“Startup nation” by Shlomo Strugano https://link.medium.com/264QHz64yV
Anyone who spends time in Israel and specifically Tel Aviv will tell you about the entrepreneurial energy that surrounds the borders of the city. To get a glimpse of what I am talking about I suggest reading a book called "The Start-up Nation". I have spent the last 3 months fully invested into the idea of what makes Israel the startup nation. Most will tell you that it has to do with the rudeness, bluntness or straight-forward behavior of the Israeli society. The notion that we should want and need to challenge all existing ideas and push forward and develop or innovate the next big thing. In Israel,1 out of every 12 citizens of Israel has a startup. That’s nuts! Failing at a startup is applauded by the community so much that investors into startups are looking for people who have failed at least 3 times. One of the main criticisms of Israel is the idea of scaling businesses into the global marketplace. It seems that we are exceptionally great at the cultivation of the idea or innovation, but that its. Scaling the business is not our strength. Regardless, there are plenty of accelerators and incubators awaiting entrepreneurs to join and start cultivating their ideas. I spent my evening in one of the newer incubators in Tel Aviv and got to experience first hand what the incubator experience is all about. I felt like I was back in Wall Street in the stock exchange with people yelling at each other. The noise was bouncing off the walls. It was the ultimate form of collaboration.
At this event, I met with an amazing start-up in the bio-health industry. What they did is develop a technology that takes your tap water and uses it to clean all the micro-bacteria that exists in most of the places in our house like the bathroom, kitchens, etc. They have a bottle that holds their chemical-free technology that once it mixes with water it creates the ultimate cleaner of bacteria. I spoke with the owner and asked him how he came up with the idea and he told me that he knew someone that was sick of spending so much money on cleaning supplies for his house and inhaling the deadly toxins that are living inside the existing cleaners so he decided to challenge the idea and started doing research and a year later he is raising money from venture capital firms to get the product going. I am proud to be part of this great country and hope to contribute soon to its economic growth by producing my own startup.