Great business stories and great people come together on Marc Bernstein’s Founders’ Forum! Marc Bernstein sits down with business founders across the country to discuss their lives, successes, lessons, and their vision for the future. It’s all about the success they’ve earned and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. These are American success stories and they’re not done yet!
Your Host, Marc Bernstein
Marc Bernstein is an entrepreneur, author, and consultant. He helps high performing entrepreneurs and business owners create a vision for the future, accomplish their business and personal goals, financial and otherwise, and on helping them to see through on their intentions. Marc recently co-founded March, a forward-looking company with a unique approach to wealth management. He captured his philosophy in his #1 Amazon Bestseller, The Fiscal Therapy Solution 1.0. Marc is also the founder of the Forward Focus Forum, a suite of resources tailored specifically to educate and connect high performing entrepreneurs, and helping them realize their vision of true financial independence. Find out more about Marc and connect with him at marcjbernstein.com.
Are you a visionary founder with a compelling success story that deserves to be shared with our audience? We're on the lookout for accomplished business leaders like you to be featured on the Founders' Forum Radio Show and Podcast. If you've surmounted challenges, reached significant milestones, or have an exciting vision for the future, we'd be honored to have you as a guest on our show. Your experiences and insights can inspire and enlighten others in the business world. If you're eager to share your journey and the invaluable lessons you've learned along the way, we invite you to apply here. Connect with us, and let's discuss the possibility of featuring you in an upcoming episode. Join us in celebrating your success and contributing to the legacy of the Founders' Forum!
Securities offered through DFPG Investments, LLC (“DFPG”) Investment Advisory Services offered through Diversify Advisory Services, LLC (“Diversify”). DAS and DFPG are affiliated entities. March is unaffiliated with DAS and DFPG. Member FINRA/SIPC
The information provided in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be interpreted as investment advice. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of Diversify or DFPG.
Yoav Oren: Why His First Startup Idea Failed (And What Fixed It)
•Marc Bernstein / Yoav Oren•Episode 181
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
0:00
|
28:26
A phone call from a Netflix producer. A childhood spent training in the Israeli desert. A year living in an industrial Chinese village to master martial arts. These are just pieces of the unconventional path that led Yoav Oren to build Zoog, a platform reconnecting grandparents and grandchildren separated by distance.
On this episode, Marc Bernstein and co-host Pete Meyer talk with Yoav, co-founder and CEO of Zoog AI, about the winding road from combat service in the Israeli army to a career at SimilarWeb managing operations across China, and ultimately to founding a startup born out of pandemic isolation. When lockdowns kept his kids from seeing their grandparents, standard video calls just weren't cutting it. So Yoav built something better.
What You'll Learn:
How a Netflix documentary shoot on martial arts around the world reshaped Yoav's career direction
Why Zoog's first version, a live storytelling app, failed to solve the real problem
The insight that led to Zoog's asynchronous model, letting grandparents record stories kids can watch anytime
The unique fundraising hurdles of building a consumer product in Israel's B2B-dominated tech scene
How Zoog balances fresh content creation with maintaining quality at scale
Where Zoog is headed next: live features, e-commerce, and using storytelling to boost kids' literacy
About Yoav Oren:
Yoav Oren is the co-founder and CEO of Zoog, a cross-generational communication platform. Prior to founding Zoog, he was the Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at Reimagine Ventures. Before joining Reimagine, he held several leadership positions at SimilarWeb. He served as the company’s Chief of Staff, working hand in hand with the CEO and the senior leadership team. He was also responsible for establishing and managing the company’s China operations and served as the General Manager of Greater China. In this position, he was responsible for the company’s data and commercial operations in the region and managed a team both in Israel and in China. During his tenure at SimilarWeb, he personally ran and closed deals with some of China’s greatest tech giants, including Baidu, Alibaba, JD.com, and closed the largest deal in company’s history at the time with Huawei.
Prior to his positions at SimilarWeb, he was relocated to Shanghai by a major American institutional company, where he set up and managed the company’s sales and marketing operations in all of Asia. He has worked and studied in China for over a decade.
