Saar Yoskovitz is the co-founder and CEO of Augury, the industrial internet of things technology company bringing predictive maintenance to new markets. He is an avid entrepreneur that has extensive experience in machine learning, signal processing algorithms and system architecture.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
When business started difficulties overcame:
“when you build a company from the ground up it is going to be chaotic anyway so what you want is to have your roots kind of grounded and the best way to do that is to work in a large successful company enterprise that has managed to scale globally. And that enabled me to understand the importance of culture when you build an organisation, it enabled me to understand the life-cycle of a product, what role does marketing play in sales and whatnot. So I spent almost 2 years at Intel before I quit my job to found Augury”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
- Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days Book by Jessica Livingston
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers Book by Ben Horowitz
Favourite Quote:
” always plan two steps ahead and get ready to move one step back”
Recommended Online Resources:
- a16z The a16z Andreessen Horowitz Podcast discusses tech and culture trends, news, and the future — especially as ‘software eats the world’. It features industry experts, business leaders, and other interesting thinkers and voices from around the world.
- First Round Capital Blog – the first VC run publication providing actionable insights from the top people in technology
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“just do it. Really there is so many reasons why you shouldn’t start your own company and it all boils down to do you believe that you are going to learn even if you fail in two years. What are you going to gain from the experience? And if you asked that question you will find out that wherever you are in life you will probably be better off in two years if you started your own company than if you were to just to stay on your current route and path”…[Listen for More]
More About Saar Yoskovitz:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently… A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.” Henry Ford
Other Quotes From the Chat with Saar Yoskovitz:
- “we are selling to a market that doesn’t really exist yet and that requires a lot of heavy lifting around discovery, around messaging, around creating personas and whatnot. So, I think product marketing is something I would have told myself to bring on much, much sooner”
- “every couple of quarters my role totally changes and I need to learn something from scratch”
- “being very open and curious is number one. Number two is being driven and having conviction. So, when you do make up your mind. You can debate a decision as much as you want but the moment you make it you need to see it through”
- “I talked to smart people that have kind of seen my future”
- “we are big believers in the lean start-up or customer development or agile methodologies where you try to have quick iterations to maximise learning. So, it’s not about maximising revenue, it’s not about selling more. It’s about how do I learn? What is my learning velocity and how do I make sure that I keep on learning quickly not just personally but as an organisation? And putting those processes into place are key to our success”
- “you need to have a good plan and you need to focus on the next step but also be aware that you may have something blocking you and you will need to move one step back in”
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