-user community because I kept wondering why our projects were falling flat. And I realized it was because we didn't have that strong connection or strong as it could be with the end user in most of the time. That was typically not the consumer. It was a person we were serving in the business side. So I totally agree with what you're saying there. One of the chapters that I loved were serving in the business side. So I totally agree with what you're saying there. One of the chapters that I love the most in the book was chapter two and it reminded me of a peer that I had at Lowe's named Steve Shirley who ran our IT strategy and pilot programs and at

the time he would always come into our staff meetings with the chief information officer and tell him that we need to develop a culture of failing fast and failing often. And I remember our CIO absolutely hated it. And he said, why would I want to have a culture where we fail fast? I want to succeed fast. And Steve would always try to tell him, will you succeed fast by failing fast? And as I indicated, this is something that you cover in depth in chapter two. But why is it so important for an entrepreneur or leader to understand the importance of making your mistakes fast? So let me start by describing the corporate versus startup. So corporate have a product in mind, or they have a product that is serving the

market, they have the target audience, they have their customers, they? So corporate here, a product in my, or they have a product that is serving the market, they have their target audience, they have their customers, they have a business model, they have growth strategy, they pretty much have everything in place. And when you are start-up, you have nothing in place, right? So you need to figure out your value proposition, the product that falls that, the business model, how do you grow and so forth. So essentially, you are going into a journey starting from scratch. There are three critical descriptions of this journey. Number one, it's going to be a long journey.

Number two, it's going to be a roller coaster journey with ups and downs and ups and downs and in a very high frequency. Number three, it's going to be a journey of failures. So you want to believe that you know exactly what you're doing, but you're trying to do something new that no one did before. And essentially what you're doing is exploring. So you go to the next step with the conviction that this is going to

work, but the reality is that in most cases it's not. The failing fast or the approach that this is going to be a journey of failures creates two immediate conclusions. The first one is that if you're afraid to fail, then in reality you already failed because you're not going to try. Albert Einstein used to say that if you haven't failed that because you haven't tried anything new before, if you're going to try new things, you will fail. Michael Jordan said pretty much the same thing, right? I can accept failure but I cannot accept not trying, right? Wayne Redsky, I'm going to miss 100% of the shots that I don't take. So this is one part. The other part is that the realizations that the faster that you fail, you actually have enough time to make another attempt.

And you realize that the biggest enemy of good enough is perfect. You don't need to be perfect in order to win the market. You need to be good enough. And the way to get to become good enough is starting when you are not good enough. When your product is embarrassing to the level that you cannot even show your face up. And then users are trying that and providing you with the feedback and then you improve. And so the reality is that you succeed fast because you move faster through those iterations that you try something, you get feedbacks from users, you improve, you get feedbacks again and so forth.

And for a second, I would say let's imagine two twin sisters that are exactly identical, right? And they have product that is not ready yet. And one of them is saying, you know what, I'm going to they have product that is not ready yet. And one of them is saying, you know, I'm going to launch this product that is not ready in order to get feedbacks. And the other one is saying, no, this is too embarrassing to launch that. I'm not going to launch that. I'm going to wait until it's becoming perfect. From this point on, the first company is moving so much faster that they are way more likely to win the market because they are

trying something, getting feedbacks from the user, improving. The other company does not have that input that is critical in order to become successful. So failing fast together with listening to the users because without that, useless, right? So you fail and you don't even know why, right? But if you fail and you get the feedbacks and you understand what you need to do next, then the next step is going to improve and improve and improve until you become good enough. Now this journey seems to be pretty scary to many people. I heard a lot of people telling me, wait a minute, my product is embarrassing,

then it's going to hurt my brand name. And I would tell them, what brand name? You don't even have a product out there. You don't have a brand name. Or I would lose my users, right? You don't have a users. You have nothing to lose. You're stealing the face that you have nothing to lose. And when you have nothing to lose, you can make giant lips because you have nothing to lose. Well, I think you brought up some excellent points there. And I'm going to expand this make giant leaps because you have nothing to lose. Well, I think you brought up some excellent points there. And I'm going to expand this from just the entrepreneur community to

also people who were in Fortune 500 or global 2000 companies. At about the same time, you were starting ways. An app I have to tell you I absolutely live by. So thank you for putting it out there to the world. I had recently taken over all software development at I have to tell you I absolutely live by so thank you for putting it out there to the world. I Had recently taken over all software development at lows and I remember I was talking to a number of My business peers and I had a conversation with the

Head of strategy Scott Butterfield who was an SVP, and he said, John, the IT group is absolutely fantastic at building solutions that when they arrive are no longer relevant. It was such a huge learning lesson. I mean, I completely almost fell back into my chair when he told me, but he was right. We were delivering these monolithic waterfall projects. And what would happen is we had this gating process, which was great.

In fact, CIO Magazine gave us the best process in the whole world. But the process became an inhibitor to our acceleration. Because people were trying to jam everything that they possibly could into this solution because they figured that they only had one shot at doing this project. And I love the saying that you have that you don't have to have a perfect product. You have to have a product that's just good enough. And so when I got into

this job, everyone at that time hated the word scrum or sprint, et cetera. So I knew that's where we needed to go, but I changed the wording to we needed to create a deliberate action process. And so I enlisted the help of a VP who needed a project to get done to test this out. You'll love that I tested it with Infosys, who was my core partner at the time. It so altered both the success of the project, but cut the time in about a half of what we would have normally delivered it to, that it completely set the stage for how we could

open up doing software development in the future. But I thought it would be a good point for you to talk about that concept of good enough, because I think it's something that a lot of people don't get right. This will go probably into the challenges that corporates have in order to innovate as well. But let me start with the realizations that at the end of the day, you are going to win if you figure out product market. If you don't figure out product market feed, you will die as simple as that. And product market feed is about rating value to your customers.