Yoav holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in East Asian Languages and Cultures and Chinese (Cum Laude) , as well as an MBA from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Summa Cum Laude).
Yoav lives in New Jersey with his wife and three children.
Marc Bernstein's Founders' Forum is brought to you by March Forward, LLC, and this episode is sponsored by Zoog; a video creation platform that helps families create personalized, interactive stories where grandparents and children can connect across generations. Go to getzoog.com to learn more.
📅 New episodes every Wednesday—hit “Subscribe” now!
🎤 Got a success story worth sharing? We’re always looking for visionary founders to feature! Apply here to be a guest on the Founders' Forum Radio Show & Podcast.
The following programming is sponsored by Marc J. Bernstein. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management, or Beasly Media Group. Entrepreneur, founder, author and financial advisor, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing business owners turn their visions into reality. At March Forward, Marc and his partners and associates think out of the box to partner with their clients in regards to their visions for their lives, their businesses and their legacies. And through his innovative work with the Forward Focus Forums, Marc connects entrepreneurs to resources that help to fuel their success. Founders’ Forum is a radio show and podcast where entrepreneurs share their journeys, revealing the stories behind their successes, and the lessons they’ve learned. Join Marc and his guests for a mix of inspiration, valuable insights, and a bit of fun! Now, let’s dive in...
Good morning, America. How are we today? I asked it's a serious question. You can't answer me at the moment, at least not to my face, but think about that. How are you? That music, by the way, at the beginning is music that I wrote. Every once in a while, I'll mention that. It's a song called Should I? And I wrote it when I was a teenager, and I was writing a troika of songs. One was my three idols. One was an Elvis song, one was a Beatles song, and one was a uh tribute to Bob Dylan. And I mentioned that because I was thinking about Bob Dylan this morning, because all I keep thinking about is the words that keep coming into my head is the name of one of his famous songs called The Times They Are Changing. Man, I just see it every day. And I want to ask our guests. So, first of all, our co-host today with me is Pete uh Pete Meyer, who we just did a show with, and he is chair of Cause Connect, uh CEO of Cause Connect and founder of Cause Connect. Listen to his show if you haven't already heard it. And um, our guest today is named Yoav, and as I always do, I'll introduce in a minute. But Pete, what do you think about when you hear those words, the times they are changing?
Pete Meyer
So I was saying, uh, you know, I have kids, so I've definitely experienced the times have changed dramatically. I mean, their childhood is so profoundly different than than mine, but they're the same kids. It's uh so it's like as much as times change, things stay the same.
Marc Bernstein
That's there's something to that. And that's another line that Paul Simon added to a song that I always think about, The Boxer. Years later, he said, after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same. So I get I get it. So Joe, what do you think of?
Yoav Oren
So I think that um every generation looks back and says, Oh my god, the times are changing, right? I think it's a natural thing. I think what's interesting about today is the the speed of change. All right. I was listening, I was at uh at an AI uh lecture last night, and they said that um the time that it took for humanity to reach 50 million uh telephone users was about 15 years. Right. The time that it took for people for 50 million users to go on the radio, get a radio, was about eight years. The time it took to get reach fifty million users on ChatGPT was any guesses? Twelve hours. A month. A month. I was over the optimistic. Okay. But like the the times are changing, but they're changing so fast before our eyes. I think that's something that that you know it's taking me time to dwell on that.
