Aggaeus

Orly Shoavi has done what most founders only talk about: built through the “two years in the desert,” found a breakout wedge, and exited—then came back for round two with ClarityQ. In this episode, Orly (Co-Founder & CEO, ClarityQ) sits down with Haggai Klorman Eraqi to unpack the real founder journey: choosing a co-founder like a marriage, surviving the emotional whiplash of acquisition talks, and the moment SafeDK unlocked growth by shifting from “everyone loves it” to “everyone pays.”Then we fast-forward to ClarityQ—the pain Orly felt firsthand at scale: teams drowning in data but blocked by bottlenecked analysts. She explains why GenAI made this problem solvable now, how ClarityQ builds trust (transparency, SQL visibility, human-in-the-loop), and what it means to move from prompt engineering to context engineering.What you’ll learn:How Orly vetted a co-founder—and why alignment beats “perfectly different skill sets”The SafeDK wedge: monitoring SDKs → ad intelligence → explosive demand (and why it started as “just a feature”)The acquisition roller coaster: term sheet, sudden freeze, brutal uncertainty… then a better all-cash offerWhy “waiting on analysts” slows decisions—and how ClarityQ helps teams move fasterHow to trust AI analytics: plans, steps, SQL, guardrails, and analyst verification workflowsOrly’s advice to her younger self: start earlierCheck out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:👉https://aggaeus.com/CONNECT WITH ORLY SHOAVILinkedInWebsiteCONNECT WITH HAGGAILinkedInFOLLOW AGGAEUSInstagramTikTokYouTubeSUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCASTApple PodcastsSPONSORSKardz.Biz — “A business card too good to give away.”INQUIRIES💼 Sponsorships / Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM via InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

For 30+ years, Eugene Buff has been the behind-the-scenes “bridge” between breakthrough science and the companies that actually bring it to market—from university tech transfer offices drowning in inventions to global corporates hunting for the next edge. He’s a MD/PhD geneticist, a former Harvard Medical School researcher whose papers still get cited… and the rare operator who walked away from NIH funding to pursue commercialization full-time.In this conversation with Haggai Klorman Eraqi, Eugene tells the story of how he realized the Nobel line was “too long,” and reinvented himself as an innovation strategist who helps organizations answer the hard question: Is this worth building—or should we kill it fast? You’ll hear:Why you’re not commercializing inventions—you’re solving problemsThe surprising reason Eugene’s default approach is to try to kill the project What “open innovation” really meansHow strategic partnerships, licensing, sponsored research, and venture differWhen getting a patent is the wrong move If you’re building “deep tech,” spinning out IP, or trying to land a corporate partner without getting crushed by bureaucracy—this episode is for you.Check out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:👉 https://aggaeus.com/CONNECT WITH EUGENE BUFFLinkedInCONNECT WITH HAGGAILinkedInFOLLOW AGGAEUSInstagramTikTokYouTubeSUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCASTApple PodcastsSPONSORSKardz.Biz — “A business card too good to give away.”INQUIRIES💼 Sponsorships / Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM via InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.#OpenInnovation #DeepTech #TechTransfer #StartupStrategy #Innovation