In your examples, what you basically say is that by time I was ready, there was no value in that, because they already had different solutions that are less as the problem or the problem might disappear. But then put a timescale on that. The ways was started officially in 2008, so exactly 15 years ago. And the first version was running on a PDA. Remember long, long time ago, there were dinosaurs and then PDAs and then Nokia phones. And today we all have iPhones and Android. This long time ago was 15 years.

If I would have a time machine and I will send people back 15 years, that means that I'm going to take away their iPhone and ways and Uber and what's up and it was just something not even interesting and I'm going to take away your test line. So many other things that it's unclear that we will survive. This is how fast things are changing. Now, the reality is that what makes the change is the adaptions of something new. And something new is not necessarily about being way better, because maybe it's simply more desired. Maybe it's simply address an issue and then you get history. And the way to get to a product market feed is through iterations. And the story of ways is that we launched the product in Israel, the first real-time version

running on Nokia 4 in back in 2009. And that was actually pretty good. So we basically say, okay, where's has a magic that we crowd source, where's crowd source, everything, not just traffic information and speedcrap and so forth, but the map data itself. So we can start from a blank page, we can start anywhere. And this is exactly what we did in 2009. And in the end of the year, we say, okay, there is no ways everywhere. And the map was self-driving map. So when you drive some place, the road is being created. And we figure out that this is going to work everywhere. And it didn't. It wasn't good enough. Now, here's what happened, right? It was good enough in maybe in a few places, in Latvia, in Czech Republic, in Slovakia, in Inekwada, and that's about it. If you try

ways in 2010 in Tampa Bay, it sucks, really. You try to get from your home to the office that you know how to do every day and it will suggest you a route that doesn't make any sense. And so we realize it doesn't work and we speak with drivers and we ask them what doesn't work for them. And they tell us, right, because they really want that to work. The promise of we are going to help you to avoid pathogens is really major promise, right? And so people wanted that to work. And they tell us what doesn't work. And we build the next version that fixes everything that they've told us.

And we know that this is it. And it's not. So we're doing it all over them, right? So we speak with the driver that tells what doesn't work. And we build the next version. And we're doing that in three weeks because we really want to get the feedback back from the users. So three weeks next version out, not doesn't work when again, a whole year of iterations. And in some of those, you're making

baby steps forward, right? So you are a little bit better than before. In some of those, you actually go back for it. You're lesser than before. Some of those were leapfrogs, right? Now, you don't know which one is which. If you would know, you would go with the leapfrogs at the beginning. Like, you simply don't know. And each time you go with the conviction that this is going to work. And it's not. And the day after, you basically say, okay,

so we probably need something wrong. Let's do it all over again. So, let's speak with the drivers. Let's get the feedbacks. Let's build an X version. You go with the conviction that this is it, and again, it's now. In this conviction, this journey of fares is critical in order to get to a product that is good enough. Now, you always start with something that is not good enough, unless you were really lucky, and then you start with something that was good enough at the beginning. But most likely,

you start with something that is not good enough. And you improve and improve and improve until you get to the level that you're good at. Now this is really important to remember. Users are not going to switch away from something that is good enough. They require something else. It requires to be dramatically different and not better is not winning. Good enough wins. And this is just a thing of Neil. Right, everyone uses Gmail. Everyone that I know is users. Gmail, except me that I also have a Yahoo mailbox. And a friend told me, I just figure out a friend told me that I know only

two people in the world that using the Yahoo mailbox. And that was embarrassing, right? But I do use Gmail as well. Gmail is 17 years old. That's it. Before that, we actually used to pay money in order to have a mailbox. We have an internet service provider that we paid money in order to have access in addition to money to have a mailbox. And at the beginning that was better test only and that was not good enough. And then they did their iterations and iterations and iteration and eventually it become good enough and free. No one can win good enough because there is no incentive for people to switch away from good enough. Now, I think that's an excellent point and I'm going to take people back into this time capsule that you talked about because when you started ways in 2008 on the balcony in Tel Aviv, I had just become the CIO of the consumer division at Dell. At that time, I was working for Ron Gerricks,

not sure if you're familiar with him, but Ron's claim to fame was he created the Razer when he was at Motorola before he came to Dell. And so like you said at that time, Nokia, Blackberry were the major players. The iPhone had just come out. And if I remember correctly, you had to jailbreak it at that time to get an app system to work on it. There wasn't an app store because one of the major projects that I was working on with Ron,

as he had this vision, where he saw that Dell could play this role of being this app store where it could be platform agnostic and work across any provider that would come. And then about three months after getting there, we were actually doing due diligence on purchasing Nokia. Thankfully, we decided against it. But I'm just bringing this up because there is so much that has changed as you brought

