Transcript: Growing a Startup, Raising a Child: VC Renana Ashkenazi on Team, Ambiguity, and ROI

Eyal David: [00:00] Hi, this is Eyal and you've reached Product Builder. Today we have a special, unusual and interesting episode. This time Yael Shamir Zalmanov is wearing the host's hat and together with Renana Ashkenazi from Grove Ventures in an interesting conversation about product and parenthood. Enjoy listening. Hi. Hi. How are you? Amazing. Great, excellent. So today we're on an episode of Product Builder and we, I'm hosting Renana Ashkenazi here, and I'm Yael Shamir Zalmanov and today we'll do an episode where we'll actually talk about how you grow a startup and why it's very interesting in our case, because you, Renana, the sharp and very smart woman sitting across from me, I met on a Pilates ball at our babies' class, and we grew something else together and today we want to talk a bit about how you grow a startup, and how much is similar and how much is different, and how these worlds merge and where they don't and where you can maybe take tips and best known methods from raising children to growing startups and vice versa, yes exactly, really like that. So let's start with you introducing yourself. So, I'm Renana Ashkenazi, I'm a partner

Renana Ashkenazi: [01:23] at Grove Ventures. Grove is a venture capital fund that invests in early-stage startups. Most of my career I spent very far from venture capital. I started at Applied Materials, that's the world of semiconductors. I started in development roles, moved to product, and there too I spent quite a few years. I moved to Chicago and did my master's degree there in electrical engineering and biomedical engineering, and I managed a development team for a few years at a center that developed 50 diagnostics for third-world countries. Then for some period at a devices company. I came back to Israel and didn't find any African babies to save here, so I had a very short, unsuccessful startup episode. I went back to Applied for a few more years to build a new technology division there, so once again I grew something. And about six years ago I met the people who are my partners today, through a very, very weird turn of events, and I joined the fund at the tail end of the first fund. Today we invest from about the middle of the third fund, managing something like half a billion dollars across these funds.

Eyal David: [02:26] I've already heard this pitch and I'm in shock again

Renana Ashkenazi: [02:34] at how many things it covered. That's it, always at the stage where I say I built this division at Applied and I was there five years, and then I say that in 2018 I joined the fund — that's always the point in the story where they ask me, wait, and how old are you? And then I say, older. And what I'm saying is one thing, it's something that... thank you, why? It connects to the story, that a year ago, a year ago Alon was born, and for a year now I've been saying that I'm Alon's mom, which is still weird for me to say. I think that no matter when you give birth to your first child, you're in shock, right? I mean, no matter how much they prepare you, no matter how much you know, no matter how much you've seen around you, no matter how old you are, you're in shock. Nothing is

Eyal David: [03:24] like you imagined, and you can't prepare — they really do call it that — and it's just amazing how similar it is and how different from so many things I've done until now. So soon we'll start and you'll begin talking about it, I just want to introduce myself too. So I'm Yael Shamir Zalmanov, and basically over the last few years I was at Fiverr. I started there in development roles and transitioned to product. My last role at Fiverr was leading the product group of Fiverr Pro, which is the more enterprise, up-market product of Fiverr. And that's it, that's my background in the product world. Even more different, even more different in the volume of things you did, but there was a lot of depth there. And I'm mom to Noa, who's five, and mom to Neta, who's really Alon's age, a few days apart, and that's how we met and that's it. So you started saying how crazy it is, how much similarity there is between this feeling of the chaos and the mess and the beginning and the shock you're in, and what you actually see in your day-to-day work with startups

Renana Ashkenazi: [04:40] Yeah, you know, when we tried to think about the content of this conversation, we tried to think about what you can take away from a conversation like this, and I think one of the things is that I was in complete shock in the first months of Alon's life, not in a good way, and I think the first time I managed to understand that maybe I did have this figured out was when I realized I could draw a parallel between what's required of me as a mom and what's required of me as a professional — that I'm okay, today, as a venture capital investor — and that a lot of the challenges, I'm not even talking about the practical side. Things you have to do, but a lot of the challenges are similar. Now, in my professional life nothing scares me, and nothing alarms me, and I don't lose my sense of capability, so there's no reason for that to happen to me at home. And maybe that's an important takeaway — that in the end, anywhere we have a sense of capability,

