Parashat Balak

This is #Snapchatorah for where Hillel Fuld takes the Torah portion, learns some lessons and apply them to entrepreneurship and startups.

This week’s Torah portion is Balak, about a man who wanted to destroy the Jews. Not the first and not the last. Only this time he didn’t use guns, he used words. What you need to realize is context. The Jews were taken out of Egypt. Miracle after miracle. Splitting the sea all the ten plagues. We won all the wars, he realized he could not beat us with physical strength so he used rhetoric. Before we apply the obvious lessons to entrepreneurs. It is crucial we understand how important and how dangerous words can be. Verbal incitement kills.

As for startups as for entrepreneurs; words, communications, overcommunication is a make or break for companies. Words mean marketing, words mean investor relations, words mean public relations. Words mean positioning, words mean messaging. Words mean everything

Never underestimate communication

The Jews won, many of the wars and beats some of the most powerful kings in the region. Balak could have taken out bigger guns. But instead he took out words. One wrong word in an email, one misguiding concept in a deck or a pitch can become a startups biggest disaster.

In this instance, Balak wanted to curse the Jewish people. And it came out a blessing. We can learn from this, the dangers of negative communication and the impact of positive communication.

If you are a technical co-founder of a startup, or if product is your thing. Bring someone who lives and breathes communication. To be your mouth. A lot of times startups dismiss communication as fluff and unnecessary. Nothing could be further from the truth. Communication is as important in a startup as anything else.

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Hillel is a Co-Founder at ZCastApp, mentor at Google, Microsoft, and many other accelerators across Israel. Add Hillel on Snapchat and Twitter