up. And as I think about the world today, it's extremely different than it was 15 years ago. And I believe, and I think you do too, that it's only going to accelerate even further at break speed. And so I know a lot of entrepreneurs who are probably sitting here living in this, I know my son is one of them. What is your advice for them on how do you lock down your growth path by embracing disruption instead of being afraid of it. So let me define the disruption as change in the market equilibrium, right? So it's not about technology. It could be a derivative of the technology, right? And there are maybe four corners that can change the market equilibrium. One of them is new product, which could be

a derivative of new technology. One of them is price. Gmail is free, waste is free. No one can compete with that right. One of them is business model. Many cities around the globe that have on-demand scooters and those on-demand scooters have introduced a new business model. That's it right because electric scooters were there before. And maybe it's a new information that exists in the market and as a, change either the demand or the supply, which changes the marketing label. Now, there are few conclusions out of that. One is that by and large, only new cameras are going to disrupt their market. They have nothing to lose. Those could be

entrepreneurs or someone that is moving into a new market that does not have any presence in this market. And if I don't have any presence in the market, then I have nothing to lose, right? I can try different things. I can buy a thing that are not being used by the market right now. So this is one conclusion. The other conclusion is that if we think of disruption as changing the market equilibrium, then by definition the new market equilibrium is way better than before, because otherwise the market will not go there. And let me take the Uber example.

So you think of the days before Uber and today, and they are more than 10 times on demand trips today than there were 10 years ago. In these 10 times bigger market, there is room for Uber, there is room for Lyft, there is room for Grab, there is room for DD, there is room for 99 taxi, and there is three times bigger market for regular taxi drivers. And still, if you would ask taxi drivers around the globe, what is it? They fear the most. Uber. Because they're afraid they're going to lose their job. The reality is that they're going to have more jobs. And so the conclusion that we need to have is that the

opportunity is bigger than the threat. Because by definition, the new market is bigger than the threat because by definition the new market is bigger. Only once you embrace that state of mind, only then you can think of disrupting your own market. Now occasionally you look at markets that were disrupted and you ask yourself, so how they cannot see that coming right? So how come Netflix approached Blockbuster and asked them to acquire them twice? And they say no, twice. And in their management meeting, what they say

is whatever they can do, we can do better. So this approach is definitely not working because someone is going to take a different approach in use. And by the time you would assume that you would realize that this is the right approach, it's going to be too late. The other part is that for the essence of disruption starts with saying whatever we are currently doing is wrong. Now, the reality is it's very hard to say that as an

individual, right? So if you're alone in the room and there is no one else, even then it's hard to say that we are wrong, right? Now think about the organization, think about the management meeting that there is someone that is saying whatever we are currently doing is wrong. This person is a private maker, no one likes to hear that, no one wants to hear that. So the equal challenges are becoming pretty significant for a corporate to innovate, but there is more into it. So there are multiple parts of it, the most significant part is when you look at companies like Facebook or Google or Amazon or Netflix or Tesla or Airbnb or whatever, right? Many companies and you look at the end of the day, the Netflix and the Google and Amazon are about 26, 27 years

old, right? And then Tesla and Facebook and Airbnb are about 16 or something like that. Right. And you ask yourself, how much of the value, the aggregated values of those companies was created in the first decade versus rest of the time. Now, rest of the time could be only six or seven years, right? Or rest of the time could be 15 years or 16 years. And it's small fraction that was created in the first decade,

small fraction of the aggregated value created there because in this journey, in their first decade, they had to figure out product market fit, which is maybe three or four years by itself, and then figure out growth, which is another journey in the another journey of failures, and another roller coaster journey of failures. And then they need to figure out a business model, which is another journey by itself. And it took them about a decade to figure out now we are ready to capture the entire market. Like now we have the business model in place, we have the

right product in place, we have the ability to execute and capture the entire market. Now we have the business model in place, we have the right product in place, we have the ability to execute and capture the entire market. And the result is that most of the value was created in the not in the first decade, but in the rest of the time. Now when you take that into consideration and you think about the core rates that wants to innovate and we're basically saying, you know, we realize that our product is approaching end of life. We need to build a new division that is going to build a new product and the new product is going to be the growth engine for us and so forth. Here is what's going to happen, right?

If they're executing well, this new division that is building new offering or new business or something new, is going to take them a decade to become pretty significant. It's going to be at least five or six or seven years to start to generate revenue significant amount of revenues. Now, in the durations of maybe seven years, most of the companies are going to suffer from down runs as well, from significant challenges in their journey, right? And guess what the board is going to say? That division that is leading cash

for the last five years, let's shut it down. And so you're missing the opportunity to actually create the change if you're trying to do that by yourself as a corporate. What you really need to do is actually investing companies that are doing that. And what you need to invest in, not in companies that are building

complementary products to your offering, you don you need to invest in, not in companies that are building complementary products to your offering, you don't need to invest in companies that will make you irrelevant. And you need to ask yourself every year that question, like, what will make me irrelevant in the market? Now, if you can answer that question, there is someone else that can answer that question as well. And that someone else might be building something that will make you irrelevant in five or seven or ten years. And you need to invest in that new, whatever new company that might make you irrelevant. Because you need other investors to go into this long journey of creating that value and that change. Now, if you think about it and you realize that, wait a minute, there were so many changes in the