Marc Bernstein
Yeah, and technology, if you think about the industrial revolution that happened over a lot of years. Century. The technology revolution is like it's almost a new revolution every six months, you know. It's crazy. iPhone, by the way, smartphone, four years. Yep. I remember
by the way, I I I think about I went to the 1964 World's Fair, shows my age. I was a kid. St. Louis? Where was this? In New York. New York World's World's Fair, and they had I think it was a GE exhibit where they had picture phones. You know, as a kid we had the Jetsons, you know, the cartoon show. And people were talking on these picture phones. And all those years I kept thinking, you know, we have blackberries, and I'm like, where are those picture phones? When's that gonna happen? And they had it, you know, as a setup, it was like a standing screen, you know, which we have today. And then just all of a sudden you had like smartphones, and it was like, oh, the whole games. We skipped the whole like uh TV on a stand that you're talking to. We went right to like everything's in your pocket, like everything's in your pocket. It's amazing. So Yoav Oren is co-founder and CEO of Zoog AI, speaking of technology. And let me tell you a little bit about him. And by the way, I met him because his father is Michael Orin, who is the former ambassador of Israel to the United States and is now representing the American Technion Society, of which I'm on the board of directors. I mentioned the Technion on here. In fact, we're going to be having a series soon of Technion uh entrepreneurs, a whole series about the Technion. So anyway, I got to meet Michael, and Michael introduced me to Yoav. And Yoav is a very interesting younger man who's kind of an old soul, I'm sensing from the conversation. And as I mentioned, he's CEO and found co-founder of Zoog, a cross-generational communication platform. Now listen to this. Prior to founding Zoog, he was the entrepreneur in residence at Reimagined Ventures. And before joining that, he had several leadership positions at SimilarWeb. He served as company's chief of staff, working hand in hand with the CEO and senior leadership team. He was responsible for establishing and managing the company's China operations and served as the general manager of Greater China. China is an important part of his history, as we'll find out too. In this position, he was responsible for the company's data commercial operations and managed a team both in Israel and in China. And during his uh tenure at Similar Web, he personally ran and closed deals with some of China's greatest tech giants, including is that Baidu? How do you say that? Baidu.
Yoav Oren
Perfect.
Marc Bernstein
Uh Alibaba, JD.com, and closed the largest deal in company's history at the time with Huawei. How do you say that? Huawei. Huawei, thank you. Prior to his positions at SimilarWeb, he relocated to Shanghai. He was was relocated by a major institutional company where he set up and managed company sales and marketing operations in all of Asia. He's worked and studied in China for over a decade. He has a degree from Columbia in Eastern Asian Languages and Cultures and Chinese, Kum Laudi, by the way, as well as an MBA from Shanghai Xiao Tong University, Summa Cum Laudi. And he lives in New Jersey with his wife and three children. I want to thank both of you gentlemen for coming three hours from different directions to get here today.
Pete Meyer
Meet in the middle.
Marc Bernstein
To be in person with us in Philadelphia in the radio studio studio. By the way, we had that little blip with the microphone. That was Shane getting back at me for what I did this morning. I'm going to confess on the air now, we had very loud Jewish music. I certainly have nothing against Jewish music coming in while we were trying to prepare for our show. And I couldn't figure out how to get it out, so I went out and turned down the slider. I turned off the radio station. So if anyone is listening and heard that blip, my great apologies. But um Shane just got back with an unop inoperating microphone there for a while that wasn't turned on. But anyway, we're laughing about it all. I hope. Anyway. So, Yoav, where would you like to start? Because there's, you know, there's a lot of places we could start. I want to mention that you're a dual U.S. Israeli citizen and your childhood included time in Jerusalem and a small community in the Negev. Um you're deeply involved in martial arts. How did all that influence you? And let's talk about your journey upwards.
Yoav Oren
First of all, it's great to be with you, Marc B. Same here. Thank you for having me. Um good to be in Philadelphia, despite the three-hour drive. Uh I guess there's there's so many different ways we can take this, and there's a lot of different places where we can start. And I think I said to my wife yesterday, I'm thinking about my journey, and it's it's very different data points. And it's hard to kind of you know draw that line of how these are all connected.
Marc Bernstein
Right.
Yoav Oren
Um, and and I I actually But from the outside, I see that they are. Yeah, I I I'm trying to I'm trying to make reason of it sometimes myself as well. I I remember saying to her before we got married, I said to her, I hope you're you're in this for the ride, because it's gonna be a nonlinear thing here. Um I kind of know this because I'm interested in a lot of different things. And I'm interested in challenging myself and trying out new things. And I think Zoog is definitely a testament to that. Completely out of my comfort zone when we first started. Okay. Different than anything else I've done. Um, but if I do, there there is a way to connect the dots. Uh so we can start really anywhere. We can start what what we're doing right now, we can take this back in history.
