Born in Jerusalem and just 30 years old, Gur launched his company Narrative Group and has used it to tap into a market that helps the most innovative names in tech see bigger returns on their investments through social media influencers.
“We forge connections between those micro-influencers and companies with strategic planning, content and advice on how to take advantage of the latest viral trends to build their audiences,” Gur described. “The best kind of marketing out there is when someone recommends someone else to do or get something – especially when they actually believe in what they are saying and selling.”
According to Gur, more than 80% of consumers are likely to buy something a micro-influencer recommends. His job therefore is to make connections between these micro-influencers and his clients, to help create viral campaigns, build their audiences and ultimately achieve their business goals.
Influencers are people like “Mr Whose The Boss,” considered Britain’s leading YouTuber for gadgets and technology, or the “SubwayCreatures” – the Internet-turned-Instagram brand run by Rick McGuire with 2.2 million followers.
His clients include the mobile gaming company Sayollo, the New York apartment rental application Openigloo and the Internet privacy company Mine, among many others.
“Our plan revolves around promoting content creators while providing a targeted solution to marketing managers, who want to take advantage of the many opportunities available to them on TikTok and other fast-growing platforms,” he said in a Q&A published on the website Ad Review. “When I hear CMOs say that they are not yet on TikTok because ‘it seems childish,’ then I urge them to remember how Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were all labeled the same at the beginning.”
Narrative Group is headquartered in New York (though half of its six employees work out of Israel), for companies coming from the Jewish State to the Big Apple, Gur said.
“I am a key point person for everything related to tech in New York.”
And he takes it personally, “getting super excited when I see my companies featured on the subway or at the train station. We are placing our companies in the most amazing locations ever. I am so proud, and I have a lot of loyalty.”
ONE OF his clients, Sayollo CEO Jonathan Attias, said he uses Gur for his “point of view” about the world of influencers and how he manages to get into the headspace of his customers.
“He’s selling products and helping influencers grow,” Attias said. “He is one of the smartest and most well-connected guys I have ever met.”
According to Attias, Gur knows “90% of the people I ask him to connect me with – or he knows the guy who can connect me to them.”
Gur said that a lot of his work with Israeli companies is teaching them to “speak the culture.”
It’s not just about the language,” he explained, “but how to talk with clients, how to say, ‘thank you so much’ – the nuances that you need to make it in America.”
He joked about a time he was on a Zoom call with a client and a potential investor from Kansas City.
“He was rude the entire conversation and at the end he hung up with a ‘tov, bye,’” Gur recalled. “The investor asked me if my client did not like him. I had to explain that this is just how the client talks because he is Israeli.
“We don’t do small talk,” Gur said with a chuckle.
Gur travels a lot and he said attending conferences for the last nearly 10 years has helped to equip him for the international marketplace. He has learned how to be polite, to listen – not talk over people, he said.
He has also learned how to maximize his day.
Gur wakes up at 5 a.m. every day. He holds meetings to 20 minutes because “if progress can’t be made within that time frame, it probably can’t be done in an hour.”
And he stays organized using the Asana project management tool to track his and his team’s projects.
He said he does it all not only to make money, but because he has a vision of being a philanthropist. His heroes are people like entrepreneur Morris Kahn, who helped send Israel into space.
“He did great business on the one hand,” Gur said. “On the other hand, he actually impacted people. For me, it is not about money or personal achievement or a better car; my real dream is philanthropy.”
Gur said, “I see injustice when I walk along the streets of New York. Someone rents a penthouse for $100,000 a month and five seconds down the road is someone homeless. I cannot see this gap and ignore it. I want to help close the gap.”