last decade. And what does it mean for the next decade? You're right. It's going to be even more. In fact, if you think of the top 10 companies of the world today, right? So being Apple and Microsoft and Google and the Google contest and whatever in Amazon. And you ask yourself, how many of them are going to remain in the top 10 companies of the world in 2033? Now, the answer is about 5. We don't know which one. If we would know, I will tell you and your audience, say, short on the other and this is it, right? And we end up, but we don't know which one. The more interesting questions is, okay, there is 10 companies in the top 10 five we already know they are existing today the other five some of them you haven't heard the name yet this is how fascinated and how fast

changes are happening in the market because something that was extremely relevant a decade ago all of a sudden is completely irrelevant and And we have seen market has shifted and changed dramatically over the years. When iPhone started, this is 2007, Microsoft was actually in the positions to become the market leader of the operating systems for mobile phones. They had Windows Mobile. And that operating system was running on Motorola and Nokia N Samsung and LG and pretty much everything

that it was in the market. And when iPhone was introduced, Steve Balmer was the CEO of Microsoft and he said, in other words, this will never work. So he basically said, no one is going to pay $500 for a device. But the reality is that when we see a change, we don't accept that. It's very hard for us to digest a change. And for Sticky and I would say, let's imagine building a startup exactly like falling in love, right? So there are many ideas that you think of and eventually there is one idea that you tell chef, this is what I'm going to build, right? You go to many dates and eventually there is one that you tell yourself she is the one. Now at the beginning you only want to spend time with your

date. You don't care about the rest of the world and you only spend time with your new concept. You think about it from multiple perspectives. You think about it from the problem and this is how I'm going to build the solution and this is my team and this is what I'm going to do tomorrow morning and I hear from now and then he has to the road and so forth until you feel confident enough. And then you go and tell your friends, this is what I'm going to do. The first reaction is always the same, right? This will never work, right? And these are the nice guys.

The other people tell you, this is the steepest idea that I ever heard and trust me, I heard that. You take your date for the first time to meet your friends and they're saying, eh, she is not for you. This is where you disengage from your friends. So the good news is that you're in love and you don't listen to anyone else. The bad news is that you're in love and you don't listen to anyone else. But you have to be in love in order to go into this journey because it's a long journey, it's a very long journey.

And the longest part of it is figuring out product market feed. In fact, we never heard of a company that did not figure out product market feed. But if you think of all the companies pretty much all the applications that that you are using every day, right? So searching Google or Facebook or Ways or Uber or Netflix or whatever and you ask yourself What is the difference between the application that I'm using today in the first time that I've used it?

And that's where there is no difference. We are searching Google today the same way that we search Google for the first time in our life. We are using ways today the same way. So once you figure out product market feed, which is the value that you create to your users, you don't change that anymore. You're doing a lot of other changes

in order to increase your addressable market in order to improve performance and so forth, but the value proposition does not change. What we don't know is how long did it take those companies to figure out product market fit? Because before they did, you never heard of them. It was three and a half years for ways. It was five years for Microsoft to figure out that they are going to be an operating system and not computers. It was 10 years for Netflix

to move away from their DVD and an envelope to streaming. And it's always a long journey to figure that out. And this is really dramatic to understand because this long journey is the one that is going to make corporate fails in innovation. And the way for them to become successful, as once they realize that this is the case, and they implement a different way for innovation. I'd either start in and spin off or invest in a startup. Well, I think a great exercise that a listener could do is go back to the date that you started ways 2008, get a download of who the Fortune 500 companies were then to a printout now

in compare. Because I, earlier I brought on Bernie Marcus and when Home Depot came about, there were companies no one has heard of today, Hackinger's, two guys, et cetera, that they completely demolished the entire industry, and it was only because Lowe's made some pretty significant changes that they're alive today as well. I mean, you highlight Kodak in the book, but you could look at Sears Robock. There's so many companies who... So many companies.

As you say, you are afraid to innovate past where you are. You're afraid to disrupt your business model and it ends up being disrupted by outside factors and by other newcomers, just like Starbucks did to the whole coffee industry. So I think it's a very valuable point. Then you look at the consumer side. And obviously, one of the things that I are about a billion-way users, are additional billion users of movie,

they've had to understand users in particular in mobility space. So one of the interesting part is that when you think about, and one of the challenges in the world is that most of the people don't think about their users, in particular mobility rights, so regulatory constraints and operators and municipalities and governments, and they don't think about the users. They think that they are going to build infrastructure and this is it. But at the end of the day, we as users, when we are to choose mobility, there are three critical factors for us, right?

Convenience, speed and price. This is the order of them, right? And we are going to make a new decisions pretty much every time that we choose one. And later on, there will be a couple of more, right? So there is one of about what is it that I'm used to. But we need to think about those. And if you ask users today, what is it that they prefer, leave to Uber? They don't care. We simply don't care. And in most cases, the same way that the drivers

are using both drivers' applications are looking for the fastest and most profitable ride that they can find. The user is doing exactly the same. So if Uber is not going to be in two minutes, then I will try to lift. And if lift is not going to be, it's going to be later than I'll choose Uber. And I don't really care. Because at the end of the day, the grade of service is pretty much about the same. So you go to the back of the car is relatively always clean and you are basically in your iPhone while you are riding

so you don't really care about anything else. And the result is that the fastest one wins, right? Or maybe the price wins. So this is a side comment on that, but understanding users, and this is one of the chapters in my book, turns out to be really critical for everyone that has users, right, or customers, right?