Eyal David: [05:52] we can surely take it to areas where we have less. That's a great point. I definitely felt — and I don't know if you identify with this feeling too — that becoming a mom made me a much better product manager and employee. I couldn't feel it the other way around, so what did I feel you could take from your professional world, that really kind of calmed you within — ultimately we're talking about the first period of our children, but we're talking about a period of chaos, of mess, I'm like... I don't know how it's supposed to be at home. So we don't have any mess and any chaos, everything runs exactly in a neat and orderly way. Yeah, a daily schedule, from about one week old, spot on. But no, I really, I think I already told you this, and the listeners don't see now what I'm doing with my hand, but imagine a graph of a wave that at the beginning is really, really, really, really, really dense, like really ten times a day you feel at the top and the bottom of your life, and slowly, with life, both at age five and later in life, it kind of keeps widening. Lower. Exactly, the frequency is lower, the frequency drops, and I'm curious whether, like you, a lot of people I described this thing to immediately felt like, wow, right, it's really accurate about the early stages of a baby's life. Do you feel it's true also about the startups you accompany?

Renana Ashkenazi: [07:14] Yes, but again, I think it's related to a sense of capability. I think — when do we lose control, when do we reach emotional peaks?

Eyal David: [07:24] When we don't yet master the situation. I do want to dwell for a second on why you feel motherhood makes you a better product person,

Renana Ashkenazi: [07:33] and why I feel my career makes me a better mom. I think it very much depends on the career stage at which you become a parent. There are people who have children at a very early stage of their career — whether it's women or men, they have children at a very early career stage, and it grows together with them. I did the opposite, I gave birth to my first son at 41, yes I said it, out loud, and now, yes. At 41, and at 41 I had already done a lot of things in my career,

Eyal David: [08:03] and I think that's why we look at it the opposite way. You think so? I think you were able to bring your skillset from before into now, and me too. Just that these were opposite experiences. I think there's also something in... look, there's a difference between us. I worked at Fiverr all my life; when I joined Fiverr, Fiverr was already about a hundred people, like, maybe a bit less. I was employee number one hundred. And I actually never really lived, in my professional world, the chaos of a startup at the start of the journey. People tell about it. And maybe it's worth talking about it a bit, right? Let's talk about it. Because, like, personally, when I tried to think about why this is, it could be you're right, but I added to it another element of, like, really, what kind of work environment you're in. And I want to talk a bit about early-stage startups, and this chaos, and how you, like, what's your dynamic within this chaos? Because you're not in a place where you lead the chaos, but support it — I don't know, you describe it. That's an excellent question.

Renana Ashkenazi: [09:03] In the end, there are tons of differences between startups in their early days and what their growth experience looks like. What the journey looks like. One of the differences is that on day one — and this is also my experience as an investor who invests at very early stages in companies — on day one, usually, there's no VP Strategy, VP Finance, VP Marketing, VP HR, VP Product, VP Operations. There are two or three founders, probably some R&D team, and the investor — if you chose the right investor — is all those things, plus a psychologist, by the way. And that means my involvement in the chaos is much higher. And obviously the level of mess is also much higher, because, one, we're still trying to figure out together exactly how. There are many things you know at the beginning, and tons of things you discover as you progress — with the market, with the customers, with additional investors, with potential customers. So at the beginning, everything is vague. Tons and tons and tons of question marks, and few exclamation marks. And as time passes, some of the question marks come off the table. Some of the risks come off the table. New question marks join, new risks are added. But you have more and more confidence in the things you do know. My involvement, usually — I won't say I'm less involved, but I'm much less hands-on as a company grows. By the way, it's hard. Think about it, you're constantly in my head — the parallels to parenthood, to children, run through. Because suddenly this chick, whatever, goes to kindergarten, needs me less. It's less cuddly. It's less cuddly, it needs me less. And that's a happy thing, right? In the end I need that time, also for the next child. But there's some sort of feeling of letting go here.

Eyal David: [11:03] Yeah.