If you’re building in AI and you think “human cognition” is just more training data, this episode will challenge you.Assaf Horowitz is the Co-Founder & CEO of BrainVivo, a computational neuroscientist working at the edge of sci-fi and enterprise reality: scanning real brains and building “brain twins” — digital models that can predict how a specific expert or audience will feel, value, and decide inside a defined domain. Not a generic model. Not a persona. A measurable cognitive fingerprint.Assaf watched his grandmother—Tova Horowitz, a Holocaust survivor and the smartest person in his world—fade away from Alzheimer’s. The pain wasn’t only losing her. It was watching a lifetime of judgment, perception, and problem-solving disappear with no way to preserve it. That question becomes the company: what if we could capture parts of a mind’s “operating system” — and make it usable?Then it gets wild (and concrete). BrainVivo takes a 45–60 minute MRI session, maps your brain’s wiring (connectome) and activity (fMRI), feeds you controlled stimuli (images, sound, even smell/taste), and trains a “translator” between the world’s inputs and your brain’s internal response. The output is a brain twin that can be tested on new stimuli and used to predict intuition-level reactions.Assaf shares two case studies that make this real: • Cloning expertise: a Michelin-star chef who literally “hears” tomatoes (synesthesia). BrainVivo built a culinary brain twin and hit ~85% accuracy on the gist of his judgments across dozens of dishes—opening the door to scaling founder-level taste and consistency across locations. • Predicting markets & behavior: a project with one of the world’s largest investment banks using digitized audience brains reacting to hourly news headlines, producing a high correlation with the market’s fear index (VIX). • An experiment that beat a gaming company’s internal selection by choosing creatives that dominated click performance.This is a founder conversation about the next AI frontier: not just smarter models, but more human ones.In this episode • What a “brain twin” is—and what it can (and can’t) capture today • Why language is a crude interface for thought, and where LLMs flatten human depth • How MRI + stimuli + an encoding/translation model becomes a usable cognitive agent • Why Assaf believes “NeuroAI” is the next step after LLMs • The ethics: data ownership, anonymization, and why your mind shouldn’t be scrapedCheck out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:👉 https://aggaeus.com/CONNECT WITH ASSAFLinkedInWebsiteCONNECT WITH HAGGAILinkedInFOLLOW AGGAEUSInstagramTikTokYouTubeSPONSORSKardz.Biz – “A business card too good to give away”SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODC ASTApple PodcastsSubstackINQUIRIES💼 Sponsorships/Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM https://www.instagram.com/aggaeus/ on InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without noticeAggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.#NeuroAI #DeepTech #Startups #Cognition #AI

In this episode, Daniel Green (Co-Founder & CTO) shares how Faye became one of the fastest-growing, most loved travel protection brands in the U.S.—by obsessing over one idea: solve it now.Daniel breaks down the bigger lesson behind that moment: customers don’t want more alerts, dashboards, or “status updates.” They want outcomes. And Faye’s entire product philosophy—from app-first support to proactive flight tracking and instant claim access—was built around delivering calm, clarity, and solutions when travelers are emotional, exhausted, and stuck.What makes this story even wilder? Faye’s first version launched in December 2019 as a predictive travel tool… and then COVID wiped the market overnight. That collapse forced the team to listen harder than ever—and what they heard again and again was simple: “I’d pay 10x if you’d just handle it.” That insight became the turning point.In this conversation with Haggai Klorman Eraqi, you’ll hear:• Why “love” is a serious KPI—even in insurance• The product shift from information → real-time solutions• What a modern travel protection experience looks like: app-first, proactive, instant virtual cards• How Faye recruited senior talent from major industry players before they “needed” them• Daniel’s practical framework for AI: embrace it, measure it, and don’t ship hallucinations into decisions• The founder operating principle that keeps showing up: you don’t know if you don’t askIf you care about product-market fit, customer trust, and building a brand people rally around—this one will stick with you.Check out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:👉 https://aggaeus.com/CONNECT WITH DANIEL GREENLinkedInWebsiteCONNECT WITH HAGGAILinkedInFOLLOW AGGAEUSInstagramTikTokYouTubeSUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCASTApple PodcastsSPONSORSKardz.Biz — “A business card too good to give away.”INQUIRIES💼 Sponsorships / Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM via InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

They said it couldn’t be done. So he built a robot and sent it up the side of a skyscraper.No water. No chemicals. Just quiet, climbing machines—methodically wiping down glass and collecting inspection data that building owners have never had access to before. That’s what Ido Genosar and his team at Verobotics are doing. And yes, it looks like science fiction. But it’s already working on real buildings.Ido’s path here? Let’s just say it didn’t start in a robotics lab. It started in the Tel Aviv nightlife scene—selling, hustling, navigating human behavior with the instincts of someone who’s learned to read a room better than most people read books. That same scrappy mindset—figuring things out by feel, not by formula—is what carried him through the hardest category in tech: real-world hardware.In this episode, we go deep on:• Why “physical AI” is having its moment—and why robotics is brutally different from software• What it takes to scale a robot when every building is a different beast• The hidden economics of facade maintenance (and why the labor shortage makes this inevitable)• Japan as a robotics and real estate super-market—and why it’s still hard to crack• How founders earn trust with customers when the bar for robots is higher than for humansCheck out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:👉https://aggaeus.com/CONNECT WITH IDOLinkedInWebsiteCONNECT WITH HAGGAILinkedInFOLLOW AGGAEUSInstagramTikTokYouTubeSPONSORSKardz.Biz — “A business card too good to give away.”INQUIRIES💼 Sponsorships / Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM via InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