Because if you don't understand them, you are building stuff that they don't care. And when you do that, they simply go someplace else. And one of the biggest challenges is the realizations that not all the users are the same. They are actually very different from each other, or even if we categorize them into different groups, then for a second, I would say,

we think of innovators that are about 2% of the populations and then additional 15% of early adopters and then we'll have maybe 33% of early majority, which is the most significant and important group. I user that belongs to one group cannot imagine what goes through the mind of someone from a different group. So if you are a product lead, product manager, and you belong to the innovators,

then you cannot even think about what's the problem with other users, right? And you will basically blame the users and it's on there for there are simply different people that's it. And so the state of mind and this is really different when it comes to innovations or new products, the innovators are enthusiastic amateurs. They are going to use your product because it's new. As soon as they will hear about the new product, they will say, wait a minute, I want to pry that. The next group, the earlier adopters, they hear about the value of the most. So if they will hear about this product, and they will say, wait a minute, this product can be valuable for us,

they're going to give it a try. The most significant group, the early majority, they are afraid of change. So they are not going to pry the new product, even if you can group the early majority, they are afraid of change. So they are not going to provide a new product, even if you will explain to them that this product is going to be valuable for them. Their state of mind is don't proc the boat. You're a navigator, you know that, right? Don't proc the boat. And that's really important because if you are product lead is innovating, it's a really

adaptors and you don't watch those people that are really majority, you wouldn't get it. You wouldn't even understand what's wrong with your product because you have to watch them and then ask them why? And they will tell you, I was happy up until now. So why do I need the sweet one? They will tell you, you know what, I opened the app and I didn't know what to do with it. And that's, people get scared from that because

essentially what happened is that you're trying to do something and you don't know how to do that. And you feel embarrassed and you feel like an idiot and no one likes to feel like an idiot that they don't know what to do with it. And so they shut it up, it as simple as that. And the reality is that in order for you to become successful, you need to watch first-time users. And to a certain extent, you know what I call that in my book, I say, that first-time experience of a new app, is like first keys. There is one of that.

That's it. The items are going to be more amazing, less amazing, better, lesser, doesn't make any difference, but they're not the same one. So if you want to see what happens to your users at the first time, you have to watch them. That's it. Well, I think those are excellent points. You're absolutely right. Whether that's an end user of an app you're building or whether that's the end user of a solution that you're building within-side company, it is so vital if you're the person developing it to watch how the users are interacting with it because that's the tell-tell sign

of what's working and what's not and what needs to be adjusted in the next phases, which again goes to the failing fast and failing often, because I'd much rather know that in short increments than I would, after delivering something 18 months after the person has thought it up when the likelihood is their thoughts have completely changed at that point anyhow. Even that person that was defining that at the beginning might not even be there. That's a very critical point. As I was doing research on this and analyzing ways as journey and success, I came across a little known approach to product thinking and you covered part of this at the beginning of the interview, but it's the combination of super powerful data network effects

and a guiding North Star metric. Can you explain these concepts to the listener and why this was such an important approach for ways? So, in general, I would say, if you don't measure, you don't know how to improve. You cannot improve. You cannot even manage, right? Because you don't know what you are actually doing and what is the result or what you're doing. In order to figure out product market fit, there is one metric that matters the most, and this is retention. At the end of the day,

if you create value for your users, they will come back as simple as that. Now, the journey to figure that out is way more complex because as we defined earlier there are different types of fields. So there are three things that needs to happen for a user to retain to keep on using the your product. The first one is that they need to hear the story and say yeah yeah there is value in that. I want that value. And so in the and we mentioned that earlier story that deals with the problem is easier to be told and story that deals with the solution.

And so, this is the first part, right? So, they need to be aware or they need to hear about the value proposition and accept that and intuning that is a journey by itself. The next phase is that they need their first experience with the product to reach the value. Because if they don't reach the value, they don't see any value, right? They don't get the value and therefore, and this is about simplicity rather than complexity. At the end of the day, if you think about products that you're using every day, ask yourself, so how many features do I actually use every day?

And the answer is maybe one, maybe two or three, and that's it, right? So we are looking for a very simple product and not complex. Because when you create a complex product in order to address the entire address of a market, what happens is that you create very errors for the early majority goal. And they are not going to use the product because it's too complex for them. And they feel embarrassed and they feel like they're idiots because they don't get it. And they don't get it because it's complex.

And so they're not going to cry. And so we have three phases. One is that the story makes sense. And people say, yeah, I would like that. The second one is that you create simplicity for them to get to the value. And then the third one is that the value is significant. And if the value is significant, then most likely,

they are going to come back. And this is the journey of figuring out product marketfeats. It's an iterative process. And every time you're basically looking at the funnel of users and you're basically saying, look at the top. I have people that have, say, downloaded the app or bought my product for the first time. And then at the bottom, what I have is that have, say, downloaded the app or bought my product for the first time, and then at the bottom of what I have is retain users, those that are coming back.