Well, I'm interested in your interest in martial arts, your interest in Chin Chinese and Asian languages and and culture, you know, as a as a Israeli American or American Israeli, I'm not sure which which way you consider it. Um we um, you know, uh uh it it's interesting that you went in that direction. And you know, how did how did why did that happen and how does that connect to where you are today?
Yoav Oren
Um so yeah, the interest uh from it's probably one of the earliest memories I have. I always knew I was gonna be a martial artist from a very young age. Um I am very ADHD, very hyperactive. So my first martial art class I was kicked out of when I was six. And when we moved, we grew up in a small desert community in the Negev, as you said, in the Snebuquer, where when where Ben Gurion is is buried. And when I was uh a little after age of nine, we moved to Jerusalem. And it was traumatic for me because I was used to roaming the deserts and and picking up a backpack when I'm seven years old and just walking down and then hiking around and walking by the room.
Marc Bernstein
A very distinct image of I've been there and at Bangorian. Oh, it's beautiful.
Yoav Oren
It's a on the hill there and it's beautiful, yeah. Um magnificent. And but what I did when I came to Jerusalem, I my my parents um finally found a good dojo for me to join. An amazing teacher. And and I fell in love with the with the martial arts. Really good. Are you the oldest in your of your brother? Yeah.
Marc Bernstein
Gotcha.
Yoav Oren
A sister and a brother. And and I loved it. And I was I was from a very young age, I was determined to. I didn't compete. The the martial arts that I did was not competitive, but I would come home after school and I trained for hours alone. And when I got a little older, I'd wake up at 5 a.m. and train. And it was a dream of mine always to see I knew that eventually I was gonna go to China, but I knew that I wanted to take a period of my life where I devoted just to this and see what happens. If I take everything else out of the equation, I take off uh obligations to family and friends and just devote a period of my life where I'm doing this. Um and after the army, um I served in a combat unit in the army at a very significant service. Um, and then after the army, I decided to go and and live my lifelong dream and go to China. But I needed money to do so. So I came to New York and I got a job working at the Gerson Lehrmer Group. Um semi-consulting firm. And I I worked there in New York, you know, and this consulting firm to make money to go to China. And then I eventually I left to China, spent about a year there training in a school with a teacher for about eight to ten hours a day. Um so an amazing experience.
Marc Bernstein
It was almost like going to a monastery or an ashram or something like that.
Yoav Oren
Yeah, it was even worse because I, you know, when you picture when you picture a monastery or an ashram, you're thinking, you know, oh, it's gonna be beautiful and somewhere in the mountains, right? This is like tourists. Like in mountain mist and the whole thing, and and and monks with ropes. And I I um I trained with my um with a grandmaster of my style, where I grew up with in Jerusalem, and he asked me to go to this specific village in China. Okay. And this village was nothing but a beautiful monastery. It was it was like industrial China, and there was no mist, there was a lot of pollution.
Marc Bernstein
So there goes my romantic vision of it.
Yoav Oren
And by the way, I had to I had to adapt as well. I was like, this is not what I pictured. Right, right. But but uh but it was amazing. And I've been back and forth to my teacher many times, and we're still in touch today, and very, very close.
Marc Bernstein
Very interesting. And you still practice martial arts?
Yoav Oren
I still I still practice martial arts.
Marc Bernstein
How about your kids? Have you brought that to them?
Yoav Oren
I've tried. And it's uh it's always as as you I'm sure both of you knew Pete Pete as well, uh, it's a delicate balance uh being a parent of okay. I want them to do something, but I also want them to develop their own unique character and to decide what they want to do. I've tried to put them in martial arts and they weren't interested. So they're both uh both my uh my older kids are very, very active. My my daughter is a competitive gymnast, and my um my older son is a very, very seriously into basketball and uh baseball when we arrived in the States, but he plays basketball competitively as well.
Marc Bernstein
You were still an example to them, just not in the way you thought you would be. Yes, which is the way parenting can be.
Yoav Oren
I keep on trying to uh teach them a bit, but uh less interested.
