My next adventure

TL;DR: After almost 8 months of personal exploration and nonstop travel, I’m off to a new adventure.

When I left Mapme, I had no idea what my next move would be. The years prior had always been about taking the best opportunities and going full steam ahead. The second I finished high school I did exactly that. I joined an accelerator, worked at a startup, served in an intelligence division in the Israeli military, spent some time at a VC firm, launched side projects with friends, organized meetups and spent years working on Mapme. One thing always led to the next.

For the first time in my life I asked myself questions I’d never thought about before. Where should I be? What should I do? What are my goals? Everything was up in the air.

Like every former Israeli soldier, I bought a ticket to somewhere far away with no real plan. I landed in Bangkok and spent months traveling between Chiang Mai, Pai, Hanoi, Sapa, Hoi An, De Nang and Shanghai. I went hiking and motorbiking with hostel friends from Germany, Canada and Australia. I ran into former colleagues from the military in Vietnamese rice fields and Thai villages. I tried my best to disconnect.

After moving around Asia for a few months and getting very sick twice, I decided to switch continents. At the start of my trip I had this idea that I’d figure out my life while traveling, but honestly, I finished with even more unanswered questions.

I went back to Tel Aviv to grapple some more with my questions. I wasn’t ready to stay put yet, so over the following months I spent time going back and forth from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Manhattan, Zurich and St. Gallen.

With time on my hands, I read books that had been on my list, like Sapiens, Ready Player One, Shoe Dog and The Name of the Wind. I tried new things like yoga and meditation. I caught up with old friends.

While in Israel I reached out to Erik Torenberg about organizing On Deckdinners in Tel Aviv with Raphael Ouzan. Raphael and I were inundated with hundreds of applications. We kept the initial batch small and received fantastic feedback. The concept was simple: three hours of intimate chatting for anyone who was thinking about what was next career wise.

Side note: two of the first attendees became cofounders and recently closed a seed round for their new company ??

What I loved most about these dinners was that everyone, no matter their background, was at some sort of crossroads in their life. Whether it was a successful founder seeking a challenge, a VP Product thinking about a move or a developer debating between joining a company and building projects. After these events, I spent countless hours meeting one on one with all kinds of folks talking about this decision process.

I left every conversation with two main takeaways: maximize learning and work with the best people possible.

I spent weeks looking for relevant opportunities where I could maximize both. One of my main criteria was finding experienced founders who had a better sense of what they were doing the second, third or fourth time around. After a fair share of meetings, emails and calls with multiple companies, I found a great fit.

I’m thrilled to be leading growth at Spoke, an early stage startup based in San Francisco. Spoke is on a mission to solve the way teams share knowledge and support each other. In essence we’re taking the traditional service desk model and rebuilding it from scratch in a much simpler and smarter way.

Here’s why I’m bullish on Spoke:

• Team is top notch and worked together in the past.
• Founders are serial entrepreneurs and execute fast.
• Investors are top tier and in for the long run.
• The market is ripe for change and the vision is huge.

I’ll still be dreaming up side projects, helping companies launch on Product Hunt and organizing On Deck dinners in Tel Aviv, but my top priority will be doing everything I can for Spoke to grow. And I’m always available if you want to reach out.

Thank you to everyone who helped me throughout this past year. I appreciate it more than you know.

PS: If you want to chat about Spoke’s pilot program, join our team, grab coffee, ping me ?? [email protected]