In between, every phase of the product is a barrier. And you need to measure how many people are, what is the percentage of this barrier in terms of the impact, and start to improve those barriers one by one. Sometimes it's about different copies, right? So you tell them something and they don't get it and I will tell them something simpler and they do get, right? Sometimes it's about visibility or five. Just as an example, if you want to pay taxes in the Israeli tax authorities, then you end up that they go ahead and cancel. They look exactly the same. They have the same color. And occasionally I press the wrong one because they look exactly the same. And they switch the order of them from one screen to the other

screen. And so you ended up with complexity that creates challenging use cases. This is about simplicity. This is about removing barriers. Occasionally, you say, you know what I need those people to register, right? And then they don't even know what they're registered for. I will tell you, they don't need to register at this phase. You really want them to register after they get value. So in the third time that they are logging in, then ask them to register them, and then they know what for. And they will. If you ask them at the beginning, many will basically say, what am I registering for? Why do I even need that? I don't need that. That is going to be a major barrier for adoption because you ask them to do something that they don't even know, why do they need that? And so this process is iterative,

and you keep on doing the same thing over and over again. You launch the next version, you measure everything, you see what doesn't work, you go and speak with the users. In particular, those that fail. Those that actually were went on and turned out to be successful using the product, they did exactly what you expect them to do. So they cannot teach you anything that you don't know. But if you go to user that failed,

and yes, then why? This is how you learn. Again, some just fantastic advice. And another piece of advice that you gave in the book is a saying from Stephen Covey that I first heard during a sermon in 2006 and it's that the main thing about the main thing is keeping them the main thing. And when Waze was an early growth mode, you decided that driven kilometers was the most important KPI for your business.

How did you come up with that? And what are your recommendations to a listener on how do you create the ultimate KPI that drives a startup business? In my book I describe different growth models and different business models that are actually go back to the essence of how the product is being used. And for a second a lot of people would ask me so how do I create growth? And everyone wants to say, oh, my product is going to be viral, right? Well, Fax Machine is viral because I cannot use mine if you don't have one. Actually, no one wants to use Fax Machine anymore, right? But email or instant messaging is viral because I need you to have one in order for me to use. And therefore, I'm going to convince you to have one.

And the rest of the time that we say viral, we actually meant war of mouth. Now if I would ask 100 people on the street, how did you hear about ways? 95, if not 99 of them are going to tell me someone told me and this is war of mouth. War of mouth happens only when the frequency of use is high. If you're using a product once a year, then you have once a year an opportunity to tell someone, right? If you're using that every day, then every day they might be an opportunity for you to tell someone. And occasionally you would use that in the car, and there is someone with you in the car, and they're going to ask you, what is that? And you'll

tell them, oh, this is waste, this is absolutely amazing. This is how you download that, right? WaterFmath happens when the frequency of use is high. It's also defined later on, this defines your growth strategy, right? Because if you have high frequency of use eventually, and it doesn't matter what you're doing at the beginning, eventually, you will have water of Mars. And eventually, you are going to capture the market because of that, because nothing can compete with water of Mars. And this is, by the way,

is going to define your business model. Because at the end of the day, if your frequency of use is high, then you don't need paying customers. Now, if your frequency of use is high, and the duration is long, then eventually, it's going to be advertisement. Doesn't matter where you start, you will end up with realizing that, wait a minute,

I hear the audience for a long period of time every day in a lot of users because of the word of mouth, advertisement is my business model. Now if you have a lot of users high frequency of use and low durations of use, then you will be selling data because the data you're accumulating is pretty significant, but in the short durations you cannot do advertisement. We don't have SMS advertisement, it doesn't make sense, messenger advertisement, it doesn't make sense, I want to read the message,

not read an advertisement, but on Facebook I spend there a lot of time and as a result it's pretty okay to have advertisements as a business model. So the durations of the use dictates the business model as well. The frequency of use dictates both growth and business model. And in many cases, this is sort of pretty fine. It doesn't matter what you say that you want. At the end of the day, you're going to end up with this. Well, I want to jump into this next topic, which is stop negotiating with yourself.

And one of my favorite books of 2022 was The Gap and The Gain by Dr. Benjamin Hardy. And in it, he describes that we spend so much time in the gap versus the gain. And the gap is where we're measuring ourselves against others versus measuring ourselves against our past self. And finding ourselves in the gap is usually based on an emotional state that we're in. And I think in a similar way, you can liken this to businesses. And there was a time when ways, I would say, was in the gap because you were trying to compare yourself to Google, and it caused you

to alter your strategy, costing you time, focus, and other things. Why is it important for us to start up to realize that you need to stop negotiating with yourself and stop looking, comparing yourself to others? So I would start by saying that the ways never compared itself to Google. We were very different from the beginning. We were focusing on the daily commute, where Google maps at the time were focusing on finding something that you don't even know where it is and how to get to a place that you don't know how to get. In our entire agenda was, we want to help people on their daily commute. So you do know how to get there, but you might want to know how long it's going to take, or maybe there is a fastest route to get there. And so the focus was different and every time that

people told us that we are competing with Google, we say in general, yes, but specifically, we are at different use cases. Now, the reality is that you end up with people today that are either using Google Maps or using ways, and each one of them is keep on using whatever they are currently using for the driving, because ways is not for pedestrian, it's not for public transportation, it's not for bicycle riders, I hate traffic jets, right? I barely drive in Tel Aviv, I use my bicycle wherever I can.