Daniel Cohen has spent 25 years investing across Israel’s tech ecosystem—Gemini, Viola, and now as Co-Founder & GP at Sticker Ventures, where he’s betting hard on one thing: the next wave of global consumer winners will come out of Israel.In this episode, Daniel breaks down why Israeli founders have a unique edge in distribution, growth hacking, and performance-driven execution—and where they often stumble when it’s time to build a real global brand. You’ll hear the behind-the-scenes thinking of a specialist VC: what he funds, what he passes on fast, why retention beats revenue early, and how he evaluates founders who are still pre-launch but aiming big.In this episode• Why Daniel believes Israel can produce the next global B2C breakout• The “Israeli advantage” in B2C marketing (and why it matters now more than ever)• The biggest weakness: turning hacks into a durable brand• Why Daniel prioritizes retention over revenue early on• The fastest “no” signals—and what founders can do to come back stronger• When performance marketing is a must… and what alternatives take too long to bet onCheck out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:👉https://aggaeus.com/CONNECT WITH DANIELLinkedInSticker VenturesCONNECT WITH HAGGAILinkedInFOLLOW AGGAEUSInstagramTikTokYouTubeSUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCASTSubstackApple PodcastsSPONSORSKardz.Biz — “A business card too good to give away.”INQUIRIES💼 Sponsorships / Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM via InstagramDisclaimer Some links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

Eyal Harel, CEO of BlueGreen Water Technologies, has spent 12 years going where most companies won’t: toxic, collapsing water bodies that communities rely on—and where “solutions” usually mean waiting for the next disaster. Eyal has seen how bad it gets up close: sewage flowing into lakes, drinking water pulled from the other side, and ecosystems turning into dead zones you can’t swim in, fish from, irrigate with, or even touch.In our conversation, Eyal explains why harmful algal blooms are a water pandemic—and why the world still treats water like air: essential, invisible, and something nobody wants to pay for. He breaks down BlueGreen’s approach: surgically trigger a collapse of the toxic species, then let biodiversity rebuild the ecosystem fast.Then it turns into the hard business reality: how do you build a company when the problem is enormous, but the market doesn’t exist? Eyal unpacks why investors struggle to price water innovation, why government budgets lag the crisis, and how BlueGreen is using carbon markets as a financing engine to scale water restoration—without relying on handouts.What you’ll hear in this episodeWhy harmful algal blooms turn lakes and coasts into dead zonesWhy water insecurity becomes a humanitarian, economic, and geopolitical riskWhy “nature rebounds” when given a chanceWhy Florida is spending aggressively on algal bloomsThe “problem exists, market doesn’t” trap—and how it breaks fundingThe carbon-credit pathway that can finance water cleanup at scaleCheck out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:👉https://aggaeus.com/CONNECT WITH EYALLinkedInWebsiteCONNECT WITH HAGGAILinkedInFOLLOW AGGAEUSInstagramTikTokYouTubeSUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCASTSubstack Apple PodcastsSPONSORSKardz.Biz — “A business card too good to give away.”INQUIRIES💼 Sponsorships / Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM via InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.#water #climate #sustainability #innovation #startup

