Archive for category: Torah

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

The Torah is a smart book, this week’s Torah portion is no different, there are at least four different lessons we can learn, but I am going to choose one of them. Some of the other lessons the ones I am not going to address, include Pinchas. Who stood up to injustice and the Torah potion is actually named after him, as well as sisters who did not have a brother but asked for inheritance, and set a precedent.

Leadership. What makes a good leader?

What I do want to talk about, is that G-d told Moses to find a replacement leader for him at the end of his life. And Moses the commentary says asked to give his sons that title, but G-d said no give it to Joshua. Both the actual text in the old testament, the bible, as well as the commentary talk about why Joshua. What were the traits that G-d saw in Joshua that he chose him and no one else?

A leader that will go, and come with the nation

When G-d elaborates on the decision to choose Joshua he doesn’t not talk about Joshua’s charisma or his wealth, what he talks about is his ability to lead by example.

A leader doesn’t only act him or herself like a leader but brings others up

And the commentary explains, that Moses wanted his sons. “My sons study Torah as well”, but G-d said “yes they study Torah, but they do not facilitate Torah learning for other people.” That’s a leader. I once heard someone say “When I speak to a manager, I feel like they are important, but when I speak a leader, I feel like I am important.” So Joshua was chosen not because his righteousness or his strength or his wealth or anything else. But because of his ability to lead at the front lines.

If you think as a founder or a CEO of a Startup you can start around and give instructions to other people and not get your hands dirty. You are in for a very big surprise. My CEO writes code. Some might say and have said, that’s not the job of a CEO, I disagree the best kind of leadership is one where he or she shows that they lead by example.

Yes, a founder/CEO of a Startup needs many ability’s; strategic abilities, marketing abilities, fundraising abilities. But first and foremost they need to roll up their sleeves and lead.

So like I said there are many lessons in this week’s portion standing up to injustice, equality, but the most important one is understanding of the foundation of good leadership. As I mentioned this week potion is called Pinchas, I would highly recommend you read what Pinchas did as a Zealot and why he did what he did. And that also has to deal with leadership. What Pinchas did and was rewarded for, was highly politically incorrect. But it is an interesting topic to learn how leaders lead by example.

And the other topic, same story. These daughters, these sisters had no brothers and asked for inheritance, something that wasn’t done, wasn’t accepted. But Moses went to G-d and got approval, Leadership.

Went against the norm, and acted like a true leader

The bottom line is forget political correctness, and forget what is done, forget norms. Do what’s right for the team, do what’s right for the company. Roll your sleeves up. And get to work

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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

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

The Torah (Old Testament) has five books, today we start the fourth one Bamidbar; the book of numbers. The literal translation of Bamidbar means in the dessert.

Why is a book, one of five books, which I would say pretty significant thing named in the desert? What is the significance of that?

To answer the question why it is called in the dessert and what the lesson is a little bit of history. The Jews walked the dessert for forty years to enter the land of Israel. But why isn’t the book called the land of Israel? Why is it called the desert, the answer is… commitment. The importance of commitment, the importance of hard work. Even in my little world a lot of times people will look at success and they think that was achieved overnight they don’t realize the amount of hard work blood, sweat, and tears that went in to that success.

You know the Talmud tells us

Rabbi Yitzchak said: If a man says to you, I have labored and not found, do not believe him. If he says, I have not labored but still have found, do not believe him. If he says, I have labored and found, believe him

–Talmud Megilah 6b:

So the book is called in the desert because it shows the importance of commitment. Yes, they entered the land of Israel at the end, but it’s not about the end it’s about commitment, it’s about the hustle. Yea I went there. And one more thing about commitment and the way it works. You work hard at something and you achieve success the level of enjoyment is exponentially bigger than just achieving success without that commitment. So do people get lucky in startups? Yea they do, for every one lucky entrepreneur nine out of the ten other successful entrepreneur worked their butts off for years.

So the book is called in the dessert because it is crucial to remember the walked in the desert for forty years before they got there.

