Emi Gal

I’ve been selling stuff for as long as I can remember. Started off with business cards when I was 10, went on to sell websites when I was 15, services when I was 18 and now so on.

A couple of years ago I got a contract with a very, very big and demanding customer for one very simple reason: I showed up more times than my competitors did. You’ve heard it before, but I can’t stress enough how true this rule is: 80% of a sales pitch is showing up.

Ever went into a store, asked for a blue shirt and heard the sales person go: “I’m sorry, we’re out of blue shirts, but would you like a pink t-shirt?”. You have, haven’t you? Everybody has, and  we all hate it. So, next time you sell something to someone, put yourself in his or her shoes. If he’s looking for a blue shirt, would he or she buy a pink t-shirt or not?

Last but definitely not least: Repeat. Repeat it until you can sell anything to anyone. Sell yourself. Sell your ideas. Your arguments. Your beliefs. Just sell. And keep in mind that becoming a great sales person, just as anything else, takes at least 10,000 hours.

There – you read it all, so it means I just sold you my post .

I almost lost my carry-on’s wheels on Prague’s beautifully rock-paved yet chancy sidewalks, the other day. And I was just trying to get to the Three Crowns Hotel in the (very) contrasting Praha 2, nothing fancy.

It was my third time in Prague, none of which was long enough to allow me to get the real feel of the city, unfortunately. What I could grasp each time though was the wonderful contrast between the beautiful, almost parisian buildings like the National Theatre and the terrible, terrible, matchbox style communist buildings like the University of Economics. One would argue you’d prefer not to have any matchbox buildings in such a beautiful city, but I think it’s what makes Prague so special.

Mini Seedcamp Prague was a real success, I think. Some of the companies have amazing technology & teams behind, so I’m sure we’ll see more of them in the near future. Czech Republic has a pretty interesting tech scene, and with people like Ondrej Bartos and Tom Newbold around, it’ll probably keep going up.

I enjoyed spending time with all the selected teams and I encourage every startup out there to apply to one of the Mini Seedcamps. As for me, I hope to be able to test my carry-on’s wheels again in Prague, soon. Na zdravi!

Until very recently I had, like most of you, about 150 feeds in Google Reader. I zapped through them throughout the day, which gave me a (fake) sense of being up-to-date with everything.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to delete 90% of my feeds, and only keep those of friends & people I’m really interested in. I ended up with exactly 20 feeds.

Without further blabbering, RescueTime says I’ve “won” back about 6 hours / week. Six hours. I finally have time to finish Crime and Punishment, and that makes me a very happy chap.

Try it out, it works. And no, you won’t miss anything. If something’s really important, it will get to you one way or another.

Here’s how the story goes: many, many years ago there was this really cool video editing tool called Adobe After Effects. At the same time there was this really, really cool operating system called Mac OS X. All good.

The only problem: After Effects didn’t work on OS X, so Mr. Stevie Jobs went to Mr. Adobe CEO and said: Dude, c’mon, make it work. And Mr. Adobe CEO said: neah, you only sell a few thousand computers per year, it’s not worth it. So Stevie went on and built Final Cut and promised Adobe’s CEO that he’ll make it back.

Therefore, no flash on the iPhone, no flash on the iPad, no flash-on-any-freaking-beautiful-device-ever-built-by-Apple. Ever.

And that’s how the story goes .

For those of you who don’t know, Jonathan Klein founded Getty Images together with Mark Getty, back in 1993. Getty Images is the leading stock photo business in the world.

Last week, thanks to Saul Klein and Seedcamp, I had the priviledge to listen to him for two hours, speaking about how he built a business that makes hundreds of millions of dollars in profit every year.

What struck me the most was how “normal” Mr. Klein was. Extremely friendly and patient with all our questions, some of which were rather stupid, I think . Then, I was amazed at the fact he had a set of ‘principles’ for every aspect of the business, whether it’s hiring people, scaling the business or creating sustainability. And last but definitely not least, I loved the fact that he was fun, easy going and had a constant smile on his face.

Besides talking about how he built a billion dollar company in 15 years, he gave us 10 tips that can help us do it as well. And I want to share that wisdom with you:

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I’ve been lucky enough to be part of the Seedcamp USA crew (Advertag, Codility, Erply, Joobili, Kukunu, Kwaga, Patients Know Best, Platogo, Shoutem and Wondergraphs) that took over America in a one-week trip across the East and West coasts.