Jerry Neumann is a Columbia University professor, author, and retired investor who was named one of the “100 Best Early-Stage Investors” and one of the “Most Important VCs in New York” by Business Insider. He co-wrote Founder vs Investor, runs the iconic blog Reaction Wheel, and has spent decades dissecting how startups really win—not in theory, but in the messy, unpredictable reality of markets, psychology, and human behavior.This episode is a field guide for founders and investors who want to understand the only force that consistently produces breakout companies: UNCERTAINTY.Jerry argues that when the future is knowable, incumbents win. When it’s unpredictable, founders have a shot—because uncertainty is the brief window where giants hesitate and entrepreneurs can sprint. But that window closes fast, and what you do inside it determines everything.Haggai and Jerry go deep into:Why uncertainty—not risk—is the raw material of billion-dollar startupsHow Google, Facebook, Uber, and Datadog exploited moments incumbents couldn’t modelThe investor’s job: identify the unknowable, not the comfortableThe founder’s job: make the idea bigger—big enough to scare youWhy valuation math is a fantasy (and when walking backwards actually helps)The emotional violence of building: ego, failure, board politics, and being pushed out of your own companyHow to separate your identity from your startup—without losing your nerveAI as the final stage of the computing wave (and why most AI startups won’t capture the value)Why entrepreneurship is ultimately the purest expression of human agencyIf you’re a founder wrestling with conviction, an investor sharpening your judgment, or someone who wants to understand how innovation actually moves societies—this conversation is for you.Check out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:👉 https://aggaeus.comCONNECT WITH JERRY NEUMANNLinkedInReaction WheelBook – Founder vs InvestorCONNECT WITH HAGGAILinkedInFOLLOW AGGAEUSInstagramTikTokYouTubeSUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCASTSubstackApple PodcastsSPONSORSKardz.Biz — “A business card too good to give away.”INQUIRIES💼 Sponsorships / Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM via InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

Gilad Uziely isn’t just the CEO of Sequence—he’s one of the few founders who has lived through every chapter of the entrepreneurial cycle: raising millions, scaling fast, watching the unit economics turn against him, shutting off onboarding, facing 160 rejections, restructuring a cap table with 83 signatures… and then coming back with a product customers paid for before it even existed.Today, Sequence is a breakout fintech used by small-business owners to orchestrate their financial lives across dozens of accounts. But before the 10× jump from $200K → $2M ARR, before Aleph VC and Emerge Ventures backed the reboot, and before the community formed organically—there was collapse, uncertainty, and a brutally honest founder question:Are we resilient… or just insane?Haggai and Gilad trace the journey with clarity, honesty, and a founder’s battle scars:In This Episode • The Ashes: shutting down Lance because each new customer shortened runway. • Facing Reality: fraud, chargebacks, CAC inflation, and letting Excel tell the truth. • The Pivot: anchoring on two principles—conviction and building only in a blue ocean. • The Spark: discovering people wanted a “router for their money” so badly they paid $200 upfront for something that didn’t exist yet. • The Road Through Startup Hell: six months, 83 signatures, and a term sheet pulled at dawn. • New Investors: Aleph VC and Emerge Ventures stepping in with conviction. • The Rebuild: finding the ICP, shifting messaging, and 10× ARR in 12 months. • Craftsmanship Mode: from chopping wood to precision work across pricing, funnels, and value. • The Principle: automate everything—because compounding only works if your habits do.Check out the full Substack write-up: ⸻CONNECT WITH GILADLinkedInSequenceCONNECT WITH HAGGAILinkedInFOLLOW AGGAEUSWebsiteInstagramTikTokYouTubeSUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCASTApple PodcastsSPONSORSKardz.Biz – “A business card too good to give away”INQUIRIES💼 Sponsorships / Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM on InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

André Levy is the Chairman of Protégé International Group and Lodestar Licensing, and one of the rare operators who has lived every chapter of modern commerce: expelled from Egypt, rebuilt in the UK, forged his career across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, opened markets by hand, survived corporate politics, and then created global brands—ROUTE 66® and The Wild Geese—rooted in story, truth, memory, and identityThis conversation is a masterclass for any founder, creator, or brand builder who wants to understand how products become myths—and why consumers attach meaning to things long before they ever read the label.Haggai and André travel through:• How to build trust in markets where trust is currency• Why ROUTE 66® felt “real” even before it launched• The Wild Geese: the Irish diaspora, pride, heritage, and identity woven into a bottle• The secret: a brand must feel true—before it feels new• How André turned cultural insight into €200M in annual revenue• Why corporates fail at innovation—and why entrepreneurs win• The only real test of a brand: does it spark a story in the buyer’s mind?If you care about storytelling, consumer psychology, emerging markets, spirits, branding, licensing, or the entrepreneurial psyche—you will love this one.CONNECT WITH ANDRÉLinkedInProtégé International GroupLodestar LicensingCONNECT WITH HAGGAILinkedInFOLLOW AGGAEUSInstagramTikTokYouTubeSPONSORSKardz.Biz – “A business card too good to give away”SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCASTSubstackSpotifyApple PodcastsINQUIRIES💼 Sponsorships / Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM on InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

