Episode #52: Steve Hoffman (Award-winning author, CEO of Founders Space)

If you’re an entrepreneur, you need to show me evidence that you’ve gotten in with these customers, and these customers are just chomping at the bit to get what you have, and they can’t get it elsewhere. Because these are the companies that break through. If they can get it from a lot of other sources, you’re just never gonna grow really fast, you’re gonna be a small – maybe if you execute really well – a medium sized company, but you’re never going to take the market.

In this episode, we speak with Steve Hoffman, also known as Captain Hoff.

He’s a venture investor, serial entrepreneur, award-winning author, and CEO of Founders Space – a global startup accelerator, that’s been ranked by both Forbes and Entrepreneur magazines as the #1 incubator for overseas startups. 

Under his many hats, he’s constantly leveraging his vast experience to mentor and empower entrepreneurs, helping them navigate the good, bad, and ugly.  

He’s down to earth and has his sleeves rolled up ready to share his knowledge. 

We discuss:

• What qualities he looks for in entrepreneurs and companies he invests in
• The importance of surrounding yourself with the right people (this is a clear common theme, so many of our guests emphasize this)
• Where trust plays into teamwork
• His unusual career path, led by identifying opportunities and following his passions and interests
• The power of listening to your heart in decision making
• Identifying where your talents truly lie
• When it’s time to give up
• How startups fail by assuming they can create demand, something that Steve says is not possible to do. Steve says truly great entrepreneurs don’t focus on “just” building a product, they’re what he calls demand hunters. 
• Why “humans as a service” (consultancies for example) is never a truly scalable type of business
• How to recruit talents
• How he navigates stress and anxiety
• And much more!

Enjoy listening to him! 

We’re excited to be collaborating with the Israeli website CTech, owned by Calcalist – Israel’s leading business newspaper. CTech is the gateway of the Israeli high-tech to the tech world and vice versa.  

If you’re not already a regular reader, we strongly recommend that you check it out and stay up to date on all high-impact stories from the Israeli tech scene. 

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Some further resources:

• Real Life Superpowers podcast on Ctech