The Human Founder Podcast by... Hi, here's Gali Bloch Liran, and welcome to the Human Founder podcast, where we talk about the mental aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Everyone talks about the roller coaster that comes with being an entrepreneur and perhaps also investing in something that, as a metaphor, resembles the manic-depressive sequence. How do we get into a strong light when Apple's privacy change in 2020 destroys all the rules of the game and affects the entire ecosystem? And it's crazy the moment the first dollar comes into the company you founded, and this place, this uncertainty, the need to constantly maintain ourselves at a high level of self-management, high energy, and with mental resilience to deal with everything is really not easy. In each episode, I will talk with entrepreneurs, investors, consultants, psychologists, teachers in order to give space to this extra layer that is less talked about in all the loudness, the mental aspect that accompanies the entrepreneurial path, and also share tips and tools that will help you create focus, clarity, and mental resilience to be balanced entrepreneurs who benefit from the episode. Today we are recording live as part of the launch of my digital course, The Human Entrepreneur: How to Start a Startup and Stay Alive, together with Leumitek, the Innovation Authority, and Pearl Kahn, and we are preparing in the beautiful offices of Leumitek in Tel Aviv with over 100 entrepreneurs in the audience, so it's even more exciting and fun. And it also seems to me that this is the second podcast that I am recording. The previous live was at the launch of the book, so it's a relatively new and fun concept. So come join us, and the event will be a blast. With me today, Oren Kaniel, Menkem and Shepetef, founder of AppsFlyer. How fun you came. Thank you for your time. We'll talk about it and in general, with all the time off from leading a company.
Yes, thank you for the invitation. I'm really, really excited to be here. Really, how fun.
Yes, you know this is a historic building. Give us a minute. I don't know. There are donations in the chair. Well, who knows what was in the building 12 years ago? It's beautiful. The stock exchange was down here. And also the stock exchange. It was in those years. 12 years ago. There were a lot of events here back then. There were also all kinds of organizations like Yaron Smid's TAK Aviv. So I remember myself really well. And how I came in. So a few guys also talked to me. So I just saw myself 10, 12, 13 years ago, 14 years ago. And it's exciting. And it's exciting that I can give a little insight. And also see myself 14 years ago. It's exciting. And thank you. How fun. You see, you're already excited before I even... We started this, I make people excited for a moment. For the benefit of those who don't know Oren, come on, let's introduce you. Oren, your love affair with computers began in the early 1980s as a child, but your path to the world of technological entrepreneurship was far from routine. Oren served as a cook in a non-tech factory and later studied at the Technion together with a friend from Reshef High School. We'll hear about him and together with him and Lisa, Chen Yosif's amazing partner, today they actually founded AppsFlyer. What started as a startup that was a bootstrap, one that many investors were afraid to ignore at the beginning. You know, in the last decade, it has become a global company that leads the world of marketing measurement. It's been more than a decade since you led AppsFlyer as a groundbreaking company in mobile analytics, and in recent years you've taken it even further. It's a modern cloud marketing platform that is distinguished by its independence and a clear privacy-first approach. Let's talk about it. Today, AppsFlyer works with Meta, Apple, Google, and Amazon, and with most brands. The largest in the world and generates hundreds of millions of dollars in profits and profits. Your technology is at the heart of the digital ecosystem with one of the most widely used SDKs in the world and an analysis of more than 200 billion user actions every day. What a number! But beyond scale and numbers, you believe that we believe and do that businesses should have a positive impact on the world in which we work. Along the way, you led AppsFlyer from a concept of doing well by doing good with a recognized commitment to values, social responsibility, and building a global company that continues to support and operate from within Israel. So, although I wanted to start with something else, I'll start with something like a small curiosity that was published in the economic news this week and all sorts of things were written about it. AppsFlyer had one of the strongest years in its history with a 500 million dollar revenue milestone, a milestone that very few Israeli companies have reached. This is alongside a blanket council and a significant improvement in profitability. The company has been generating stable and significant positive cash flow for nearly four years. Company response. So what can you tell us that we want to hear?
I don't know. I didn't open the newspaper this morning, so I'll have to catch up on what's happening at AppsFlyer. I don't know. Let's see after the podcast I'll read.
Okay, maybe there will be news. It came up two days ago and it came up in our internal group. She writes to me. Look, and I tell her how much fun I've been doing marketing. How much fun there are podcasts or two-day podcasts. Just don't let it get to me. So here it is. We brought it. Well, everyone is talking about getting into high-tech or has talked about it at least in the past. From 8200 to 81, they were in the army. They grew up in central Tel Aviv. You grew up reading Bialik. Who is solid? It's my mistake. The chat and this is fast. Oh, you read Moteskin and you were a butcher in the army. I want you to summarize these two points for a second and say how, alongside the merits and in light of this background, you know how to connect this link between where you came from and where you are today.