We started off in New York, which was fun and entertaining, especially the day we met Jonathan Klein, founder & CEO of Getty Images (I’m going to blog about that as well, soon ). We also met the wonderful people at Union Square Ventures and had fun with New York’s tech scene at the NY Tech Meet-up. If I’d have to summarize NY in 3 words, I’d say: the shops, the taxis and the girls .

We spent the second half of our trip in Silicon Valley, and I am still mesmerized at the amount of brain per square meter that I encountered there. Whenever I looked left, there was someone running an interesting startup. Whenever I looked right, there was a VC or an angel investor looking for new opportunities. Wherever I looked, there was someone that could help me or that I could help, one way or another. And if I were to summarize my experience in Silicon Valley in just three words, I’d say: Wow, just wow!

I can’t stress enough how valuable Seedcamp has been for Brainient. I am awed and astonished when I look back and see how much we’ve accomplished in the past four months. I’ve written about the Seedcamp Experience before, but if I were to summarize it in just three words, I’d say: YOU. NEED. IT.

And btw, Mini Seedcamp Zagreb is coming up and you still have a few days to apply .

I’m not sure I want to live 100 years, but I sure want to be healthy in my sixties. I know, I’m crazy to be thinking about that when I’m still in my early twenties, but hey – everyone has obsessions, and this is one of mine.

I’ve been a vegetarian for almost a year now, I try to go to church regularly and I read the Bible daily, so according to Dan Buettner, a writer and explorer at National Geographic, chances are I’m on the right path to be able to hold my grand, grand, grand children in my arms, one day.

Together with a few smart scientists, Buettner identified the so-called “blue zones”, areas where people live, on average, around 100 years. After analyzing all kinds of data, he discovered the four things we could do to live a better, healthier, longer life: more naturally, have faith and direction, be vegetarians and make lots of friends. Apparently, it’s that simple.

I highly recommend you watch the 20 minute video below. I don’t think it’ll make you live 100 years, but it will sure raise some questions .

Yesterday evening I had the opportunity and privilege to see the preview of Varekai, Cirque du Soleil’s new show, debuting on the 5th of January at the Royal Albert Hall.

I don’t have words to express how amazing the show was. Everything – the live music, costumes, story, acrobats, set, even the actors’ humor made me feel like I was watching a 3D movie with really, really good special effects. Except it wasn’t a movie and there weren’t any special effects. Just really, really talented people and hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of very, very hard work.

It was the best show I’ve seen in my life, so far, and I strongly recommend you go ahead and get tickets while you can, I have a feeling they’re going to sell out really, really quickly.

For those of you who didn’t find out, Seedcamp announced the dates for the Mini Seedcamps in 2010.

If you’re not sure if Seedcamp is for you, go ahead and read about the seedcamp experience or find out how to put your startup on steroids.

Without further ado, here are the dates for the Mini Seedcamps in 2010.

>> Zagreb – 11th February
>> Prague – 2nd March
>> Barcelona – 23rd March
>> Paris – 15th April
>> Tel Aviv – 6th May
>> Copenhagen – 27th May
>> Berlin – 16th June
>> London – 20th July

Good luck.

I’m on an flight from Bucharest to London while writing this blog post, and I’m simply amazed on how productive I’ve been. In just a little bit over 3 hours, I managed to go through a few dozen emails, I cleaned up a folder that’s been in the back of my brain for the past 3 months, reviewed two lengthy agreements that I never had the courage to open before and did some high-level monthly planning for 2010. Oh, and I still have about 20 minutes left .

While contemplating on why I’m usually this productive on airplanes, the obvious suddenly occured to me: I’m completely offline. Not just because I don’t have Skype, internet, phone, sms, but because my brain knows I don’t have them.

I believe there’s something magic about knowing that no-one, absolutely no-one can bother you. So I’ve decided to do a test, for the next two months. Every week, I’ll pick a day, and for at least 5 hours I will disconnect from any pottential interruptors: mobile, skype, email, IM, etc. I’m going to keep the internet on, though, as I find it rather difficult to work with no internet when you run an internet startup .

I’ll track and measure everything, and in March I’ll get back to you with some metrics, thoughts and conclusions.

PS: If you try to get the hang of me and I’m nowhere to be found, it means I’m in the middle of my little experiment . Wish me luck.