Um let's talk real quickly about you know what, let's not, because we're right about break time. We're gonna get right into Zoog right after the break. Okay, let's do it. So let's do the break and we'll be back in a minute on Founders Forum.
Announcer
Zoog is a video creation platform that helps families create personalized interactive videos where they become the characters inside the story. Think Netflix, if your family could star in the show.
Using AI and augmented reality, grandparents, parents, and loved ones can create magical stories, songs, learning adventures, and birthday moments in just a few clicks, with no editing or technical skills required.
What makes Zoog unique is that it creates a natural family flywheel around storytelling and learning. A trusted family member creates for the child, the child watches and rewatches the experience, families begin reading and creating together, and over time, children start reading and participating on their own.
Zoog turns family interaction into a natural learning experience by blending storytelling, creativity, and participation in a way kids genuinely love.
Download Zoog today on the App Store or visit getzoog.com to start creating together. You can also access Zoog’s special Founders Forum offer using the promo link in the episode show notes.
Marc Bernstein
We are back on Founders Forum with our guest today, Yoav Oram, and also um Pete Meyer, who is co-host. And Yoav, I want to ask you about Zoog, and let's start with you start where you'd like, but I want to ask you both about what gave you the inspiration for it and how did you begin? So I'm not sure which came first.
Yoav Oren
So maybe we'll maybe we'll connect the dots here. Yep. Okay. I was working I knew that was gonna happen. Okay, great. Uh I got back from China. I lived in China. My older son was bull born in China when we were there, um, did my MBA there, eventually moved back to Israel after being away for a long time. And in Israel, there isn't really a lot of industries. You go into tech. That's what we have, and we do it exceptionally well.
Marc Bernstein
Really well.
Yoav Oren
Very well. Um but I knew I wanted to keep one foot into the Chinese market and help whatever I whatever I was doing that had to be connected to China. Um, I was in Similar for a few years, and after a few years, randomly I received a phone call from a Netflix producer. And he said to me, you know, we're producing this show about martial arts. We're following a an actor, Frank Griller, around the world, and we want him to experience the local martial arts in different countries, and that way kind of a have a cultural window into these uh different countries, different uh places. And we want to do a show in Israel. Can you help? And I'm like, I have no idea if this is serious or not. I said, listen, I'm gonna be in New York next week. Let me let's meet. And I meet this guy in New York, and he shows me a trailer and it blows my mind. Like, oh my God, this is this is legit. A real movie. It's a real thing. Yeah. And I basically take out a piece of paper. I said, okay, this is what we're gonna do in Israel. And I tell them, we're gonna take you here, I'm gonna take you here. Great, amazing. I have no idea if this is ever gonna happen. But two months later, I get an email. We're coming, these are the dates, we want you to be with us. What can we do? So I end up spending about two weeks with a Netflix production in Israel, going all over the country and experiencing different martial arts in Israel and that way explaining. But but what this experience was, it gave me this profound experience in the entertainment world. You're you're in the film too, right? I am in the film as well. Uh that decided to put me in as well. And I absolutely loved it. And I always knew that I wanted to do something entrepreneurial. Uh, but after this experience, it kind of convinced me that when I go out and do something entrepreneurial, it will be in kind of on the nexus between entertainment and a problem that's dear to my heart. And and that was kind of like a big like push in the direction of Zoog. We started Zoog at as as COVID broke out. I left uh left Similar Web in January 2020. My wife gave birth
to our third child on February 2020, March 2020, we were already on lockdowns. And the first thing that happened in lockdowns, you know, in Israel, we're used to seeing our families a lot. We live relatively close, and I was used to seeing my parents on a weekly basis, and suddenly we're disconnected. We can't, we can't see them. But uh, so what we're trying to do is what the rest of the world tried to do. We tried to have Zoom conversations with them and FaceTime, and it just didn't work for my kids. It just didn't click. My kids couldn't handle small talk conversations. They weren't interested in these calls. It created a lot of friction. And I said there has to be a better way to do so. And this is kind of the premise of how Zook started, is really the idea of merging entertainment and using entertainment as a gateway of communication between two different generations who experience technology in a very different way. And this is what we do today. We take, we take entertainment and we make the grandparents or any relative that's not living, I guess, in the same household, and we allow them very, very easily in a click of a button to create content that's all educational, get them to star in the content, and that way we create this ping pong of communication between the children and the adults in their lives.
