“Ma Hachevrah shelcha osa? Ma ata metzig????” The typical Israeli inquiry is always presented with a sense of expectation but without the patience to wait. It’s hard to convey. “What does your company do? What are you presenting????” The question was basic, and it was time for me to answer, swiftly, strategically, thoroughly.
About a week ago, I was expected to informally present our company at a Cleantech forum that took place in the center of Tel Aviv during the largest Cleantech conference in Israel this year. The pressure was on, to say the least. A few days before, when my boss told me I would be the face of the company for much of this two-day conference, I was excited and even confident. Throughout my time here, I had talked about my company to such an extent that I had perfected the pitch (in English) and even felt confident fielding questions about it (in English). My boss sent me the invitation to the conference, which to my surprise it was all in Hebrew. I looked up and asked if I would have to present in Hebrew. He said “of course!!”.
I would like to clarify that my Hebrew is generally pretty strong, the accent is there (though not perfect), the 12 years of grammar I picked up in Jewish Day School is apparent, and the overall Israeli rhetoric has not diminished since my predominantly Hebrew speaking childhood. I still got it, except for this one small detail. I can’t talk business.
You see, I grew up in a bilingual household, Hebrew alongside English, where it was easy for me to ask my mom for something in English and turn to my dad with a perfect translation. Hebrew classes in Jewish Day School reinforced what I learned from my Israeli dad. But for some reason I may never fathom, technical and business terms never found their way into my childhood or even adolescent Hebrew sentences. The books I read in my Hebrew literature class in high school also lacked that technical component that is clearly a necessity in the Israeli Cleantech market.
To catch you up to speed, I work for a clean-tech start-up that works in Israel’s leading tech incubator with 11 other water affiliated start-ups, all striving to achieve a better management of the very liquid that sustains us as human beings. The basic premise is that we produce a micro generator that extracts energy from the flow of water inside pipes. If the simplicity in the description leaves you to believe the work here is easy; try again.
It only makes sense then, that when I was asked the simplest of questions at this Cleantech conference I was nervous. Once I knew the whole company pitch, which I had perfected in English, would have to be done in Hebrew, I began to take notes; frantically. On the ride over, I asked my boss to translate every technical and business word that was relevant to our company to Hebrew. Like I said before, the learning curve here is quick. It was hard enough to have to convert meters and liters to feet and gallons (something America should really think about changing one day). After memorizing the translated words I had known so well in English, I thought I was ready.
I presented with the same Israeli confidence that was obvious from the man asking the question. At this point I was still trying to remember how to translate “extract energy from the flow of water inside pipes” into Hebrew. First sentence was out. Perfect. He nodded his head as if he was ready to ask 1,001 questions. When he introduced himself as a professor from the Technion University (one of the most prestigious technical universities in the world, alongside MIT), I nearly fainted. My marketing smile suddenly turned into a subdued frown. It shouldn’t be surprising then that when he began to challenge me about the company’s technology, specific product measurement and threshold capacities all I wanted to do was plead the fifth. After about 15 minutes of my attempt to answer his highly sophisticated questions, with English words sprinkled in here and there, he gave me his card and told me to contact him soon because he thought this technology was groundbreaking.
It was that moment that I realized that it’s not necessarily about how well you speak or how many words you stumble over when trying to make a pitch. Marketing is all about your ability to present yourself or your product in a manner that elicits a positive reaction and leaves the consumer wanting more. I believe I succeeded.
It was about 5 hours into the first day of the conference and the CEO of the company that presented next door to mine asked if I wanted a coffee break. He opened a box of chocolates and told me to take a seat. In the most Israeli manner I could imagine, with inquisitive hand gestures that question my purpose for being there, he asked, “what’s your deal, you know, how’d you end up here?” After explaining my background, and more specifically, my affiliation with TAMID, and how it connects American college students with the Israeli economy, he asked very bluntly if there were any more fellows who needed an internship for the summer. Either I pitched the concept of TAMID pretty well, or he was just being nice. We got to talking a bit more about what we were both doing sitting in Israel’s largest cleantech conference of the year. After telling me about how he ended up being a CEO of a cleantech company in Israel he said “ma shata sam, ata tikach” meaning, “whatever you put in, you’ll get”.
For now, aside from learning a whole new set of words in Hebrew that pertain to the cleantech sector, I’m learning what it feels like to be entrepreneurial. I’m learning how it feels to be new to a world yet so excited to be a part of it. For me, this whole process, this notion of being thrown into a world I didn’t know too much about and landing on my feet; for me, that’s what it’s all about.