I think that every person is like... I'm all inside. I'm not used to it. I think that every person has some kind of personal mosaic that they go through and actually create their own self, and it's full of all kinds of difficulties, challenges, desires, passions, and in the end, my conclusion is that I really fell in love with computers from a very, very, very young age. Small. My parents didn't have much money at first, they really came from nothing, but they did invest in education, and I had my first one at school, if not in Kiryat Motzkin, a computer at home. And I just fell in love with this thing and from that point on I was always into computers and even as a child and I worked on computers and worked in a computer lab and wrote software and I also had my little brother Ed Sheffer under me who was some kind of genius, a real genius and then he worked for me and the first software I wrote was someone who bought a computer. They used to buy a computer there was no hard drive there was no internet it was just a box you turn it on it makes a fan and nothing happens you have to put some kind of diskette in it some kind of software will run it you have to do the DOS and after that this and then I would make them all kinds of things whoever would buy a computer I would tell them you know you are coming with this box turn it on don't know what to do take my business card and call me of course it would call me at home and my mother would answer so she would take it easy short I would go around all the streets with my bike and fix computers for people bring them diskettes I would make one that they would come turn on the computer they would get such a nice menu with the games after that everyone who bought a computer and then he was with all kinds of liberal professions and it was very interesting to me. This is a garage owner. This is a dentist and all kinds of things. I said, wait a minute. How do you manage it? How do you manage the customers? How do you manage it? Everything was papers and notebooks. I said that didn't make sense. Then someone came and said that he does things in Toto and I said, okay, okay. I said, interesting. I wrote a software that does statistics. And this is the one that makes it easier for doubles and triples. Everyone knows them. They don't know them. It's important. I solved it.
Well, you're reading Motzkina. His hobby is going to the neighborhood Toto lottery. So there were no rules. Yes, as children, we were already writing articles. But Co-Linked is good. Later, think about it. Everything is connected to everything. Oh no, I think about it. It's quite crazy. Yes, they sit with software. And what's it like to crack the Toto lottery system? And that's a shorthand. So he wrote to me. So he wants software. I said, who will write it for me? I don't know that much. So, I wrote software. And then I met the guy from the class in my brother's class. So, oh, without going into too many details. This is my first software project, and also the pilots, which is a hobby. Amazing, amazing, amazing. I'm now putting my kids in the air. You know how many airplanes I've heard on Food. He also talked about the airplanes that really accompanied him in his childhood. He all seemed more advanced than me. Motzkin Valley. He didn't have two boxes. Yes, we don't put it in the bar. But, yes, I heard Ofer. Oh, and I know Ofer. We were also in some kind of accelerator. At first, I was just amazing to see his path. Yes, no. Aviation is an amazing profession. I don't have it much today because everything is ready. And I think that the opportunity to go and build things that are after this from raw materials is and to go through the difficulties and crashes and mental difficulties is very, very, very great. When you build something, you spend all your savings on the remote control in the engine. And it's bothering you. And you can't find it in the field. And you're at night and in the morning. It's just an amazing hobby. Amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. That also taught me a lot of mental deficiency. And then the army's request was simply no. I was determined that I was going to do either drones or computers. It was mine. As if he said, there's no way this body won't take me to these things and it's not this or that. It happened and we have all the details what we have three hours or that point where you realized that you don't go to drones or to think.
I'll tell you I came I have you know in the end you look at everyone look at their own history they have all kinds of cufflinks of things and there used to be no pictures so there's actually a lot of room for imagination yes but yes I remember the like sitting like that in the bar and a sorting officer and someone comes in before me and says to me oh I'm going a no what did you get he also in the case there was someone I know from Mamram and then there was Mamram 8200 200 still there is Mamram there is I I come go into this and I remember go into him what is this I tell him listen I'm like computers from zero or so I or Mamram or computers I this he doesn't look him in the eye he tells me there is no Mamram I tell him listen but now man you sent him from Mamram how do you tell me there is no Mamram he tells me there is no Mamram and I remember this conversation as something he was very rude and alienated that really hurt me really like a kind of refusal of Rebekah This is my fashion, this is me, I live it 247 at the same time at the same time there was no internet there was but BBSs and there were very few BBSs in the country there was a bit in the north and a bit in the center BBS Those who don't know, you probably don't know the middle there are three hours or how long we have there are 45 minutes some k check in the GPT chat what is a BBS it's like a spam website that you put it at home on your computer and it works on the phone line you call the phone answers you a website that only one person can approach on this website that the experience is amazing because you also give them services like this everyone who comes in you can talk to them they exchange programs this is a story in short and it was a terribly closed world I mean there was no Google my friend this my brother's and this was it was no it was Google as if it had some kind of hold on some scam called Elist that had the whole list of phone numbers of the BBSs in the country it was the Google of the past you had to know what phone numbers to know how to play now once again it was busy I would sit all night and then also call the TV it was terribly expensive so you had to go And to break into the exchanges in order to go there, to even call New York now, you needed a mortgage, so then there are all these set-ups. It used to be like this, it wasn't that complicated, yes, it was simple, there wasn't any, there wasn't any slowness. How did we get to this? So I'll take us back.