Marc Bernstein
Quick question because I never asked you this question, I don't think, but did that work? Did that heal for your children? Because you're still remote from your parents a lot of the time and your and your wife's parents. Did that did that solve the problem? Yeah, it was amazing.
Yoav Oren
Uh we did this, uh we did um we started off.
Marc Bernstein
Why don't you give an example because that will explain how Zoo works and what Yeah, yeah.
Yoav Oren
So we started off actually, you know, we said, okay, the problem is in these Zoom calls, they're not entertaining, they're not interesting for the kids, they're too complicated to set up. Um, so we have to fix live communication. And when we tried to fix live communication, we said, okay, let's put a layer of interaction on top of the live communication. So our first beta product was a live communication app where you where grandparents could read stories in a live call or play basic games like trivia questionnaires and so forth. And we launched this in the states with about uh in the states with about 100 families, and this ran for about two months. And we learned a few very important lessons from this first experiment. The first was that by far, the type of, I guess, entertainment or what people like to do more than anything else was read stories uh in retrospect because it gave them kind of a framework to communicate. There's text, there's illustrations, I know what I'm supposed to be doing in any given moment. But at the same time, there's enough room for self-expression, right? To being entertaining. Um, the harder lesson was about the type of communication itself. And this is where we felt all the friction was in the live aspect of it. Because if you think about it, there are many moving parts. You have to have the grandparent has to be home and available, the kid has to be home and available at the exact same time. The parent as a mediator has to be home and available to give the kid their device so they can have the call. And then if you threw in, you know, um bandwidth issues or or or or different time zones, these calls were just or the mood of the kid. What's that? Or the mood of the kid. Or the mood of the kid, 100%. My kids, oh my God, getting them in the right mood. And this is where we decided to have that a major pivot and said, okay, what if we don't make this live? What if we make this asynchronous? We allow the grandparents to record content for the kids whenever they want, and then they can share it whenever they want. The kid doesn't actually have to download the app so they can view their recording on any device and whenever they want. They can watch it repetitively, right? As kids, as you know, love the my kids. I I can't tell you how many times I've watched the same movie with them over and over again. But also you have the added value that anything you create on Zoog is also saved forever. So we're creating this family memory album, this archive that kids can go back and then 20 years from now view old recordings that were sent to them by their Grandparents. Very special. Um that's where we are today.
Marc Bernstein
I have so many thoughts about this now. You're motivating me. I don't have grandchildren yet, but I have nephews and nieces or grandnephews and nieces that you know ask about me and I ask about them, and this would be a great way to communicate with them that I'm thinking about. Practice for my grand future grandchildren.
Yoav Oren
It's uh it's it's super easy. We make it, it's it's very, very intuitive. It's a click of a button and you're inside the story. I'm gonna show you this in a second. Uh unfortunately the audience can't see this, but you will see this.
Marc Bernstein
I did I did I did sign up for it. I uh I do have an account. Okay, amazing I've gone that far. Well I don't I' we we only have a few minutes left, so I'm not sure if we have time to look at it. We can look at it after the show.
Pete Meyer
But uh Pete, you must have questions about this because I know you I think the asynchronous part is brilliant because uh I mentioned the mood. You know, kids, you try to have a serious conversation now, it's not gonna happen. It happens when you're driving to school or you're taking them out to the backyard. So the same thing. When they want to hear from their grandparents, they can hear or interact with their grandparents. Exactly.
Yoav Oren
Yeah, same thing for the recorder, too. You can record something uninterruptedly.
Pete Meyer
Yeah.
Yoav Oren
Right? My parents would get upset at me because I didn't, you know, I put the video in front of them during dinner time and the kids were like throwing their phone around, throwing food around. It's not interesting for them. Let me record something uninterruptedly, let it be meaningful, let me share it, and you watch it whenever you want and how many times you want.
