How to start a business in Israel

By Nicole Hazan

You might not think the school canteen to be the most obvious place to start a business, but that's where my partner, Naomi and I first came about our idea for Speak UP! summer camp. Watching our students file past us with trays of food, we reminisced about our childhood summers where we attended summer camps, bemoaning that many Israeli youth sat at home, bored all summer long. Speak UP! is a way for Naomi and I to give Israeli youth the experience we had; an American style summer camp focused on drama and art, including jewelry-making, playwriting and hip-hop choreography. Being classroom English teachers that both love creativity, the idea itself was developed easily, however, we were teachers not business women, and setting up a personal business was a huge challenge for us. Here are some things we have learned so far along the way, which you should bear in mind when setting up your own Israeli business as a new immigrant :

1. That's not me, it's Yaniv...If I never hear that phrase, or something similar again, it will be too soon. It doesn't matter how many times you have been told by Dan that Yaniv's job is to price the cost of lunch per student, 9 times out of 10 he will tell you he has nothing to do with it, and you in fact need to talk to Yonatan. But when you get to Yonatan...well, you get the picture. This system of deferring is something, that as olim, we are unfamiliar with and need to deal with if we don't want to end up losing our sanity. My advice: leave plenty of time to get things done. Israeli bureaucracy is, to put it mildly, frustrating, so expect that and leave yourself a few extra weeks to get things done so you don't end up in a last minute panic.

2. Know your strengths: As Olim, we are at a disadvantage in many ways. In Israel, I don't have a car, I don't write Hebrew well and I don't have the Jewish community I could have relied on in England in order to advertise Speak UP! The good news is that we do have the Olim network at our disposal. Olim naturally want to help other Olim so use this to your advantage. Secret Tel Aviv and other Anglo Facebook groups are a blessing; take the time to search them out and advertise there. In the same way, don't be afraid to ask for help. My cousin helped us with our costs, my friend drove us to different schools to advertise, and Naomi's boyfriend designed our flyers. Relying on people close to us, both Israeli and Olim, helped us get professional results without the cost. 

3. Don't waste your time: Time is money, after all. One afternoon walking around Ra'anana putting posters on bilboards in the hot sun taught us that. Who knew that away from Tel Aviv the suburbs would be so sprawling? Many of the posters were covered the next day anyway and our four hours pinning, taping and stapling were pretty much a waste of time. Think things through before you do them, decide on where your target audience will look, and what you think will profit the best results. Naomi and I have instead taken to flyering outside elementary and middle schools as the students leave, where we know our target audience, the kids, will be.

These are things I wish I had known before Naomi and I started planning. Enjoy the process too and if you make mistakes, don't regret them.  After all, everything is a learning curve. Good luck!

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Nicole Hazan made aliyah from London, England in 2010. Nicole and Naomi Strom, two English teachers at Hakfar HaYarok middle and high school in Ramat HaSharon,  have collaborated to create Speak UP! - an exciting drama and arts summer camp in English this summer at the kfar. The summer camp, which is taking place in July 2013, is for youth ages 11-14 with a good level of English.

For info about the camp, email managers@speakupcamp.com

They sell books in supermarkets, don't they?

by David Lloyd

David Lloyd

This blog entry was borrowed, with permission, from David Lloyd's blog - Why I May Still Be Canadian.

Originally from Canada, David has been living most of his adult life in Israel. David has been teaching EFL and working with computers in education for the past 30 years. He founded ETNI in 1996.

David's first novel - As I Died Laughing - has been published as an e-book.

 

A well known Israeli writer is selling his new book exclusively through an Israeli supermarket chain. There, nestled between the carrots and tomatoes, you can pick up his book and add it to your cart of groceries. How is he doing so far? He has already sold over 50,000 copies of his book - which is quite good in such a small country as Israel.  Why did he choose to sell his new book only in this one supermarket chain? He apparently read the writing on the wall. More and more bookstores are closing. Those which are still open have entered into a price war, and as a result - books are marked down by more than 70% and it is impossible for an author to make any real money from his writing. Is his decision then a protest, or is he simply giving in to the inevitable?

We live in an age where e-books are becoming more and more popular, and many people fear that they will replace the hardcover book altogether. Will only online bookstores survive and the library shelves now be filled with e-readers? And if there still is such a thing as the hardcover - will this be nestled somewhere in the supermarket? Attention shoppers. There is a special sale of fresh books in aisle 5. And what about the author? Will he be sitting in the dairy section signing books? Maybe they will leave it up to each author to decide where in the supermarket he wants to set up his table. For some, the pastry and desserts section would serve quite well. Others may prefer coffee and tea. And others may resign themselves to the vegetables. Will your place in the supermarket define you?

Or does it really matter? Surely the idea is the essence, and how it is housed is of secondary importance. Once upon a time, such things were literally written in stone. A rather tedious and slow operation. And then ink was invented and each book was painstakingly written out by hand. And if you wanted a copy of the book, that too had to be written out by hand. And then along came the printing press. There must have been a lot of opposition to that. Mass producing ideas through automation. How could anything good come out of automation? But, like most things, it didn’t take long for us to forget what came before and we soon began romanticizing the notion of the mass produced book. Or maybe the romanticizing only came when the book appeared to be in danger of extinction. Think of it - we are not even left with something we can hold in our hands! How crass. Well, actually you can hold a kindle in your hands, but what about the smell of leather and the rustling of the pages. (When was the last time we actually held a leather book in our hands - or anything with a hardcover?)

And then some people - those real fanatics - ask why we even need books. Why not let ideas  play out through film. Much more visual and so much  more can be included. Imagination? People want to be entertained, without exerting too much effort on their own part. The demands of imagination is maybe why fewer and fewer people read books these days - even before the first e-book or supermarket haven.

It is quite a mess, actually. At times I ask myself why I couldn’t have published my novel twenty years ago when the rules were much clearer. But then, maybe it is better this way. I actually wrote and published an e-book before reading one. Is there any real irony in this? Would I consider selling my book in a supermarket? But then, how could an e-book be sold in a supermarket? Maybe the back of cereal box could be transformed into an ink based e-reader screen. Different brands offering different books. This isn’t such a revolutionary idea. It wasn’t long ago that you got a free video cassette of a movie together with your six pack of beer. I mean - what do we want as a writer? To reach the widest and largest number of readers possible - no? I see some of you shaking your heads.

I have actually begun to write a screenplay for my book. Not so much because I want to quickly reach a wider audience, but rather because I realized that Gwyneth Paltrow will soon be too old to play the main female part (she was quite young when I first started writing the book). But I digress.

One day, probably not in the too distant future, young people will remark - upon hearing about bookstores - “What a quaint idea. A whole store just for selling books. But how could anyone make a living just out of selling books?”

Or by writing them.