Renana Ashkenazi: [11:05] So this point about the envelope — you can call it support, okay? On day one, there's little envelope. And as time passes, this envelope grows and grows. Think about what's needed today, when you also have to drive to activities, and also bring things to the class party and to the Shabbat mom. You need functions in your life

Eyal David: [11:29] that you didn't need at the beginning. Yeah. But also, you know, one of the things, like, ultimately, in order to create — let's just put this as the heading for a second — to create, and then: one, children; two, startups; and three, maybe anything that you, like, create. Not sure you can talk about how you create startups on a podcast, I think. Okay, but to create something, you need two? Maybe at least two. Okay? And really, like, ultimately, our world has also developed today into a place where you can create things very easily with Gen AI. You can do, like — you no longer need huge teams of operations and such, like, in order to produce and really that's the conversation now, right? Like, maybe expose us a bit to this world, because you're really inside it. But you need — you can't alone

Renana Ashkenazi: [12:18] do the, wait, I'll say something, this fertilization. You need someone else. And you're talking about something that also keeps developing. Slowly you need more functions. At the beginning you just need someone to create the initial thing with you, and slowly it keeps widening. Thanks. Whenever they ask us, ask me, how investors decide what to invest in, the right answer always — no matter which investor you ask — is that of course it's complicated, but the team component is the most significant component and there's nothing like it. At every stage. At every stage. Because you don't know anything. In the early days of a company — at every stage in fact, in the life of a company — you don't know tons of things. You don't know how the market will look. You don't know how it will look in a year. You don't know how the competitive landscape will look, because you don't know how many startups similar to yours, or similar technologies, are emerging in some garage. You don't know how the technology environment will look.

Eyal David: [13:14] November 30, 2022. A technological explosion, the release of ChatGPT, which closed the doors on thousands of startups, probably at a minimum, right? Were you part of that? Like, was there something at yours really? We didn't have a startup that this thing

Renana Ashkenazi: [13:33] affected fatally, but there were companies where a lot of their development efforts became irrelevant. That built AI models and such? As part of the product's value proposition. And it should mainly be said that this disruption wasn't only negative, but it did require almost everyone, across the board, to make some kind of adaptation. Because even if this revolution didn't cancel the company's right to exist, it certainly made companies need to stop for a second and understand how you can leverage this thing to do better, more efficiently, faster. There was no way not to. Great point. Because I think

Eyal David: [14:19] like, when people say chaos, my connotation is a certain one. But there's something about chaos and about a very, very high frequency, that forces you to create movement. You have to kind of stop for a second and say, wait, how do I not drop one more second again to the bottom of the earth. And I think that's true both in parenthood and, ultimately, you look for the — you maybe also look for the people and I really wanted to ask you what kind of people you look for who know how to cope within this chaos — you'll answer that soon. But you actually look for people whom mess brings to movement and doesn't paralyze. Yes. And what else? What's the most important trait for a parent in your eyes? Wow. I think

Renana Ashkenazi: [15:08] it really depends, like, ultimately I think love.

Eyal David: [15:14] That's the most important thing. Yes, but let's be precise — that's a cliché answer, I don't accept it. Because all parents love.

Renana Ashkenazi: [15:21] What's the trait? It's a truly empathic connection — like, okay, maybe love is a cliché word, but it's some empathic connection, the ability to really see your children through their eyes. And that's also very, very, very important in product management, like, very. And you'll say soon how it's also important in your role, or in your content worlds that aren't only product. But really,

Eyal David: [15:50] until there's empathy with your users, until you really try to put yourself in their shoes, until you — like — spend most of your time, by the way, talking with these customers there was once someone I spoke with, a brilliant, smart guy, also with very impressive experience, who, like, in one of the first consulting conversations, said to me, like, Yael, you're doing the wrong thing. Get out of the office and talk to people. Don't be — by the end of the week you don't talk to me from the office, I don't want you to be in the office. Go talk to people, with your customers,

