Still following the road map to success, Enable outlines how to help a startup make the leap from Israel's Silicon Wadi to the big time: Silicon Valley.
As we continue following our road map to success, we find ourselves in Silicon Valley helping a startup jump from Israel - Silicon Wadi - to Silicon Valley. Sitting here in Miyake - Palo Alto's super trendy Japanese restaurant - it is hard to remember that Israel is an active participant in the global high tech revolution. I am with several entrepreneurs, a former KPMG consultant, and a venture capitalist from Palo Alto.
Most people here recognize Israel as the second Silicon Valley but there are numerous differentials that are immediately apparent.
Enable's Top Ten Wadi-Valley Differences:
- Everything in the US moves very fast, but unlike Israel, things are not so hectic and there is no artificial pressure.
- Everyone is inundated with the Internet and dot.coms - television, radio and magazine ads are full of e-commerce and infrastructure ads. The billboards are almost exclusively e-commerce companies.
- Given its function as the capital of high tech development, Palo Alto is very low key, more so than many places in Israel. For example, Garage.com doesn't even have its name on its office building.
- Modesty, despite great achievement, is the dominant social characteristic in Silicon Valley. Renowned Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Kamran Elahian is known for answering his own e-mails and returning calls personally.
- Investments in infrastructure supporting a 24-hour economy - from all night gyms and restaurants to superfast T1 lines - are present all over.
- Israelis function by rule of thumb while the Americans create the rules.
- A good deal is a market cap of $1 billion, not $150 million.
- High Tech is truly driving the economy here. Studio apartments go for $3,000 a month, an apple cost 65 cents and lawyers get raises just to keep them from moving over to dot.coms.
- Every day there are 64 new millionaires in Silicon Valley.
- The time difference makes it much more difficult to work with Israel than is commonly believed.
Enable's advice: Look before you leap to the Valley. While it is one of the most exciting places for a high tech start-up, in order to arrive, survive and thrive here, you must factor in the advantages and disadvantages at the earliest possible stage of your fledling company.
p>Published by Israel's Business Arena on February 22, 2000