Marc Bernstein
And do your parents and your uh in-laws do that now? Yes, that's right. Well, they're all big Zoog user user tests. Nice. Um by the way, we don't usually spend this much time on the product. I would say it's not an advertised about your story, but but we you've managed to do both. We know a lot about your story. We we can't do the show without explaining Zoog and what it is, or otherwise it doesn't make sense. Very similar to Pete's show, by the way, too, because he's got a kind of unique outlook in terms of uh the the uh line between commercialism and philanthropic uh giving. So it's you know you you we can't not talk about this. But let's talk
about um challenges you've had with the business and where you are and what your future vision is in the little bit of time we have left. How many hours do we have? You've got two and a half minutes.
Yoav Oren
Oh my God. Um okay. So I guess like the first challenge, we we did something that was very unconventional. We built a startup, first of all, a consumer-facing startup in Israel, which is not conventional. Israel is very much a security, cyber-focused market, B2B enterprise software-focused market. Consumer is kind of is still the stepchild, unfortunately. It's uh hopefully it's gonna change, but that's that was a big challenge. Raising capital for consumer business, let alone a consumer business that was focused on grandparents.
Marc Bernstein
Right.
Yoav Oren
Not an easy thing. Right, right. So I felt that in our journey I was always grandparents and technology even, which makes sense. Technology, of course, building technology for grandparents, which was unconventional. Um that really has service. But it was a hard thing raising capital and the traditional venture capital route uh for us in Zoo. So that's always been an uphill battle for us. Right. Um we wanted to there's always a delicate balance between okay, how do we create a product that has uh amazing content, but the content is always interesting and changing. So in Zoo, every content, not only every content is different, every line and every story triggers a different effect. So there's a balance there between how much I want to create an abundance of content so people will come back to the product versus sustaining the quality of that content.
Marc Bernstein
You don't want it to be static, it can't be static.
Yoav Oren
No, it can't be static. So raising capital, content creation, keeping the content creation quality and flow has been a challenge. And then of course, in any consumer-facing business, marketing. Right? In order to go to market, you need big marketing dollars. And that's always been a challenge for us balancing that out.
Marc Bernstein
Gotcha. Um we we don't have much time. Your three-year vision for Zoog and for your life, if you'd like.
Yoav Oren
Um so um two things. One, we want to go deeper into the relationship and offer different ways that this relationship manifests. So today we're offering asynchronous communication. I see Zoog um expanding into live communication as well and other different experiences that you can do uh throughout the platform. Playing games together, uh, e-commerce is something that we started playing with so people grandparents can purchase gifts directly on Zoog. So one hub for this relationship. The other thing is we see a flywheel, natural flywheel, where you see the grandparents sharing content, the children are viewing it as a family with their parents, then the children are reading together with their parents on the platform, and then the next progression would be children reading and practicing literacy on Zoo
because they're encouraged to read because it's much more interesting to see themselves part of the story. So those are two areas where I see natural progression for us in the next few years.
Marc Bernstein
I hate to tell you time flies on the show when you're having fun and we're done. Very short, it goes quickly. Thank you so much for being here, uh for having me. Um we're gonna have to do it again, I have a feeling. Pete, same thing. It's so nice to be here again. Thank you, Shane, for uh surviving through this day with me. And thank you all for listening. And have a great week, and we'll see you next week on Founders Forum.
Announcer
Founders’ Forum was brought to you in part, by March Forward, LLC. We partner with entrepreneurs like you to assist in accomplishing your future vision. Your life. Your business. Your legacy. Comprehensive wealth planning that starts with you -- not a product. We hope you enjoyed your time with Founders’ Forum and that you found something of value to take with you throughout your day. Join us again next week for another episode of Founders’ Forum on WWDB 860 AM Philadelphia, or on your favorite podcast streaming service. Securities offered through DFPG Investments, LLC (“DFPG”) Investment Advisory Services offered through Diversify Advisory Services, LLC (“Diversify”). DAS and DFPG are affiliated entities. March is unaffiliated with DAS and DFPG. Member FINRA/SIPC The information provided in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be interpreted as investment advice. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of Diversify or DFPG.
