Haegwan Kim: What is your definition of success?
Yoav Andrew Leitersdorf: Success means different things to different people. To me personally, success is being happy. Some people derive happiness from making a difference, from amassing wealth or control, from being surrounded by people they love. I love to be challenged and then overcome these challenges – when I do that I feel success. And making the right choices in life in terms of whom to spend it with and how – that’s happiness and success for me as well.
HK: What would you say as the key element to be a successful entrepreneur? and same for investor?
YAL: I don’t believe there is a common list of traits among successful entrepreneurs, and among successful investors. Both professions are as much art as they are science, and just like artists – each has their own style and their own path to success. Some are very technical, some aggressive, some accommodating, some dreamers, some pragmatic, some financial, some graphical, some world travelers, some super focused… Each entrepreneur or investor is different, sometimes significantly, from the other. But if I had to pick just one element that to my knowledge exists in every successful entrepreneur and investor it would be: persistency – they never give up.
HK: I’m totally impressed by your networking skill, do you have any specific way to expand your connections?
YAL: The keys to highly-effective networking are as follows: First, distill it down to a science, automate it, leverage efficient tools (such as LinkedIn and not Facebook, Outlook and not Gmail, X1 and not ‘folders’, BlackBerry and not iPhone). Second, be fanatical about your return on time, your most precious resource – be very selective with industry events, webinars and other get-togethers that occupy multiple hours on your calendar and may or may not yield networking value. Finally, separate personal from professional – people burn out from high-powered professional networking because they let it creep into their personal lives and all of the sudden they find themselves going on weekend picnics with potentially ‘useful’ people they don’t necessarily like. Don’t do that to yourself – life’s too short: Keep your personal life personal.
HK: Since your business is international, I would like to ask about your opinion on the differences among nations in terms of tech-business and if you have a particular country in favor, please let me know.
YAL: I see significant differences among nations in this regard. The U.S. has always been and still is the world’s tech powerhouse, producing (and attracting!) by far the greatest volume of tech startups as well as mature tech companies – it is the easiest place to start, grow, finance, sell or merge a technology business.
Europe has not traditionally been the early adopter of technology but has in recent times shown great advances in areas such as mobile, Internet, telecom and clean tech. Nevertheless, tech innovation in Europe is still held back by over-regulation, risk-aversion, and high costs of doing business. Therefore, in Europe tech business usually thrives within large multinationals, of which some are and some aren’t actually headquartered in Europe.
Israel is my favorite, though I’m clearly biased as it’s where I’m from: Superb engineering talent trained mostly by its excellent army and universities, hungry and eager entrepreneurs, lean and mean cost structures, full-fledged support ecosystem which includes a government that funds dozens of startups per year, and nonstop interest from multinationals that invest, acquire and support. All of the regions above are increasingly threatened by the rise of China, India and Brazil that are increasingly exporting better and better technology.
HK: Would you give me your advice to achieve success in general?
YAL: That depends very much on how you define success. I think that a big part of achieving success is understanding what success is – for you. It doesn’t make sense to go full throttle unless you know where you’re steering, right? Most people do not have to be on the cover of Fortune or live in a mansion to feel successful. If you feel like me that success equals happiness, then it can be quite simple: Do more of what makes you happy, and do less of what makes you unhappy. Soon enough, you’ll achieve and maintain success.
Mr. Yoav Andrew Leitersdorf has been a successful entrepreneur, investor and advisor in the technology and new media fields for the past nineteen years. He is the founder and Managing Partner of YL Ventures, a venture capital fund that he designed based on his own experiences as an entrepreneur, with a unique strategy of achieving short-term, medium-sized exits of technology companies via strategic acquisitions.
Haegwan Kim is a writer who was born in Osaka, Japan in 1989 and grew up near Tokyo where went to a Korean school for 12 years.