And if I need to go to a place that I've never been before, then I need to look at Google Maps because they have by-crops in ways that doesn't. And this is way more important for me than figuring out where traffic is, right? Because in bicycles you don't have traffic. And so the result is that the use case is different. And because of that, people are using ways way more often than using Google Maps, right? If you will approach someone that is using ways and you will ask them how often do you use ways, they will tell you every day, right? Every ride, every day, even though that it's not true, but this is in their mindset, this is what they're doing.

If you would approach people that are using Google Maps and you would ask them when they use Google Maps, they will tell you when I need to get someplace that I don't know how to get. So obviously the frequency of use of those is way higher. And we had to compare ourselves or compete with Google in the sense that pretty much everyone else did not have both map making and applications, the etherhead map making or application. And Google was the only one that was actually competing with us on the entire value chains of the navigation, the data, and the users at the same time. And so in that sense, absolutely, yes.

Also in the realizations that back then, Google can invest as much as they want. And we don't. But we ended up becoming really good at what we were doing. And this is helping drivers on their daily commute. I have to say, in my own personal experience, my girlfriend and I use ways, probably 90% of the time, like you just pointed out, and Google maps only about 10% of the time. And it's interesting to me why they never converged the two products into one, which I would have thought would have been strategy to unify them.

But. So let me answer that by giving you an example, right? So let's say that Mercedes and BMW marriage, right? And they are basically saying, okay, we don't need the S serious for a class for Mercedes and the seven serious for BMW. We can manage them into one car, right? And this car is going to introduce everything that was actually very good here, and everything that was very good here, and this car is going to win the market.

We don't know that plant. Up until now, each one of them was trying to differentiate themselves, different messages with different target audience, with different features and capabilities to serve their target audience better. And each one of the target audience is actually committed to the product because of the specifications that they have created for them.

If you're gonna merge that, the underlying assumptions that the result is going to win the market is unclear. It might, but it might not. And the reality is that we are going to change the product. If you merge them, you are going to change the product for the entire install base. And some of them hate changes, right? And so if you are going to make that more complex or different than what they used to, and you send them to make a new choice. They might be choosing something completely different. Maybe they will choose here we go,

which is really great application. Okay, and I know you're often asked this question about whether or not it was the right decision to sell ways for 1.15 billion, but I have a little bit of a different twist on this. If you're a company looking to be acquired or to develop your exit plan of some sort, how do you determine when opportunity meets readiness? So for a second, I would say you don't build companies in order to get acquired. You build

companies in order to create value and you will figure out the rest following the value that you create. So you'll figure out the business model and you'll figure out the growth and you'll figure out the exit strategy. And most likely what you really want is to build a company that we last forever that will become successful, and profitable, and growing, and market. Opportunity might come along the way, right? You will need to tell to say, yes or no to those opportunities based on your aspiration, your...

If an offering, and in this case, I would say, look, if this is a life-changing event for you, then you should consider it. If it's not, then don't even bother. If you would think that this is the only start-up that you're going to have in your lifetime, then maybe you want to stick with that. If you would say, more and more startups, and I actually enjoy the early days of creation, then saying yes to an acquisition is going to be way easier for me. But what I'm saying is that this is really individuals for the founders, the management of the company, and occasionally for shareholders as well. But no one is going to buy a company if the management don't want to get acquired.

In vice versa, your investors, even though that they want to object, they will not object if you want to sell the company. And so this is something that end of the day ended up to be very individuals. I would say, thing from your own perspective, so three observations, but your own perspective, So three observations about your own perspective, whether or not this is life-changing event and whether or not you think that this is once in a lifetime company, from your team members, right? So is that going to be a life-changing event for the rest of the people? And if yes, then start to consider that favorably, even if you

don't like the idea. And then the last part that you want to think of, and this is something that obviously all the investors and all the shareholders don't have in their mind, there is a day after for you. So what exactly you are going to do the day after? Do you subscribe to the new vision? Do you like to work with the team that are going to acquire you? With the leader that is going to acquire you? These are facts that only you can answer. And if the answer is no, then maybe you shouldn't.

If the answer is yes, then certainly yes. But put your team very high on that gender, right? If this is not going to be a life-changing event for them, then make sure that when you negotiate a deal, you will make it a life-changing event event for them, so retention packages and so forth. Okay, well, speaking of people, this is what your chapter six in the book is all about. And I think what you say in this chapter is a very important lesson for anyone who may be listening to this podcast. And that is, why is it more important for you to fire the right people first than to hire the right people?

Let me answer that. I spoke with many entrepreneurs that they are start up fit and asked them why, what happened? And about half say the team was not right. And I kept asking, okay, what do you mean the team was not right? So we had this guy not good enough and this guy, so not good enough was major reason that I heard. And that reason that the hair quite often is that we had a communication, something that I actually called ego management issues. And then I asked them the most interesting question,

when did you know that the team is not right? And all of them knew within the first month, or often told me within the first month. And you said, wait a minute, if you knew within the first month that the team is not right, then you didn't do anything. The problem was not that the team was not right. The problem was that the CEO did not make hard decision.

Making hard decisions is hard. Making easy decisions is easy. This is why I called this chapter firing and hiring and not hiring and firing and when I send that to the publisher, he told me it should be hiring and firing and I said no, firing is hard decision, hiring is easy decisions. Now if you're a great hiring manager, your heat ratio is going to be 8 out of 10. So 8 out of 10 are going to be good hires in the other two words, not good hires. And if you're less than that, then you'll have seven out of ten or six out of ten. But even

if you're very good, you're still going to have misses. Now here is the challenge, the real challenge. There is someone that shouldn't fit into the organization, like someone that doesn't fit. And it doesn't matter if that someone doesn't fit because they are way underperforming or because they don't get along with other people. If there is someone like that, everyone knows. Startup is a small place. In any group of 20 or 30 people, if there was someone that shouldn't be there, everyone knows.

