Collective - for repeat entrepreneurs and operators building their most audacious companies yet
To the experienced entrepreneurs and operators out there…
Congratulations! You’ve built a startup. You co-founded the company or were a part of the core management team. You’ve had an exit (Hooray!) or felt it was time to leave, or even wind it down.
Congratulations again! You’ve gained invaluable experience, and learned lessons that can’t be taught. You realize that building a company is like an emotional rollercoaster — the ups are amazing, but the scary, stressful downs are inevitable. Despite that, if you’re reading this, you probably feel that there’s nothing else you’d rather do, and can’t wait to do it all over again.
The experiment
Over the years, Ben Lang and I organized hundreds of events and grew a community of vetted entrepreneurs and operators looking for their next adventure. In January 2019, we had an idea for a simple experiment: what if we brought together a group of super talented and experienced founders, all in the early phases of building their next companies?
We don’t have a formula for creating unicorns. I don’t think anyone does. But an exceptional group, of exceptional people, with exceptional track records, helping each other in building their next companies… Could we do greater things than we would on our own?
We organized the initial meetup quickly. It was curated, exclusive, and intentionally small. The setup was challenging — we asked people to commit to a three-hour meeting on short notice, in the middle of the worst storm Tel Aviv had seen that winter (that last part was a surprise). The promise? There wasn’t one. We simply said: “come and see what happens.”
And come they did.
For most participants, the initial motivation was networking. Find a co-founder if possible, and get to know talented people in the field. But by the end of that first meeting, we could see something special. The group was immediately eager to share experiences, brainstorm ideas, and provide each other the rare feedback that you can only get from peers immersed in ideation — the most unusual phase of the entrepreneurial journey. Then, when we asked if people would like to start meeting regularly, the answer was a resounding “yes!”
Dan Schreter, who himself was part of the first cohort, stepped up to co-found the new venture, and that’s how we got organized as Collective.
Introducing Collective
We started holding weekly gatherings featuring off the record insights from the partners at top VC firms (such as Lightspeed, Aleph, and Entrée) and the founders of hyper-growth companies (including SimilarWeb, Nexar, and others). The feedback came pouring in — the group didn’t just want to meet up, they wanted to work out of a shared space. With the invaluable help from Hanaco, Aleph, and Lool, that became a reality — and we’ve been grateful for their support and great office space.
Veteran founders and operators have incredible opportunities of their own, due to their strong networks, deep experience, and above all — their passion for building, that transcends a clear understanding of the pain and effort inherent to bringing anything new into the world. By getting together with exceptional people, we’ve created a platform which allows us all to take these opportunities to the next level:
Collective is a curated workgroup specifically designed for repeat founders and operators building their most meaningful companies yet.
Thanks to our special partnership with Startup Nation Central, the next cohort will work out of one of the most beautiful offices in Israel, in the heart of the Tel Aviv startup scene. Startup Nation Central is home to dozens of researchers mapping out the Israeli ecosystem, and is regularly visited by Fortune 500 executives.
Join the next cohort: telavivcollective.com
** We’re thankful for the overwhelming demand (100+ outstanding applicants), and are extending the application deadline for the opportunity to include more female entrepreneurs and operators. **