Oren, I think he's going to start a career later because he's a comedian or something. But I go back to that point where you say I'm coming in and yes, yes, they told me I had to be a complete and total actor. And then a. No computers and no drones. And so you'll put it here for you. Put it here for me. It's not good for us here. B. Maybe, maybe, this is the beauty of Oren. This moment when you're told no and you experience both hurt and rejection and failure. Is there anything I want to complete?
In the end, I went. I can say that in the end, I ended up in the military kitchen and I can tell you that it was an amazing experience, the experience of creativity, of responsibility. In total, there were two cooks in the kitchen, everything was up to us. If there is a meal, breakfast, lunch or dinner, it's on us. It's a huge responsibility. There is nothing more sensitive, important, or critical than logistics in the military, specifically food. There is nothing, no matter what, without this thing, you don't move an inch, and then you realize that you feed a lot of people and you provide them with a daily experience several times a day, and this thing is very satisfying, and then I started, I didn't know how to prepare anything, yes, I slowly learned, and I remember that I would call my mother, wait, how do you prepare this, how do you prepare this, I would call my grandmother, oh, and in the army, oh, so then there were all the raw materials, we would get on the turkey, like, boom, you had to do everything in the kitchen, which was fun, it wasn't all ready, everything wasn't ready, so with the raw materials, you could prepare a lot of things, so I remember that I would also bring sauces from home and all kinds of things that in the army, little things that add a lot, of course, kosher, oh, to immerse the experience, oh, yes, and then I learned, it was terribly difficult, I won't lie, it was very, very, very difficult for me, because you suddenly come across an organization that I think was very, very, very, very difficult, because in the end, most of the army, it's you cut, you cut, you cut, yeah, because in the end, how many people are there in it, eight? 200 and how many people are in special units and how many people are in combat units. That means the vast majority of people come and do roles they didn't want or didn't think about or that's it, and in the end you come and do it during your adulthood at the age of 18, 19, 20, 21, a formative experience. It's the first thing you do after high school, and then it's like some kind of stamp that you get for life, and then everywhere you go they ask you what you did in the army? And it's like it defines you now. There's someone who did it and there's someone who did it. In the end, the army needs all these positions. All these positions. The army can't exist without cooks and without drivers and without all the logistics people and all these simple professions. And in the end, when I was in the trenches, I came out of the closet about this thing because it's something I wasn't proud of, but somehow at some point I said, come on, I'm going to say it forever. I wasn't in 8200. I was in the kitchen now. For me, it was something very strong because I always tried to avoid it. They would ask me about any job idea, I would be pissed if they didn't ask me, what if they didn't ask me what I did in the army? So of course this question comes up, because what would someone who has finished this ask, and then you get to this, life checks, it says such logistics. So now it says to me on LinkedIn Cook Pack Chef Chef It's very worth it after Emilie Triss So I'm a moment of retreat for those who know the movie A moment I'm ruining this episode There are a lot of stories of cooks' burials I have to give cooks' morks in trouble We're doing another podcast for it TVD TVD Oren I'm making progress Not at night I'm surfing Okay There really was a massacre in the camp Hero Shertz What are we seeing A moment and I was in the threshing floor You take my microphone Live mainly from every tough from every tough But look how to accept it Not very very big What a crazy lesson this is for the entrepreneurial journey And from it it's yours I've helped you grow and support and transform this thing And two What a sense of responsibility that you described very very beautifully in the section of the settlement and the kitchen And three And creativity And four Look how many qualities it will add to everything A moment happens that can never be provided. They will never say there is no good package, nothing. You are so beautiful, your bread turned out great. It's all about poking you now, but that's it, but knowing how to come and say, you know what, they do it with a smile, and they make some really exposed links. I'm laughing. I want to talk about Mankul and real time. And what else we talk about all the time is storytelling and knowing how to tell our story. Oren Av is probably very skilled at this event. Obi is often the one who is asked about praise. But look how amazing he is how he transcribes Azdo's experience many times. And I put it into what he does today and brings it. And this is our story. Bring everything we did as part of our life experiences and not hide or be afraid of it, but see how it makes us grow and raises us forward. Oren, I'll say more than that. I'll continue Ya'arat. I'll continue. You set out for the AppsFlyer. You set out single, without children, with Reshef, without money, without money. Tell us about the beginning. What was the Huizen like? How do you set out with Reshef? What's it like while your partner becomes your spouse? But your development is a huge question. You will choose what to pull in reverse of the pattern he chooses to pull. right. And the development of this thing for you, both as a father and as a manager within this thing, how did it start?