Renana Ashkenazi: [16:25] interview them, sit next to them, just be there, like, to feel what they feel — and this thing really produces a different kind of empathy. You know, one of the almost only things I look for when I look at a startup at a very early stage is market validation. I'm not interested in whether there's a working product — on the contrary, I prefer there isn't. I'm not interested, because if there's a working product it means someone already built something, without having talked enough with the market. Because by then you're already in love with something, like. You've already closed off the... you already know how it's supposed to look, and you don't. So I'm not interested in a working product, I'm not interested in paying customers, I'm not interested in customers at all. I'm interested in seeing that the team did real research work on the market. And real research work on the market you can't do on Google. That's not a bad start at all. I came out boomer-ish with Google. ChatGPT. You can't do it in front of the computer, okay? You need to go and talk — in-depth interviews — and the way to do market validation properly is a craft and an art. And countless words have been written about it, because it's not only what you ask, it's also of course whom you ask. By the way, what do you ask? How was kindergarten? So, exactly, that's where I was getting to. And it's also how you ask, right? Because if you ask someone how much they'd be willing to pay for this, it's likely he won't answer you. Or, would you want this feature? But if you tell him, I spoke with a few dozen customers with a similar profile, and I understood that they pay something around 300 dollars, then it's likely he'll tell you 300 dollars sounds like a steal to me, that's a third of what I'd pay. Or, alternatively, 300 dollars — at our place it's ten dollars, and that's, that's overdoing it. So, what do you ask? How do you ask? Whom do you ask? And this whole story of market validation is exactly because you set out thinking you know, and then you discover that maybe some things yes, and a whole lot no — and when you set out on this parenthood journey, I think that's maybe the biggest realization, that you think you know. You think you know what needs to be done. You think you know how you'll be. I had in my head a completely different vision of the mom I'd be. Spoiler? Much more chill than I am. And maybe another point that's half-related — you asked what we look for in entrepreneurs, so, first, we look for that curiosity, but we also look for some very delicate balance between people who know and people who are listening and willing to change. Now, when you're an entrepreneur at the beginning of the journey, most people don't agree with you. With your assumptions, with your vision, with the things you want to build and think are needed. Because if people did agree, then it would already exist. Most good startup ideas are contrarian. They contradict the accepted perceptions or the accepted view. So most people tell you you're wrong. And there's a very delicate line between being shaken by it. And listening to the parts worth collecting from that feedback. And as a parent, they kept telling me this would happen. I was really amazed by how much. Everyone has advice. Everyone has something to say. Everyone thinks you're doing it wrong. Or not well enough. Or, put something cold on the child. Or I don't know what other advice. Or also people who are experts in it. Experts. But, like, not in quotes. It really is expertise. But there are all kinds of methods. And each method is completely different. And nothing is backed by science. By the way. Backing

Eyal David: [20:27] by science. Is there such a thing in product, backed by science? What do you call science?

Renana Ashkenazi: [20:35] No. You know. There are BKMs. Right. Best known methods. But even best known methods are relevant today. And they're no longer relevant tomorrow. And this point really — about expert advisors who talk in exclamation marks — is really super applicable both to parenthood and to work, whatever it is. And certainly to product. Because you must not let the child fall asleep crying. You must let him fall asleep crying. Because otherwise he'll get used to falling asleep in your arms. You must not rock him before sleep. Because otherwise he won't sleep well. You must rock him before sleep. Because it's very, very healthy. You must not let him play by himself. Because he needs to feel attachment; you must let him play alone, because he has to develop independence. You must not talk with American companies before you consult about the Israeli ones, you must talk with the American ones because the Israeli ones aren't representative. Tons and tons of people talk in exclamation marks, and the ability to filter the exclamation marks worth adopting, from those you can put a question mark on, a tiny one, is a very important and very elusive trait. Yes, it's a kind of maturity too, like, understanding that there really isn't one truth. There isn't one truth, and a lot of things aren't predictable. It's hard for you to hear that, you're squirming. You know, when I talk about venture capital, I say that in the faculty of engineering — and I spent many years in engineering faculties — in the engineering faculty, when there's an equation with more unknowns than constants, you throw it in the trash, you don't need to solve it. Which is really a very pleasant feeling. More question marks, more question marks than constants, then the event is over. Goodbye. In parenthood and in startups. And in startups. Certainly in early stages, but again, throughout the whole way, the entire world is unknowns, right? Totally. So yes, it's not a comfortable environment, but, but, but I think that few people really flourish in situations of ambiguity, but, but it's totally a muscle you can develop and must develop. In order to succeed, in my eyes, because in the end, again, the comfortable and safe environments are those of the low frequency. Yeah. Interesting. This question came up for me earlier too, and I think it's also very related to the world of ideas for product managers. When I look at product people, and how I happen to sit, or even read presentations of surveys they ran, to be present at interviews they lead with users — I start to, like, really, I'm very uncomfortable in my body when I hear questions asked improperly, that lead the users to say the answers you want to hear — and it's really an art. There was someone who worked with me at Fiverr, I owe her a lot of what I know about this world, but it's really an art and tons and tons and tons of practice. Like, you have to start from a place where you don't know how to do it, to get some reps in, to get feedback — is that the truth? Maybe

