INspired INsider Podcast

Aharon Horwitz is the CEO and one of the Co-Founders of AutoLeadStar, a company that uses cutting edge technology to help the automotive industry be more effective in engaging buyers. Through their bespoke technology, AutoLeadStar automates companies' processes to attract engaged and quality customers on the web and convert them into buyers. They have been featured in over 10 Auto publications including Dealer magazine, AutoDealer Today, and CarBizToday, and have worked with more than 30+ OEM brands.

Aharon is also the co-host of the InsideAuto podcast where they feature top leaders, entrepreneurs, GM's, and authors across the auto industry

Many car dealerships still suffer the pain of low returns on their marketing spend because their processes are manual, broken, and out of touch. This is due to them being unable to reach quality leads with the right message at the right time. Recognizing this problem, Aharon Horwitz and his co-founders built AutoLeadStar in order to address and change how car dealerships do digital marketing.

AutoLeadStar helps dealerships sell more cars simply by taking a lot of the manual marketing work out of their day-to-day to-do list and optimizing their marketing to quadruple their car sales leads.

Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider podcast as Dr. Jeremy Weisz talks with AutoLeadStar CEO, Aharon Horwitz about how his company is changing the marketing game in the auto industry. Aharon also talks about how the idea for AutoLeadStar started, how they help car dealerships market differently to 4x their sales leads, and the lessons he learned while serving in the Israeli Army.

Greg Hayes is the Co-Founder and CEO of Branch, an office furniture company. They've furnished companies like Google and Shopify with thousands of desks and ergonomic chairs and their office furniture company has appeared in many reputable publications. They make the most comfortable office chair and serve both large and small companies and even individual consumers. Their goal is to make it easy for teams of every size to create offices they'll love.

If you ever thought about starting or funding a furniture company, now might just be the best time to do it. The demand for office furniture has nearly tripled since the pandemic hit. Why? Because people are currently outfitting their homes with furniture that will help them maintain productivity and comfort while working. In fact, some are even adding outpost offices so they can work close to home but away from the kids.

One company that is currently serving this massive market is Branch. It started operations just over two years ago and they've already served big companies like Google and Shopify. They have since started accommodating individual clients which now turns out to be a great idea because of the shift in market trends.

Learn more about Branch and the topnotch furniture they offer from their very own CEO, Greg Hayes, on this episode of Inspired Insider. Tune in as Greg talks to Dr. Jeremy Weisz about the current trends in office furniture, how they shifted from serving big companies to doing direct-to-consumer sales, the challenges that he and his co-founders faced in raising and starting the company, and why he thinks it's important to have an attitude towards finding a fix when facing low moments in business.

Guy Glass is one of Israel's e-commerce pioneers. He founded StyleRiver, the first fashion e-commerce site in Israel. As COO and CTO, Guy needed to address order fulfillment problems which led him to search for an economic warehouse robotics solution that offered adaptive processes that can work with their existing infrastructure and flexible enough to handle sales spikes.

In order to get the solution to his problem, Guy partnered with Dr. Ilan Cohen and Danny Frishman and they founded Caja Robotics in 2014. Caja Robotics is a visionary software and robotics expert that is changing the world of warehouse logistics through robotic fulfillment. Shortly after the foundation of the company, Reuven Della-Torre joined Caja Robotics and he currently serves as its CTO.

Reuven is an experienced CTO who has expertise in robotics, media content provision, telecom, web, and mobile markets. He has an in-depth knowledge of autonomous guided robots, warehousing, and video streaming communication.

The fast-paced growth in e-commerce has created a new problem for retail brands and logistics companies - warehousing and labor. They worry about maximizing their space, saving labor costs, expanding, and contracting their operations in order to meet demands. And one of the things that have proven to be incredibly helpful in addressing this problem is by turning to automation and robotics.

However, automation and robotics itself poses a different set of problems. How can these companies automate their 20k+ square feet warehouse using robots in a cost-effective way that is flexible enough to not rejig of their entire set up and processes? Caja Robotics has found a way to make automation and robotics work for multiple companies and they have successfully helped them with realizing their robotic fulfillment solution.

Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider as Dr. Jeremy Weisz talks with Guy Glass and Reuven Della-Torre of Caja Robotics about how to manage a large warehouse efficiently using robots. Guy and Reuven will be discussing the idea, motivation, and funding behind Caja Robotics, how the Caja robots work, the problems they solve, and why their clients love them. Stay tuned.

Jonathan Medved is a serial entrepreneur and he is the co-founder and CEO of OurCrowd. In 2008, a New York Times' publication named Jonathan as one of the top 10 most influential Americans who have impacted Israel.

OurCrowd is the world's largest equity crowdfunding platform that has raised more than $1 billion from over 770 companies since its launch in 2013.

Jonathan was also the co-founder and CEO of Vringo, a leader in the mobile social and video applications area. Prior to founding Vringo, he was also the co-founder and General Partner of Israel Seed Partners with $262 million under management in four funds and has been an investor in 60 leading Israeli companies.