Everyone knows, and the CEO doesn't do anything. And this is where the problem is. So what goes through their mind of everyone that knows that there is someone that shouldn't be here, and no one is doing anything about it. Now, the result is always going to be the same, right? The result is that the top-performing people would leave, because they don't want to be in a place that is unable

to make hard decision. So now imagine that you are a large organization and you need to rank all the people in their organizations on a scale. You will end up with a normal distribution when they are amazing people and they're very good people and they're good people and they're less than good people, they're people that shouldn't be there. Let me ask you the following. What will make a bigger impact? Iaring another amazing person or firing one that shouldn't be there. And the answer is that firing that someone that shouldn't be there has a way bigger impact because everyone knows. So, in the conclusion of the book, or there may be the most important tip that I have in

this book, and this is for all people in the world, by hiring new employees. Once you hire someone, mark your calendar for one month down the road, and ask yourself one question. Knowing what I know today would I hire this person. Now if the answer is no, then fire them immediately. You're doing yourself a favor, you're doing the organization a favor, you're doing the rest of the people a favor, and you're doing that person a favor because that person is not going to be successful here and they do deserve the opportunity to be successful here and they do deserve the opportunity

to be successful but that place it should be someplace else. I think that's a great advice and I wanted to end the interview by asking you if you could tell us about the Founder's Kitchen and how what you're doing with it differs from other funds. So for a second, I would say the founder's kitchen does not invest anymore. The funder's kitchen was built as exercising my passion to build companies. So it was more of a company builder than a fund. But it was implemented as a fund for regulatory and taxation issues. But in its purpose, it was building and funding companies. In each one of those companies is solving, addressing a single problem, trying to ward a better place by solving that particular problem.

And for me, that was the same way that I was doing that my life was immediately after that position. I was guiding and mentoring the teams and the CEOs in particular, because my personality is an entrepreneur on one hand in a teacher on the other hand. And so I feel equally rewarded when I build stuff myself or I guide someone to build it. And so me mentoring my CEOs was as maybe even more rewarding than building stuff myself. And this is how I started as an individual. And later on, there were a lot of people that wanted to go invest with me in those startups. And this is how I started as an individual. And later on, there were a lot of

people that wanted to coin best with me in those startups. And so we've created the founders kitchen as a framework for that. One of the most amazing parts of the founders kitchen is being the CEO is very lonely. You actually have to deal with the major issues yourself. You cannot consult with the board because they might get scared off. You don't want to consult with the management and you ended up to be very lonely. And the founders kitchen have created for those CO's counterparts that they can actually discuss major issues with them and get their perspective, which is unbiased. This is a CEO perspective. And for a second, I would say this is even more important for me, the relationship between the CEOs and the trust

that they have developed, then their relationship with me. And so this is one part. The other part is that I remain an entrepreneur, I'm not an investor. So if you would ask an investor, can you set your priorities? Then they would say, number one, investment investors, number two company, number three team or CO. And for me, the CO and the team will be number one. And the company will be number two.

And the investors will be number three. In my belief that when I guide a CEO and increase their likelihood of being successful, I serve their return for the investors as well. Well great. Well, thank you so much for being here and I will just tell the audience again how great a book this is and it steps you through really a cookbook of everything as an entrepreneur you should be thinking about as your building your company from the ground up. So excellent job, congratulations on the launch of this book. Thank you. Thank you. Well, Yuri, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast. We so appreciate it. And it was our honor to have you on today.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Erie Levine and wanted to thank Erie, Bella Bella Books, and Melissa Connors for the honor and privilege of having him here on the show. Links to all things Erie will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you buy any of the books from the guests that we feature on the show. Videos are on YouTube at John Armiles or on our new clips station at PassionStruck Clips. Advertires or deals and discount codes are on one convenient place at PassionStruck.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. I'm at John Armiles both on Twitter and Instagram and you can also find me on LinkedIn. And you're about to hear a preview of the PassionStrike podcast interview that I did with New York Times best-selling author,

John U. Bacon. We discuss his latest book, Let Them Lead, an Uplifting Leadership Book, about a coach who helped transform the nation's worst hockey team into one of the best. Bacon's strategy is straightforward, set high expectations, make them accountable to each other,

and inspire them all to lead their team. Why the great players are almost never the great coaches. Magic Johnson, Wayne Gratsky, Ted Williams, Bart Starr, arguably the four of the best, certainly, at what they did. None of them worked as coaches, and the reason is simple. You have to know how to motivate the third and fourth line guys who will ultimately be the heart of your team. That's always been my feeling.

Those guys got a matter, they got to be important, you have to know what motivates them, they have to feel like the role in the team is significant and it should be. And my joke about that in corporate America is, if you're paying them, they better be important or else why are you paying them? The fee for this show is that you share it with family and friends when you find something useful. If you know someone who's in a startup or an entrepreneur ready to begin their journey, please share this episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you

can live what you listen. And until next time, live life-assioned struck. you