The Investor: Kibbutz Revivim
by: Aaron Davis
I would describe today as seeing a cross section of the Negev. We visited farmers, researchers, business owners and engineers all within a desert many outside the region might think of as bare. I believe we got a first hand account of how people have made the desert their home and surprisingly how startups are deriving incredible value from spending their time among the sand and rock.
Lion David is the co-founder of The Hatchery in Revivim. He met us in front of an industrial building with a small tan dog following his every move. He started to explain who he was and how he lived while we drove further down the road. We came to Revivim, which is a “kibbutz.” A kibbutz was traditionally akin to a cooperative, where everyone was assigned work and would share all income amongst all members. I found out later that many kibbutz in the Negev have left this model and have become villages more than cooperatives. As Lion explained, Revivim still offered the lifestyle of everyone sharing their income amongst all member of their kibbutz.
“The kindergarten teacher who may make 4,000–5,000 shekels per month lives the same way as the office worker who may be paid 40,000–50,000 shekels per month… Their contribution to the community is the same.”
Lion walked us over to the center of Revivim. There, we sat in the shade under a large tree in a small patch of grass. Around us there were small houses, men riding bikes and children playing a game in a circle down one of the side streets. You got a sense the community was very close as everyone stopped to say hello to Lion as he explained more about his home. He said Revivim has a unique aspect as they are working to combine the communal lifestyle of the kibbutz with business, especially technology. Lion told us about his work as a UX/ UI designer and how he used to Live in Tel Aviv living a fast paced lifestyle as a designer in tech. He decided to move to a kibbutz with his family as the city didn’t seem fulfilling to him. He continued to do design work while 150km from his old home, Tel Aviv. Very organically, his studio grew within this small community. In a couple years, he had 8 employees all living in houses the same size and style as his.
When his business grew to a sustainable level, he decided to build a startup space and venture fund for a small amount of teams to come and spend three months building products, validating ideas and developing strategy in Revivim. Of the 8 companies in their first cohort, two have proven solid business models and one has been funded for $2 million dollars. He told us that dozens of teams from around the country are looking to become a part of the second cohort of companies at The Hatchery.
The main question I had for him was how a new startup could ever be successful being so far removed from large cities, universities or general access to a lot of people. In my mind, to be successful, especially in the first few months of starting a company, it’s all about proximity to mentors, developers, first users, customers, capital; it’s about access to people. His justification was simple. All the noise of a traditional “startup ecosystem” is stripped away leaving pure focus on the idea and the team.
He saw all too often colleagues of his in Tel Aviv get caught up in an environment counter-productive to answering a business’s most important questions. “what am I building? Do people actually want what I’m building? Can I feasibly and quickly turn this idea into a profitable business? Can I be successful with this specific team of people?” Sometimes the teams at Revivim answered “no” to all of these in the course of a few months. Ain’t that a beautiful thing?
Lion said the the entrepreneurs that come to Revivim do not feel the pressure to set up meetings or attend events in the city that I’m sure many entrepreneurs can agree are a distraction to building their business.
What he said really clicked in my brain. Many of the student entrepreneurs around me will spend much of their time building a personal brand or focus too much on being visible. I must admit I’ve fallen into this trap as well while trying to start something new. Seeing Revivim and what Liom has created made me realize that a “startup ecosystem” may not be best for young startups. Maybe what you really need in the first 90 days is to leave all the conventional lifestyle ticks of startup life behind, find some peace and quiet and seek a small community willing to be your kibbutz.
7/15/16
