They say the secret to startup success is all about the product, the team, the market, the timing, and so on.
The reality is that getting investments and building a successful startup can happen in many different ways for many different people, and each of them has his or her own success story to tell...
At Startup Grind's Tel Aviv chapter, we specialize in connecting people and attracting interesting entrepreneurs and game-changers to our growing and thriving community. I want to tell you a story that captures us, about one interesting young man.
At each event we invite three promising startups to present their product during the networking session. Then, our guests vote on which one they like best. The winner gets recognition on our platform and gets to present his or her startup to our audience on stage.
At our March event, we had a very unusual startup as a winner - a startup called Rapid API, which is run by 17-year-old CEO Iddo Gino!
There is no such thing as being too young.
It all started last year when Iddo was 16. Along with his high school studies, he completed a bachelor's degree in computer science at the Technion- Israel's global leading tech university. While doing so, he found the startup world appealing and fascinating. Iddo started exploring and attending different events and meet-ups in order to learn more about this world of innovative products.
Harnessed with coding ability and the perspective of experiencing the common problems of a 16-year-old, Iddo came up with an idea he started working on: a mobile wallet for teenagers so they could be self sufficient and not dependent on bank credits.
While developing the product, Iddo’s role was, among others, dealing with the server. He often got frustrated when he wanted to upload new code to the system. Each time, it took hours and hours to do. There were many bugs and other complicated services that turn a small action into hours of wasted time problem-solving.
In order to make his work effective, he developed an internal system to save him time, where all the basic functions are in the form of blocks that can be dragged to the server all together. That helped Iddo to reduce the work time spent on the server side from many hours and days to around five minutes!
Being part of HAC (Herzeliya city accelerator) at the time caused his fellow entrepreneurs to become familiar with Iddo’s internal block system, and they asked to use it as well. As a friendly gesture, Iddo and his team started sharing their system with their colleagues’ entrepreneurs.
Soon enough, they realized they had a new promising product, and started developing it further.
They saw the advantages they gave to the market- helping developers get their work done much faster and more efficiently when it comes to the server work. They can save weeks and months of effort!
After more adjustments to their product, they started to spread the word and got a spot to present at the Mixi convention.
It is all about the networking.
In September 2014, we hosted investor Dov Moran at Startup Grind. It was a fascinating event, especially having such a game-changing speaker like Dov.
The same Dov Moran was also one of the judges at the Mixi convention’s startup contest. After the convention, Dov Moran contacted Iddo and asked to meet with him. Not much longer after the meeting, Iddo and his team got their seed investment! Iddo become a 17-year-old startup founder, now having to deal with big money, writing checks, paying lawyers, and more. A new world and an amazing new life opened up to him!
Working with Dov brings Iddo to the next level. He gets to learn how the business should work. He meets with Dov constantly and gets his mentorship about engineering, marketing, and even advice on building a company. Since that seed investment they’ve launched their beta, with more than 100 active users and they hope to expand their customers base and expose their services to as many people as possible.
It’s all about trying. Just give it a try.
Startup Grind’s leaders and members help to connect them to different players in the market that can help them grow and expand – and we are honored to do so! Iddo’s dream is to build his company into one that will have a significant influence the way things happen in the app development world.
When asked what advice Iddo would like to give to other entrepreneurs he says, “It’s all about trying. Just give it a try. If you get things wrong and nothing really picks up like you want it to, you will always keep the experience, lessons and the learning process. They really count. Give it a try.”
We wanted to share with you this one story out of many. We here at Startup Grind TLV are thrilled to have the chance to meet and help so many talented entrepreneurs. We invite you to join our events, and if you can’t join us, you can watch our fascinating speaker interviews on the Tel Aviv Chapter page.
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Post was written by Lirone Glikman