Before Alexander Shilman was writing checks into frontier biotech, neurotech, AI infrastructure, and semiconductors, he was something rare in venture: a behavioral scientist trusted by governments, corporates, early-stage teams—and even prime ministers—to decode how humans actually behave under pressure, uncertainty, and change.That vantage point became a superpower.Alex spent a decade inside rooms most people never see—fixing real-world problems from cyber-risk to national policy—and quietly building a portfolio of early teams through his behavioral consultancy. Startups came to him to understand users; corporates came to him to understand people; and investors came to him for signal.Eventually the “consulting portfolio” revealed itself for what it was: deal flow. And the gap in Israel’s deep-tech funding landscape revealed itself for what it was: a generational opportunity.Today Alex is the Founder & Managing Partner of New Gate Capital, one of the very few funds in Israel purpose-built for deep tech at the point where technology is real, market signal is emerging, and team dynamics either become a moat—or kill the company.Haggai and Alex go deep into the intersection he sits on uniquely:behavioral science × human decision-making × deep-tech investing…and why understanding humans matters more than understanding code.This conversation is a full tour through:How foundational biases—social proof, sunk cost, uncertainty aversion—shape product, sales, culture, fundraising, and failureWhy anomalies in data reveal more than dashboards ever willWhy change-coping ability is the #1 predictor of startup survivalHow teams break when tech threatens identity (from factories to hospitals)Why AI brings a “perfect psychological storm” and how societies can prepareWhy Israeli founders can close deals literally from tunnels—and what the world misunderstands about Israeli entrepreneurial agencyAnd what deep-tech VCs will look like in a world where AI writes most of the codeAlex also walks through two of New Gate’s standout portfolio companies—a cancer-drug delivery breakthrough from Technion, and a neuro-signal platform processing emotions in real time—revealing how he evaluates founders, risk, and resilience where uncertainty is the norm.If you want to understand where venture capital is actually going, why deep tech is the last defensible frontier, and what makes a team fundable when the world gets unpredictable—this episode isn’t optional.Connect with AlexanderLinkedInWebsiteNew Gate CapitalConnect with HaggaiLinkedInFollow AggaeusInstagramTikTokYouTubeSubscribe to the PodcastSubstackApple PodcastsSponsorsKardz.Biz – “A business card too good to give away”InquiriesSponsorships/Business: talktous@aggaeus.comPodcast: DM on InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

How many times can you rebuild your life? Andreas Foeldenyi has done it—again and again. From losing everything after 9/11 to teaching in obscure classrooms just to pay the bills, to becoming Co-CEO of one of Switzerland’s largest private education groups, Academia Group—his story is a masterclass in grit, reinvention, and the art of turning collapse into momentum.Andreas’s career has spanned continents and contradictions: teacher turned entrepreneur, pianist turned CEO, Swiss executive turned NGO founder in Vietnam. He’s built companies, sold them, lost them, and built again. Now, as he transitions from CEO to multi-board investor and mentor, he reflects with raw honesty on the rollercoaster behind the résumé—and what it really costs to keep starting over.In this conversation, Andreas and Haggai Klorman Eraqi go deep on:The emotional and financial toll of losing everything—and the mindset to recover.Building and selling startups across Europe and AsiaWhy “luck” is built, not found—and how to manufacture opportunities through volume and stamina.What private education and integration in Switzerland can teach the world about inclusion.The difference between intelligence and wisdom—and why humility comes late but stays for good.It’s an unfiltered look at ambition, failure, and resilience—from someone who’s lived the full cycle, more than once.Connect with AndreasLinkedInConnect with HaggaiLinkedInFollow AggaeusInstagramTikTokYouTubeSubscribe to the PodcastSubstackSpotifyApple PodcastsSponsorsKardz.Biz – “A business card too good to give away”InquiriesSponsorships/Business: talktous@aggaeus.comPodcast: DM on InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