Eyal David: [23:48] put a question mark there on what I just said, on whether you must. How do you identify if something is so important — the market validation — and in the end entrepreneurs come to you and tell you ABC, this is what we found, we did it like this, how do you identify the people who did market validation well versus people who just,

Renana Ashkenazi: [24:07] like, asked the wrong questions, asked them the wrong way? The promise — my job is to understand these things. I never ask entrepreneurs what you learned or what you heard from the market; I ask them whom did you talk to — not by name, but what kinds of companies, what kinds of personas, what did you ask and how did you ask — because, because in the end you know, it's really funny, we often do due diligence together, meaning, meaning either two partners, a partner and whoever is sourcing the investments, because that really helps to get another perspective, and it happens to me more than once to get on a due diligence call with one of my partners and we get off the call and then one of us says, wow, that call was a blast, meaning, that's exactly what we wanted to hear, and then the other says, what? Didn't you hear that they said it's not even transferable at all? So that's why I don't accept the bottom lines at face value, because the bottom lines are subject to interpretation. How was kindergarten, fine? That's not enough, it's not... I don't know how to extract anything from that, it's not enough information for me to extract meaningful information out of it Now, by the way, most days I make do with that, like, really, and there are days I come with some okay, which children did you play with today, who made you laugh the most? Like, things like that. But most days I, like, don't have the... But you know, Yael, it's related. It's also related, I don't know, to his mood and to your state of mind, and it's also related to what decision you need to make based on that answer.

Eyal David: [26:08] Right, because if you had to make an important decision based on the answer to 'how was kindergarten', then you'd dig.

Renana Ashkenazi: [26:15] And if I need to decide whether to write a check for five million dollars, then I dig. Yes, so I think it's very...

Eyal David: [26:23] really right. So let's stop here. Wow, I found it interesting, like, because it's such a world of so many external forces and so many — two worlds, by the way — tons of external forces, tons of things that are really, really not in your control. You want to be in control but you don't have it.

Renana Ashkenazi: [26:41] By the way, wait, I'm making a little detour, but one of the things I remember — and maybe I told you this too when we met — from the start of Noa's life, my big one, is that my sister tells me, Yael, the most known thing right now is that nothing is known. You don't know what will happen a minute from now. Okay, and if you let go — like, connect to it, hug it, embrace it, we'll embrace it — like, understand that that's how it is and there's nothing to do, there's nothing you can do, it'll be much easier for you, let's say. I don't know how much that actually happened, it was very, very, very hard, and, like, within this thing, like, how — I don't know how you also find the the people, how you find the kinds of businesses, how you find these things that, like, you know in the end, when you manage it well — product manager, company manager — when you're a good manager, you constantly have to make decisions when you don't have all the data. We talked about this a second ago. And I'll never forget that I was a young manager, and an employee of mine asked something — it was a significant event, meaning, a decision had to be made there, and I was very torn. And I told him, wait, I need to check, and I went, and came back, and at some point he told me, Renana, I need you to make a decision, I don't care if it's a good decision or not, I need you to make a decision. And it didn't happen to me many times in life that someone told me something, and it just, it was like a penny dropping for me — but one where I heard it ring. There, again I came out boomer-ish, I said, penny. You need to make a decision, you don't know exactly, and you must make it. And it's a character trait you'd think many people have — it's not true. And it's one of the things we look for; we look for people who are, who have self-confidence, but are also willing to give it up. Who know how to work in an environment of uncertainty and don't lose their balance. Who know how to make hard decisions even if not everyone likes them. Who don't fall apart from hearing tons and tons and tons of no.

Eyal David: [29:03] Do you have an example of a case where, like, you know, you saw this thing at the beginning of the journey, and you think it doesn't fall apart — it doesn't fall apart on you, like, all the... I don't know what I feel like asking — all the checkmarks or all the X's at the beginning of the journey, in due diligence, did you feel something, someone else felt something else, and ultimately it blew up into something you didn't believe could happen. Blew up positive or blew up negative?

