Enterprising olim complete small-business incubator

“Immigrants are more entrepreneurial than the rest of the population because normally when you are new to a country, you have more of a tendency to create your own business.”

By JAMIE HALPER
Newly minted graduates of TheNest’s second cohort of small-business owners pose with their certificates of completion and graduation caps at Wix headquarters in the Tel Aviv Port (photo credit: SASHA PRILUTSKY/DVISION)
Newly minted graduates of TheNest’s second cohort of small-business owners pose with their certificates of completion and graduation caps at Wix headquarters in the Tel Aviv Port
(photo credit: SASHA PRILUTSKY/DVISION)
Energetic olim, their families and their mentors filled the brightly lit Wix Headquarters office at the Tel Aviv Port on July 23 to celebrate their graduation from a new small-business accelerator for recent immigrants to Israel.
TheNest program, a 10-week initiative for aspiring small businesses that was started by Wix and Gvahim – an organization that supports olim – seeks to support newly arrived entrepreneurs in their business endeavors. Through a series of workshops and mentorship opportunities, nine immigrants were able to advance their projects toward actualization in the Israeli marketplace.
From a yoga studio and a bakery for gourmet dog treats to a subscription gift box company and an Airbnb cleaning service, the program seeks to refine non-technology start-up ideas, unlike a variety of other incubators in Israel that cater exclusively to that field. Patricia Lahy-Engel, the entrepreneurship programs director at Gvahim, which is associated with the Rashi Foundation, said the program capitalizes on immigrants’ unique position to innovate, while providing them with resources and knowledge they don’t have when they arrive in Israel.
“Immigrants are more entrepreneurial than the rest of the population because normally when you are new to a country, you have more of a tendency to create your own business,” she said. “Your destiny is in your hands, and you’re sometimes more creative; you bring some innovations from home. But when you come to a new country and you don’t have connections and you don’t know the rules and don’t know the local laws, it’s very difficult to make it happen.”
Lahy-Engel emphasized that the program didn’t just provide classes and conceptual support but also sought to give concrete, behind-the-scenes support to the aspiring small-business owners.
“We help them by putting them in contact with business owners that have already made it and know how things work here. We introduced them to experts in marketing and lawyers, accountants – you name it,” Lahy-Engel said. “At the end of the program, they’ll have developed their networks, they will have answered a lot of questions with regard to their business strategy and so on, and they will also have, as a community, helped each other a lot.”
David Bador, an immigrant from the US and one of the creators of Neu Table, a pop-up restaurant created through TheNest program, said the workshops were instrumental in focusing his and co-founder Jacob Morrison’s business idea. Their hope is to open in Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market and offer both a restaurant and an immersive cooking experience.
“TheNest actually helped us create a minimalistic view so that we could get a business up and running in no time,” Bador said. “It helped us minimize our broad idea and helped us find our pinpointed target and make sure that we can get on the road to start turning our concept into an actual business.”
Ilan Cohn, an immigrant from Switzerland who started an Airbnb cleaning service, said the contacts the program provided were crucial for him. His company helps connect local cleaners with Airbnb hosts and provides linens for the properties with which they work.
“[TheNest is] amazing – really. You come in with an idea, and you go out with another totally different business plan,” Cohen said. “They introduce you to a lot of people – it’s really a game changer.”
The evening was structured like a technology start-up pitch event, with each participant outlining his/her business plan and fielding questions from an audience of investors and business experts. The program also included a competition component. A panel of judges, which included a number of successful Israeli business owners, spent the evening grading the pitches in order to select their favorite business idea. The grand prize was a digital marketing package from DVISION, whose founder, Talou L’Oren, sat on the panel.
Katya Kokorina, an immigrant from Russia who started an Israeli subscription gift box company called Mashu Mashu Box, was crowned the winner. She said that the community of the program taught her a lot in the process of refining her ideas.
“I liked being here because we’re all from different countries, and I learned from everyone something cultural and something individual,” Kokorina said. “I had some ideas during the project which were on the one hand obvious, but on the other I never thought about them before, and actually I became more focused on the project.”
In addition to these three start-ups, six other projects had their moments in the spotlight. Daniela Kamir from Germany created a plant-based medical ointment for sores. Richard Saffern from the US created a gourmet dog treat bakery to be based in Tel Aviv, which he hopes to expand to an international market. Fimmetta Martegani, a PhD from Italy, created an ikebana – Japanese Zen therapy – workshop. Maryluz Rivera from Colombia started an interior design firm; Brielle Collins from the US is setting up a yoga studio in Tel Aviv; and Miriam Treistman from Brazil is initiating a mobile ulpan class.
This cycle was the second iteration of TheNest’s programming, and many graduates of the first round of participants were in attendance. At the end of the presentations, each participant was given a diploma and a graduation cap in celebration of his/her achievement and the next steps to be taken.