Before GO-OUT powered payments and operations for sports teams and music festivals across 14+ countries, it started with a 15-year-old kid in Jerusalem who hacked NBA 2K to play with his hometown team. That same mix of curiosity, grit, and obsession drove Yotam Cohen, now Founder & CEO of GO-OUT, to bootstrap a global company that unites ticketing, payments, and data for organizations that were never built to act like tech firms.No VCs. No safety net. Just relentless execution and a belief that sports teams and festivals shouldn’t need ten different tools to run their day.In this conversation, Yotam and Haggai Klorman Eraqi dig into: • How GO-OUT grew from zero to 14 countries—bootstrapped and profitable. • The “Halloween crash” that nearly killed the company (and how they rebuilt stronger). • Why bootstrapping builds better founders. • How to listen to customers and ship fast—sometimes in the same day. • The emotional reality of founding: anxiety, failure, and learning to separate the company from yourself. • The founder vs. CEO paradox: dreaming big vs. running the day-to-day. • What’s next for GO-OUT—and why they’re now competing head-to-head with the giants they once chased.It’s a story about turning chaos into clarity, building from instinct, and betting on execution over excuses.Connect with Yotam:LinkedInGO-OUT WebsiteConnect with Haggai:LinkedInFollow Aggaeus:InstagramTikTokYouTubeSubscribe to the Podcast:aggaeus.comApple PodcastsSponsors:Kardz.Biz – “A business card too good to give away”Inquiries:Sponsorships/Business: talktous@aggaeus.comPodcast: DM on InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

At Walmart, he turned a paper-napkin idea into a fintech product used by 18 million people.At StubHub/eBay, he helped scale global marketplaces.Now, as VP Product (Growth & Incubation) at GoFundMe, Hai Habot is reshaping the giving economy—proving generosity can be productized, operationalized, and scaled.Hai and Haggai Klorman Eraqi unpack how to build like a startup inside very large companies—where budgets, politics, and legacy systems collide with urgency, ambition, and customer need. You’ll hear how GoFundMe mobilized hundreds of millions in disaster relief within days, why most “innovation labs” stall, and the exact ways intrapreneurs win support, funding, and ship.In this episode The giving economy explained: individuals, nonprofits, corporate giving, and donor-advised funds From idea to impact: Walmart Mexico’s digital wallet and the 18M-user journey The 3-circle method for finding high-leverage opportunities (customer × company × feasibility) Intrapreneur tactics: coalition-building, budget strategy, and selling new bets internally Disaster response at scale: how GoFundMe verifies, routes, and deploys help fast Career advice for builders: when to push, when to partner, and how to communicate for buy-in Connect with HaiLinkedInGoFundMe WebsiteConnect with HaggaiLinkedInSubscribe to Apple PodcastFollow AggaeusInstagramTikTokYouTubeSponsorsKardz.Biz – “A business card too good to give away”Inquiries💼 Sponsorships/Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM on InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

A roof that gets colder under sunlight. A paint that cools a building without electricity. A startup that turned a laser-lab theory into a factory product sold to Amazon, Volkswagen, and AB InBev.That’s not sci-fi—it’s SolCold, and it’s the kind of “impossible” physics that only becomes real when someone refuses to quit.When Yaron Shenhav was a master’s student in electronic engineering, he couldn’t shake a paradox: why do we burn energy to create cold? That thought—plus an overheated apartment—sparked a decade-long obsession that became a new class of nanoparticle coatings. These materials absorb sunlight and emit higher-frequency light back out, releasing heat in the process. In other words, they cool themselves with sunlight.Today, Yaron’s company has grown from a crazy idea to a $14M-funded deep-tech startup with 27 employees and global pilots. SolCold’s film-like coating has been tested on rooftops, containers, beer silos, and even car sunroofs—cutting temperatures, saving energy, and keeping systems online during heat waves.In this episode, Yaron and Haggai dive into the science, the near-death startup moments, and the mindset required to push physics into production. They unpack how SolCold went from crowdfunding in Israel to cooling Amazon warehouses, Volkswagen vehicles, and global breweries—and why lowering the world’s temperature might start with a thin sheet of film.⸻In this episodeThe physics of cooling with sunlight: why “upconversion” matters From laser labs to factory floors: the making of a deep-tech startup Competing head-to-head with billion-dollar coatings companies How SolCold works with Amazon, AB InBev, and VolkswagenWhy startup culture matters more than lab breakthroughsConnect with YaronLinkedInSolCold WebsiteConnect with HaggaiLinkedInFollow AggaeusInstagramTikTokYouTubeSponsorsKardz.Biz – “A business card too good to give away”Subscribe toApple PodcastsInquiriesSponsorships/Business: talktous@aggaeus.comPodcast: DM on InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