Oh, how is this more serious? Now look how it started. Look, in the end, it didn't start at one point. That started this whole thing and the chain of all these dots that seem random and Shae looks back, they connect. A. It was very clear to me. I studied at Beit Chom, and I got a degree in repair from the Technion. I said, 'Let's do something different at a different institution.' I saw a few people here from IDC. A. And why did I go to her? Because I wanted a different experience. I wanted an experience that was more international, with lots of fun, and there was a program called Haifa Students with Wharton. Now I wanted to go do NBA in the United States but all the tests and this and I said tu is admissions oh because no I don't think so but it has student exchange so I came to the placement I say do you have student exchange they tell me yes there is student exchange but you know it's only one percent that we take and send to Lawton I said percent percent that's good I take the take the chance and it happened because I set this goal from the beginning and then I had this experience going to Wharton for one semester as if to enter their back yard which is an amazing experience you don't understand what what what what what difference there is in the perception of a university in the United States in my mouth it's just heaven and earth just unbelievable just unbelievable I think the universities here are far far far far away from a hole in all kinds of things I don't want that but there is a lot much to learn for an amazing experience and there I also got to do a summer internship which is something very popular all the students all this so that they will be accepted for an internship by luck we accepted me to some VC there in Philadelphia where I did some work on Internet and digital and that's it, and that's where I saw these big problems with the carrier, and that's where the carrier started to fly, and that's where I bought my first iPhone, I had it at a previous job, I had a Blackberry, I was sure that Buck Bellery is the best thing in the world, and there's no way Apple doesn't have a chance, it's a code seven, what is it, so what kind of seven is seven three four, how much are you? 20 30 or so no no it was in the year iPhone let's get you sorted iPhone first iPhone 2 yes iPhone a in 2008 the app store opened Oren bought his first iPhone in 2010 by 2010 Oren thought that Apple had a chance and it was impossible to buy an iPhone in Israel did you know iPhone in Israel could only be bought around 2011 until then you had to smuggle it in socks or something like that and I was in the States I said come on I'm opening a car dealership who doesn't know it's like a second hand store there only it looks really 80s a a a a step deal like that 200 dollars brings me an iPhone 3G and I remember I was just blown away my head my head is not going to sleep I said wow this is the thing this is going to change our lives radically I have to do something about this thing and I got the germ of radical change and I'm obsessed with this thing and I don't know exactly what I'm going to do with it but I know I'm going to be a leader in this thing and it connected to me with some insights Very significant in a life of radical change like the first time, the first line of code I wrote, writing a command and the computer doing it, was crazy to me. The second time, it wasn't necessarily the Internet because the Internet was developing a little slowly compared to what we know today, but Google. The first time I was approached by Google around 2000, it wasn't Google yet. It was all through the forest, and I didn't understand how a database could work so fast, how it actually turned the Internet into a real network and not like a BBS station or an index. And the third time, he said that he experienced something extreme like that, it's like a different time that I touched an iPhone and that was actually a starting point, an opening that we're doing today. I thought to Tommy that I wouldn't get to see any more extreme experiences like these three things and I hope that I wondered again with AI, that I think somewhere in my pocket all these things together and now multiply it 100 times and much faster. Oh, very, very extreme. So, that's it. Now, I said, come on, I came back to Israel and met with Reshef.
I know the chef from the school in Motzkan, friends. We have a lot of friends, partners. I came to Israel and I also met him at one of the meetups. I mean, he didn't know exactly that I was back. I just got back. I went to all kinds of meetups. By the way, it's great. There's also free food, free coffee, and there's a chance you'll find your monkey. It's not a holiday. I can tell you a lot of stories. It's an amazing thing. I mean, there are people here in the audience who could be the ones who are going to change your life. No, I don't know. Maybe I'm me, maybe I'm not me, but I can tell you something that was also on Google. Maybe if she wants, then I'll tell. Um, that's what I started. We started working on it.
