Moving a Technology Company from Israel to America: Perfecto Mobile CEO Eran Yaniv (Part 7)

Sramana: What does your ecosystem look like? Who are some of the other players in this market?

Eran Yaniv: The other players are partners that can resell and provide partners on top of our platform. That can include companies like Accenture and the other major players in this market. There are a lot of those types of companies all over our platform. We have a strong partner with testing houses and they use our product as well. The value-added resellers are able to provide full solutions to the market.

There are also relevant technology providers, including open source plays, which provide tools to the market that we can complement with our cloud platform. That could include HP and IBM and we extend them into this space very nicely. It could also be an open source play like Selenium that we can complement and create. We can create solutions to extend them into the mobile space.

Sramana: What has your team building strategy looked like? Where is your center of gravity?

Eran Yaniv: I think we can safely say that we are a Boston-based company. Our team in Israel is very much focused on product development, which is nice because there are advantages with the time difference. In general we are enhancing the U.S.-based organization with more sales, marketing, and sales engineering people. I think by midyear the vast majority of the management will be in the Boston area.

Sramana: What are some of the lessons learned regarding the transition of starting a company in Israel and moving it to the U.S.?

Eran Yaniv: First of all, I think if you want to change the center of gravity from Israel to the U.S., then you have to internalize it. You must get new employees locally. You need the best people around, but you must also have people who are local. In terms of moving knowledge, it is important to move people from Israel to the U.S. Knowledge will not be transferred by processes and material or training. You need to have the knowledge reside in the office. We did that. We moved some key people to the U.S. Once that is done, then you can hire local folks and knowledge transfer can happen face to face.

Sramana: What type of talent did you move to the U.S.?

Eran Yaniv: We did not necessarily move management talent. We moved product knowledge talent. There are cultural differences and other challenges as well that you need to address. You need to get people to visit each other and meet each other face to face to bridge those gaps.

Sramana: The typical position that would bridge those gaps the best would be the sales engineers, right?

Eran Yaniv: That is a very good point. We brought a guy from Israel who was the designated manager for the sales engineering team, and we hired a local team here. That worked out very well. That is an exemplary move and an amazing situation where we have a top-notch team of guys. Everybody will testify that what we did was exactly what needed to be done.

Sramana: How long did the transition take you?

Eran Yaniv: Some people have families so those moves can be difficult. I had to pack up my family and move them here which was difficult. I would say that Q4 2011 to mid-2012 was the bulk of the transition effort.

Sramana: I asked you these questions because this is not just an Israel-to-America scenario, it is happening in a lot of regions. There is a whole contingent of European entrepreneurs trying to move to the U.S., and there are a lot of Indian entrepreneurs trying to move to the U.S. The lessons are applicable although the cost structures are different, especially for Indian entrepreneurs.

Eran Yaniv: I agree. It is doable, and I think my experience working for an Israeli company that had a U.S. presence before I started Perfecto Mobile helped a lot. In that role I built the bridge between the Israeli and U.S. portions of the company so I was prepared to make that move in this scenario as well.

Sramana: Very good. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Best of luck as you continue on.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Moving a Technology Company from Israel to America: Perfecto Mobile CEO Eran Yaniv
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