Walk into a chicken hatchery that hums like a data center. Engineers aren’t checking feed—they’re tuning frequencies that tilt hatch rates toward hens and save billions in waste. A few kilometers away, a stadium tech lets people with hearing loss sit anywhere and hear perfectly through their own phones. In a care home, adaptive music calms dementia patients enough to reduce medication.That’s not sci-fi. It’s the world David Fridman is helping build.David grew up in Chile, moved to Israel, helped launch the country’s first carrier-backed ISP, and co-founded a cyber-intelligence company that later IPO’d in London. After a post-COVID reset, he returned to a first love—music—but treated it like infrastructure. He began teaching musicians to ship products, not just songs, then co-founded MusicTech Innovation Lab to connect artists, researchers, and builders.Fast-forward: he’s mapping 300+ Israeli music-tech startups, ran MusicTech Tel Aviv with 500+ operators and investors in the room, and his accelerator’s nominees won at Music Ally’s global awards. The thesis is simple and powerful: sound isn’t just entertainment—it’s a toolbox for health, accessibility, education, safety, and new kinds of creativity.In this episode:* Why “music tech” now means health, safety, accessibility, and education—not just streaming* Inside Israel’s surge: 300+ startups, an accelerator, and global recognition* The discovery crisis: how to find (and fund) artists when 100,000+ tracks drop daily* AI, ownership, and ethics—and how founders can build useful, defensible products* Operator tactics: selling to venues, hospitals, and brands; what investors actually backConnect with DavidLinkedInMusicTech Innovation LabConnect with HaggaiLinkedInFollow AggaeusInstagramTikTokYouTubeSponsorsKardz.Biz – “A business card too good to give away”Subscribe on Apple PodcastInquiries💼 Sponsorships/Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM on InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

Before ARYA, Offer Yehudai had already built and sold two adtech companies ($86M, then $650M). With co-founder Tomer Magid, he launched a premium couples-wellness concierge—part human, part AI—that tens of thousands of U.S. couples now pay for monthly. They charged from day one and, using a no-code MVP (Typeform/Airtable/SMS), hit $1M ARR before writing a line of code. That traction grew into double-digit millions in ARR—all while staying premium-only.Then came the wall: 197 investors said no. Taboo category. Commerce. “Paid from day one.” Offer kept going—refining onboarding and ads, tightening CAC payback, and building a “Costco-style” limited-SKU supply chain. The right yes finally landed, and ARYA accelerated.What you’ll hear • The dinner that sparked ARYA—and why routine (not romance) is the real enemy • How a scrappy no-code concierge reached $1M ARR fast • Why they refused freemium—and how that improved retention and payback • Scaling intimacy: concierge + AI that times, tones, and personalizes guidance • Commerce without “becoming a store” (few SKUs, direct brands, better margins) • Fundraising in a taboo: 197 rejections—and what finally flipped the roomConnect with Offer:LinkedInARYAConnect with Haggai:LinkedInFollow Aggaeus:InstagramTikTokYouTubeSponsors:Kardz.Biz – “A business card too good to give away”Subscribe on Apple PodcastInquiries:💼 Sponsorships/Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM on InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