Renana Ashkenazi: [29:28] Let's go with blew up positive. Yes, I met an entrepreneur two and a half years ago, maybe three. Basically at the end of the conversation I told the young woman — first a sign, call her — she's great. I felt she hadn't done enough validation, I felt she was aiming very, very, very high and I didn't understand on what basis, and the woman came back after a year, and blew my mind with what she'd managed to do in that year. Now, again, think about it, my job is to be able to identify, right, this potential. That was the only time I remember telling myself, Renana, you blew it, lucky she came back.

Eyal David: [30:18] She wasn't, you know? Now you tell me this and I'm torn over whether you blew it or not. Whether the fact that you gave her that realization and brought her down to the bottom of the earth, by the way, caused her to make a sharp move, to come and bust her ass, to do things she didn't think she needed to do, and otherwise she'd have gone down some furrow where she wouldn't have gotten far — and that's also related, by the way, to the role of a manager, no matter in what field: do you want to be there on the side, to lend a hand, to walk hand in hand and pull your employees along, or do you want to throw them down the stairs and let them grow, and from that they'll reach farther places — or anything in between.

Renana Ashkenazi: [30:55] You know, it's... first of all, you can ask her. But also, that's a great point, because... Renana, we're complimenting each other here. But it's really a good point, because... exactly like as a parent, so as a manager, one of the most important things in my eyes is to understand what your employee needs from you. Every employee is different, right? Right, we say there's this golden rule, that you treat others as you want them to treat you, so I would argue that's not even the right rule, because the right rule is to treat other people as they want to be treated. There are employees who need you to hold them by the hand and show them exactly, and there are employees who need you to release them and give them all the space in the world. There are employees for whom what drives them is feedback, there are employees for whom what drives them is material compensation, there are employees who need you to give them feedback all the time, and there are employees whom that drives crazy, right? There are employees whom you need, at the beginning, to explain to exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly what to do,

Eyal David: [31:59] and that's it. And there are those who are exactly the opposite. And today I only have Alon, so I only know one. I have N equals one. But with children it's the same thing, right? Every child needs you, mom, differently, or you, a different parent, a different dad, at different stages — by the way, that's surely also related to employees, surely, that at different stages

Renana Ashkenazi: [32:20] right, exactly, and the need to constantly keep a finger on the pulse, to identify the current need of your employee, and by the way, if we go back to product for a second, then also your customers — your customers don't need you always, throughout the whole journey, the same thing, and not all your customers need the same thing,

Eyal David: [32:45] and the question is how you do customization that still allows for a product and not a service, right?

Renana Ashkenazi: [32:52] Meaning, how do you — I don't know — wow, great question, we can't start talking about it now, that's a really excellent question. Also at different stages of the customer, meaning whether he knows the product or doesn't know the product, whether he knows the industry or doesn't know the industry, whether — with what knowledge he arrives, like, into this thing, at what scale he operates — and also at different stages of your business. Like, Fiverr, for example, came at the beginning to solve the problem of five-dollar gigs, but became something completely different. And now Noa wants an omelet and Neta wants pancakes. Do you cater to both wishes? Or do you find a solution in the middle and order pizza, because you don't want to develop two completely different things for customer A and customer B, and you don't have the energy to stand in the kitchen now for two hours — endless, parallel lines.

Eyal David: [33:43] Wow, wow, wow, really good. We talked about all kinds of things, and I feel like asking you a few questions to finish. We talked about chaos, and we talked about coping within chaos, and we talked about how you need people around you and you need cross-pollination, and it takes a tribe, both in this world and in that world, you really need this support — it's also the place for you to be not just people who put in the money, or maybe it's the last thing you mention that you do, like, in early-stage startups. We talked about how there isn't one truth and that this world is full of advisors, and in the end you look for people also with some determination and confidence and persistence, but also with listening and empathy and a genuine desire to understand what they add between the lines of the things all kinds of people tell them, in order to create some new truth all the time and to be within this movement — and we really talked about very, very, very interesting things, and tons of things that also really produce lines of similarity that are on the verge of cringe, like, when you say let's compare children and startups — but really there are tons of lines of similarity here, of things you can take from one world, apply as an analogy to another world, and feel how it strengthens, builds, and gives tools you can use in tons of other worlds of building and creating. Tell me, are you a better mom to Neta

