Young enterprenuers should ask for advice: Business development expert Ron Kimhi

When we think about startups in the world of technology, we think of failure, bad managers and bosses who act like boss babies. Unlike most of us, Ron Kimhi has to deal with these new and aspiring entrepreneurs every single day.

Kimhi, 30, who became a father in April 2019, finds mentoring young entrepreneurs interesting and loves what he does. “I have always wanted to make a difference in the lives of my fellow Israeli and Palestinian brothers and sisters, and mentoring them on how they can make their businesses profitable in the US, gives me a sense of satisfaction,” he said.

To him, life is all about making a difference in the lives of others. “I do what I do because I, too, have struggled as an entrepreneur and my failures have taught me how critical good advice can be for a startup,” stated Kimhi, who is an external business development consultant at ‘Florida Israel Business Accelerator’ (FIBA).

Kimhi, who is also a peer at the Birthright Excel community, which annually selects the forty most esteemed US professionals to go to Israel for internships in the tech ecosystem. “Young people, who want to make a mark in the world of technology, should do something they like. “Find people who have succeeded to hold the role of your dreams. And don’t just go through their LinkedIn account. Articulate a very nice personal email and reach out and talk to them. Many times they are going to answer,” he said before telling us about his experience as a judge for a startup competition at IDC University, where he helped raise over a hundred thousand US dollars from tech giants like IBM and Google. “Doing what we love may not always be easy, but if we choose something we hate just because there is money in it, we will find ourselves failing.”

“Find people who have succeeded to hold the role of your dreams. And don’t just go through their LinkedIn account. Articulate a very nice personal email and reach out and talk to them. Many times they are going to answer.

According to him, there was a time when people thought he was insane. “I had just recently joined FIBA, and I had been asked to persuade about 40 Israeli startups to register for a program FIBA had organized; however after thinking things through and doing the math, I realized that to make any kind of difference both socially and financially, we would need to get at least 60 businesses onboard,” he said.  In just under a month of joining this not-for-profit organization, he sent out over 1,500 emails to get over 90 companies to join the program. “This wasn’t an easy task. There would be days I would go without sleep, and people kept telling me I was insane. But this didn’t stop me,” he said.

The talented mentor and Business Development expert maybe extremely hardworking at work, but he is not a boring 9-5 office guy. Kimhi loves traveling and taking pictures. Yeah, you heard it: when he isn’t out there trying to help Israeli businesses enter the US market, he is trotting the globe taking spectacular photographs of landscapes and people. “Photos help us capture the special moments in our lives and allow us to travel back to those moments whenever we want,” said the shutterbug.