Guys, there's a lot of noise here, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd be quiet because it's recorded and we're putting it up. We'll start putting up the speakers soon. They will come here to comic with Oren so where would they return not those who deal with Keith Motzek Seth the question so a how was it with Reshef and Lisa like that the beginning of the echo of the cup what can I tell you look like this me me and Reshef come from technological backgrounds we had no idea about the internet advertising marketing nothing I am a Relta isolator this is also technologies but we said wait a minute we have to do this business of measurement it can't be that people investing things don't know what is happening, what is not happening. R Even in the engineering perspective of an engineer, wait, how do decisions get made based on guesswork and that's what we saw. People guess they don't know, Sprin Perry, as if it's crazy and we said, come on, let's go solve this. It seemed impossible at first. We were told it was impossible. We saw that it is possible. Oh and we sat down on it together and yeah we kind of cracked it. Oh, and that's it. From its name it flies. The thing is, we didn't have a marketing director, we didn't have an interest director, nothing. What I did know was from Melissa's house. As if she would always tell me, 'Come on, what you're doing here is an empire.' She would come home from work, she would help us, we didn't know what a campaign was, this is how it was, she would explain it to us, this was it, and first clients, and tea, tea, tea, tea, tea, and slowly it became something that was very natural, a stamp of help like that from the side, it became a daily routine, and then it became all day, and then it became 247, and then it became the three of us together, 247 working on this thing, after that, four children, but oh, but oh, how did you lead a company with a partner and a partner who is also your partner in your personal life and business life. I'll tell you people that we jokingly say not to try this at home, I'm adamant about it, because people who hear this are the ones who are in a relationship or married for many years or even a few years, they think this is something that is crazy, impossible, completely psychotic, and I understand them.
We were actually born for this, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't even a choice we made, it was a choice, and it became a part of our lives. And today, when I look back, I say that it's not only an amazing thing, it's an empowering thing, and I think it's one of the things that allowed us to do what we do and one of the secrets to our success within a company.
Stunning. I will say just one thing that is so critical. No, not just for prostitutes, I think for humans in general. The ability to think about a switch in the brain and I have some kind of imaginary thing and I transmit moods. I'm in work mode, I'm in the future mode, I'm in romantic mode, I'm in family mode, I'm in the know-what-is-political-to-talk-about-what-is-state mode. Okay, and when I do it, I'm in ultimate focus with this thing. I'm with the kids. I don't think about what I had at work. What I'll have at work. I don't know what's going on. I don't think about anything. I'm just with the child. And the ability to do that is, in my opinion, essential in life in general. Of course, in the matter of now, look how I developed it and it was work. How did I develop it because I had to? How do you come and create work with colleagues? By the way, a lot of people are friends of mine at the company with 20-plus years of management experience. Yes, it's not something that's a it's a but how do you come and create it? Working relationships that are healthy that are normal but you know that we don't agree on everything and we incubate each other and we work and it can and it can also be very intense very intense at certain points but you know there's this chapter and there's this chapter and there's the chapter of the house and there's the chapter of the friendships and everything connects together because in the end it doesn't have a name for it or it doesn't have a working name I mean I always think about it for a moment what is there family there are friends there is a spouse or a partner what is this thing called relationships and we have to manage them and you're exactly giving us an amazing tool here for how we make these transitions between one thing and another and total focus on everything and presence presence from a choice to be now only in this or only in this and only in this and in all things somehow enter into some kind of harmony I think I think this is the ultimate. I mean, if you think about friendships, let's say it's a friend you meet with occasionally, and it's probably you, if there's any, maybe you won't give him feedback or family, you won't give them feedback. Wait a minute. I think what you did yesterday wasn't good. I think you need to work on it. Let's see in a year how we get here. Let's see how we work on these things. Giving them feedback that's not pleasant to hear is not pleasant. So maybe you won't do it with family, I don't know what, maybe in Kiryat Muzak, maybe you will listen, but maybe you won't do it with friends you meet with once every two weeks or once every two months. But people you work with all the time, every day. They know you. They know you really well. They know you by what you are good at, what you are not so good at, what is difficult for you? What is less difficult for you? What is challenging? What's not challenging? You and I cry together, we rejoice together, we go through significant challenges together. There is nothing more powerful, more sociable than going through this journey with amazing people. And in the end I think the world is so busy. And entrepreneurship is such a busy thing. You're dealing with it 247. People talk about work-life balance and I don't really like that point of the ban because you treat work not as life I have more work so I have less life and I have more life and I have less work but I think it has to be harmony and my agenda or my motto is to surround myself with people too I want to