Renana Ashkenazi: [35:09] than the mom you were to Noa? I don't want Noa to hear this, but the truth is yes. The second product you built was better than the first? Yes — like, I'm not saying she's a better product, it's not, I'm not comparing, both are amazing, but I'm saying that I, as the — in quotes — founder of this thing, am a founder who's much more mature, much more experienced, and also with the most significant thing you hear from all parents of a second child — the most, most significant thing is some kind of prism, some kind of ability to understand that this thing, that right now I don't know what will be with it a minute from now, and like, and I'm, like, anxious about this thing — it becomes something else, it changes, what happens today is not what will be tomorrow, there's a kind of different patience, perspective, perspective, really like that, also as an experienced employee, really like that, so, so, yes. And on the other hand I wanted to give this a disclaimer too, because I come — you said every employee, every child needs something different — I come into this task with some kind of knowledge about what worked with Noa, what worked with Noa's sleep, what worked with all kinds of things. what she likes to do, what I, like, what she makes me feel, and that slowly, it suddenly, like, suddenly they're separate, like really, and that, and like, that also requires some kind of movement from me, suddenly, like, I'm working on two different things.

Eyal David: [36:43] And we come back to the point of the product and the customer, that you come with your truths, with the things you know, and then the customer, or Noa, tells you something else.

Renana Ashkenazi: [36:55] And the question is, if — the question is who's right, right, because there are things where you say she doesn't yet know, or the customer doesn't understand what he needs; I know, because I've already done this, already worked with other customers, already saw the stage that comes after, so I know that's the right step. Sometimes they're right and sometimes we are, and you need to listen and see when, when is the time to say, I'm now learning something new, yes, to listen — that's really a key point.

Eyal David: [37:24] A key one — we didn't talk about the ROI, right, I really wanted to wrap up with this. Yes, so what, what do you have to say about the ROI, which is one of the questions I asked most after Alon's birth, to everyone who talked with me — it's, tell me, where's the ROI, where's the return, return.

Renana Ashkenazi: [37:50] I asked it now too, about this thing. When does it happen — and that's a question I'm used to asking in my work all the time, how big will it be and in how much time, what's the ROI — I can tell you that my conclusion, after a year and two days, is that, thank goodness we did the groundwork of it with children — yes, the ROI comes in these little points, it's not something continuous, that's maybe the difference.

Eyal David: [38:24] Right, about lines of similarity — here we have one. I feel like talking about, like, as a result, the most significant difference, and you say the ROI, and that the startup, the product, don't hug you, right, and don't give you love — but they too, they too, they're also there always, always, right. But I have a last question like this — come on, what kind of startup would come to you that solves — what, the problem is burning and it's like, I'm going for it.

Renana Ashkenazi: [39:01] I don't have one answer, I have many, and I want to tell you that that's why I love this question — because the best entrepreneurs I know solve problems they experienced themselves. That's also their problem, by the way, because they see the problem out of their own feeling and the solution out of their own feeling, and that's why they often don't bother to do significant validation. And that's the best ones I know, and what we see more and more in recent years is really startups arising in worlds we didn't used to see — femtech, a term that's already relatively common, technologies related to women; it's a relatively new concept, because more and more women — don't experience new problems. They always experienced them, but they're more open to the world of entrepreneurship, so suddenly we see a breast pump that's portable, that's quiet. It's wireless, right, founded by a woman who sat in board meetings and didn't want there to be wires and cables and for it to be very, very, very noisy. Cycle-tracking apps, all kinds of things we weren't used to seeing. So, so I think that in my parenthood journey, across endless points — because that's how I think about things, in endless points — I said, like, we have to do it. If it were possible to have what I want, then I'd be very happy about the startup that would tell me what, for god's sake, the child wants from me.

Eyal David: [40:33] Boom, good, I had — how fun — I thank you very much. And that's it, oh, hi, positive there, and we made it — a full year, completely, come on. Friends, thanks for listening. If you found this podcast, you can subscribe and follow us, of course, for more episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other app; and of course, if you didn't find us on some app, I'd be happy for you to write to us. We'd be very happy for five stars on every platform, and for you to follow us so that more listeners can be exposed to us and find the podcast. You can also find the previous episodes on any app or on the YouTube channel — we have links in the description. Until, until next time, come on, be efficient, and bye bye.