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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

Emor (אֱמֹר — Hebrew for “Say”)

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

Add Hillel on Snapchat Snapchat.com/add/hilzfuld 

This is a very technical portion. So I thought and thought and came up with something that I think is super relevant to me, and to leaderships and entrepreneurship and startups.

So there are these priests. And they have access to the temple and can do all kinds of things that normal people can’t do. They are sort of in a way the leaders of the nation.

They are the leaders or servants?

They are the leaders who think they have more privileges right? Which they do, but this entire portion talks about in great detail all the responsible and rules pertaining to priests.

Leadership is responsibility!

Then it hit me. A good leader is one who realizes he or she has more responsibility, not only more privileges. That is the lesson of this week’s Torah portion. Often times I have come across us people who talk about their dream of entrepreneurship. With having their own startup, but do they realize that being a cofounder of a startup isn’t all techcrunch?

A good startup founder a CEO is one that takes more responsibility and less privilege. That is leadership.  That is what we learn from the priests in this week’s portion. Think you can run a successful startup without getting your hands dirty? You are in for a very big surprise, and that is what the priests teach us. The technicalities are the lessons for leadership, a good startup CEO not only is he or she not above the rest of the employees, he or she is actually the servant to serve the employees.

Just to summarize, leadership is defined by responsibility not privilege. That is why there are so many rules about priests. That is how you run a startup.

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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

This is Hillel Fuld’s  #Snapchatorah for Passover

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The Four Sons

The book we read on Passover the Haggadah, talks about four sons; the intellectual, the evil, the simple minded and the one that doesn’t know how to ask questions. Notice how they are defined.

They are defined by their questions. The intellectual one asks questions because he cares, the evil just doesn’t care. The simple minded one doesn’t know there are questions, the one that doesn’t know how to ask, doesn’t know how to ask.

The lesson for Entrepreneur’s: always ask questions

Never take anything as a given, never assume the other person will ask. Always try to fix things and ask questions. Always be learning!

You know how you become a successful entrepreneur? Not by exiting your company not by raising funds, not by getting traction. By learning. Even if your startup fails, and you’ve learned lessons you didn’t fail.

Always Ask

The only way to learn is by asking. I have learned countless things about financing, about fundraising, about things I am not comfortable with, things I did not know about. I have learned by asking. What’s so interesting is that these four sons their entire identity is defined by their questions. Because questions define a person. If you don’t ask, you don’t learn. If you don’t learn you don’t grow.

Be the intellectual entrepreneur and keep asking

Just like these four sons, be the intellectual one. Not the evil one that doesn’t care, or the simple minded one who doesn’t even know that there are questions, or the one that does know, but just doesn’t know how to ask.

Always ask, never accept anything!

A lesson that occurred to me this morning in the car, and I absolutely love it. You know your CEO tells you are raising funds on certain terms ASK WHY. Your boss tells you to adopt a certain strategy ASK WHY.

Always be growing

Somebody tells you there is a challenge that is just too big to overcome. Ask, is it really too big? Someone says something fails, ask, did it? Always be intellectual, always be growing.

 

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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

 

Tazria (תַזְרִיעַ — Hebrew for “She Conceives”)

This is Hillel Fuld’s  #Snapchatorah for Parashat Tazria.

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The Dangers of gossip

This weeks snapchat Torah is super important for entrepreneurs. The Torah portion talks about gossip and leprosy i.e. good and bad communication.

When building a startup, communication isn’t 95% it’s literally 100%. Everything you do, needs good communication.

Never burn Bridges.

With startups you should never ever burn bridges. There is always a way to communicate things in a positive way.

Think about it, the Torah portion talks about gossip. Gossip is an interesting thing, you are not really hurting anyone, you are talking behind their back. It teaches us the power of words, they are like feathers in the wind, you can never get them back. Words are so powerful. For good and bad!

And the importance of communication goes both ways. Good communication means telling your story well, and bad communication with investors, with employees can ruin everything.  There is no limit to the importance of communication in startups.

This #snapchatorah is the most important so far!

Communication in startups is everything, more important than product more important than your market. Communication is everything. The importance is, just communicating. Over communicating is better than a lack of communicating. Investors, employees, always keep everyone in the loop.

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