As a PR person based in Tel Aviv helping Israeli technology companies market their products and services internationally, it drives me crazy when Israeli VCs say that companies have to be (physically) located in the US in order to market their products to Americans.
Haven’t they heard of the Internet? With the Internet, being located somewhere is a state of mind, regardless of where your body is.
Thanks to the Internet, I am as up on what’s happening in New York as any of my friends in New York, and there are plenty of others like me in Israel.
A great new tool that can help VCs and entrepreneurs close the gap between our Silicon Wadi and Silicon Valley (or Alley) for less than two flights to the states (even on Turkish or Czech Airlines) is IT Database (www.itdatabase.com).
ITDatabase is a database of technology coverage appearing in publications, magazines, websites, blogs, podcasts and in video content. With ITDatabase, a VC can track the coverage according to tech sectors (‘virtualization’, ‘contextual advertising’), keywords (‘grid’, ‘relevancy’), portfolio company competitors, or whatever.
To show VC Café readers first-hand what ITDatabase can do, I have included a screen capture for the search ‘Israel’. In the first column, ‘Sources’, one can see a ranking of the top sources or publications, blogs, etc., which have covered Israel. In the second column, ‘Authors’, one can see a rank of the top authors who have written about Israel. Top ranked Jonathan Shapira authors the Cleantech Investing in Israel blog. It’s not surprising to see Jeff Pulver, with his many investments in Israel, or TechCrunch’s Sarah Lacy, who recently spent two weeks in Israel. (I wondered why leading Israeli bloggers didn’t appear on the list, so I changed by query term to ‘Israeli’, and TechCrunch writer Roi Carthy appeared at #3, and GoToWeb2.0’s Orli Yakuel in the top 15). Under ‘Vendor’, one can find a ranking of vendors who appeared in articles with the word ‘Israel’.
I know what you’re thinking. This is just like Google Alerts. Well ITDatabase is better than Google Alerts in two major ways. First, it’s a comprehensive database which enables users to run queries on the broadest range of variables in order to analyze coverage. After running a query, the user can then click-through and read each story that appears in the database’s report. While Google Alerts provides one month of coverage, ITDatabase enables querying from the last week up to the last 6 months.
The real differentiator of ITDatabase, particularly for entrepreneurs, is the ability to find contact information, primarily email, of most reporters, and to insert reporters and bloggers into databases to track user activity with each contact. That way, one can track each touch points (email, reply, call, etc.) with each contact.
So VCs, instead of encouraging your portfolio companies to go West, buy them a license for ITDatabase.
Truth be told, there are times where it is important to get on the plane to fly to a meeting in the US. And the entrepreneurs utilizing ITDatabase will be in a better position to maximize their opportunities based on the knowledge they acquire through ITDatabase.
This post was contributed by Uriah Av-Ron, Partner / Founder, Oasis PR
Uriah founded Oasis PR in 2004 in order to enable Israeli technology companies to secure press coverage in leading US and international publications while facilitating media relations and strategic and tactical PR services on-site in Israel. Oasis PR clients include category leaders in
online advertising, online video, networking, IT and more.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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