When Dan Comyns ran product & growth at Nexar, he helped turn “try-before-you-buy” from a risky idea into a repeatable system—and learned a simple truth: conversations beat campaigns. A scrappy experiment calling shoppers who’d abandoned checkout crushed every benchmark. That insight became Sellence: an AI sales OS that lets B2C brands talk 1:1 with every interested buyer (SMS/WhatsApp), follow up like your best rep, and escalate to humans when it matters. Even though Dan just started the company, he’s already working with brands across insurance, finance, real estate, and high-consideration e-commerce.So how did he get here? Dan walked away from a safe PM track with no idea, stacked a graveyard of dead concepts, then followed the data: sell manually first, write the playbook with real conversations, and only then automate. He and his co-founder built multi-agent AI around that playbook (intent, negotiator, follow-up memory), added human guardrails where nuance matters, and kept shipping.In this episode, you’ll hear:• Turning abandoned intent into revenue: manual first, then automate• Designing conversations, not campaigns—across SMS/WhatsApp/voice• Quality that holds up: engagement signals, purchase attribution, human QA• Where humans still win (nuance, culture, timing)—and how AI amplifies them• Onboarding that works: consented phone numbers, simple hooks, clear playbooks• Building in uncertainty: leaving the safe path, finding partners, fundraising as motionConnect with Dan:LinkedInSellenceConnect with Haggai:LinkedInFollow Aggaeus:InstagramTikTokYoutubeSponsors:Kardz.Biz – “A business card too good to give away”Subscribe on Apple PodcastInquiries:💼 Sponsorships/Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM on InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

When most founders talk “hard ops,” they don’t mean motorbikes, canoes, and villages without roads. Abigail Urey, Co-Owner of LIB Solar, does. Over the last six years, her team has become Liberia’s largest solar provider—operating in all 15 counties and serving 30K+ households and small businesses—by blending rigorous finance with on-the-ground ingenuity.Abigail walks us through the real work: recruiting community agents, designing pay-as-you-go plans for low-income customers, building a collections network with mobile money, and packaging end-to-end systems (lights, radio, fan—and yes, TVs and solar refrigerators). The result isn’t charity; it’s a business that lets kids study at night, shops sell cold drinks, and micro-markets store meat—while staying cash-disciplined enough to turn down the wrong capital.We get into modeling uncertainty when data is messy, acting fast when cash flow wobbles, catching fraud before it spreads, and the mindset that keeps you calm when every day brings a new surprise. It’s a masterclass in financing impact without half-measures.Connect with Abigail:LinkedInLIB SolarConnect with Haggai:LinkedInFollow Aggaeus:InstagramTikTokSponsors:Kardz.Biz – “A business card too good to give away”Subscribe on Apple PodcastInquiries:💼 Sponsorships/Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM on InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

Before Zoog was an app, it was a bet: kids light up when Grandma’s the hero. Yoav Oren had the track record to try—opened China for Similarweb, closed landmark enterprise deals, produced Netflix’s Krav Maga episode, then got tiny Zoog onto Snap’s Camera Kit next to Disney. DreamWorks and Paramount followed. $1M+ ARR. 20,000+ five-star reviews. Two-minute, AR-powered stories that put family in the frame.Then came the hits: a 17-hour deal that died at midnight. Investors ghosting after Oct 7. And on Oct 8, his wife’s cancer diagnosis. With sirens in the stairwell and two months of runway, Yoav kept shipping—monetizing early, using AI to speed scripting and animation, and doubling down on partnerships that actually moved the needle.What you’ll hear• Why 2-minute stories beat PDFs—and when AR is the product, not a gimmick• Monetize early, learn faster: toward profitability without stalling growth• Inside the Snap win + Hollywood IP (DreamWorks, Paramount)• Scaling content with AI without tanking quality• Fundraising in headwinds (and why he’d build a U.S. presence sooner)• Operating under pressure: rituals, team design, mindsetConnect with Yoav:LinkedInZoogConnect with Haggai:LinkedInFollow Aggaeus:InstagramTikTokYouTubeSubscribe on Apple PodcastSponsors:Kardz.Biz – “A business card too good to give away”Inquiries:💼 Sponsorships/Business: talktous@aggaeus.com🎙 Podcast: DM on InstagramSome links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.