Today, startups aren't going public early because they choose to build unicorns before opening themselves to become an IPO. While that's a good thing for the founders and investors, it makes it almost impossible for the public to invest in startups early to maximize ROI because of the risk and massive investment required. But thanks to today's guest, Jonathan Medved, it's now possible for people to find and invest in the next unicorn through his company, OurCrowd.

Join Dr. Jeremy Weisz on this episode of Inspired Insider Podcast as he talks with OurCrowd Founder, Jonathan Medved, about finding and investing in the next unicorn. Tune in as they discuss Jonathan's pilgrimage to Israel and his entrepreneurial journey that led to the founding of his equity crowdfunding platform, OurCrowd. They also discuss the startups in OurCrowd's portfolio, how they decide which companies to invest in, and the type of people who can invest through their platform.

Gal Salomon is the CEO and Founder of CLEW Medical, a company that uses artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to improve the outcome of critically ill patients. They help doctors predict who needs life or death medical care before they're needed.

Before founding CLEW Medical, Gal founded Sansa Security and led the company as CEO until 2010. He then served as the Chairman of the Board until the acquisition of ARM. During this time, he was also a Venture Partner at Pitango Venture Capital. Gal has also previously served in multiple positions at Intel and DSP Communications.

Imagine losing a loved one because of an avoidable healthcare mistake. When health professionals fail to react on time and pay attention to detail, it can lead to a devastating loss that no one can really prepare for. Gal Salomon experienced this kind of loss when he lost his mother when healthcare workers failed to respond quickly to her needs. And Gal took it upon himself to find a technological solution to help doctors predict who needs life or death medical care before they're actually needed.

Bringing new solutions in the healthcare industry is extremely difficult, especially as when you're an outsider. But Gal managed to find a work around the initial resistance and founded CLEW Medical.

On this episode of Inspired Insider Dr. Jeremy Weisz talks with the CEO and Founder of CLEW Medical, Gal Salomon, about his inspiration for starting his company and what they do to help save lives. Gal also shares how they utilize artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to improve the outcomes for critically ill patients, how they pushed back against the initial objections they faced, and the process they had to go through to get FDA clearance. Stay tuned.

Joseph "Yossi" Vardi is an Israeli entrepreneur and investor. He is one of Israel's first high-tech entrepreneurs and for over 50 years, he has founded and helped build over 100 high tech companies in various fields.

In 1996, he became the founding investor of Mirabilis, the creators of ICQ which was the first instant messaging application that was released to the web; AOL eventually bought it for $400 million. Yossi has invested in or helped companies which have either gone public or has since been sold. These companies include Answers.com, Gteko, Airlink, Tivella, Scopus, Foxytunes, Tucows, and many more.

The secret to creating a software that succeeds and breaks records is simple: create a tremendous user experience and not just a product. According to the lifetime investor and founder of multiple software companies, Yossi Vardi, a software product is about satisfying people's curiosity for a new experience before solving their problems.

And that's one of the three things that Yossi looks out for in a company that he might potentially invest in. Want to know what the other two are and how you can get to your first 100 million users?

Listen to this episode of Inspired Insider as Dr. Jeremy Weisz talks with serial investor and entrepreneur, Yossi Vardi, about his journey as a long-standing investor in software companies. Yossi shares with Dr. Weisz the things that he learned could help bring a company to 100 million users, and he also reveals some big exits he missed investing in, the lessons he has learned along the way, and more. Stay tuned.

Chris Kneeland is the CEO of Cult Collective, one of North America's premier engagement marketing firms and they help companies embrace proven marketing principles that Chris discovered while working with the most iconic cult-like brands on the planet. He co-founded Cult in 2010 and has consulted with Harley-Davidson, Canadian Tire, Zappos, Best Buy, Keurig, and many more. Prior to founding Cult, Chris has held marketing roles at the world headquarters of John Deere and Home Depot.

Chris co-authored the book Fix: Break The Addictions That Are Killing Brands. He is also the co-Founder of Communo, an agency talent management platform that helps small agencies exploit the sharing economy.

What is it that makes some brands more exceptional than others? Is it their storytelling, origin story, promotional strategies, or activations? According to Chris Kneeland, it's their capability to become a cult-like brand which is essentially a brand that has a purpose built from the inside out. Cult-like brands are remarkable because they mark off all the right boxes in what Chris calls The Cult Scorecard.

Find out what makes a cult brand stand out from the crowd and how they are created on this episode of Inspired Insider. Tune in as Dr. Jeremy Weisz talks with Chris Kneeland of Cult Collective about how cult-brands emerge and what makes them so undeniably successful. They dive deep into the principles of creating a cult-like brand, how some brands have applied these principles successfully in their branding and story, and how you can do the same for your company. Stay tuned.

Zach Benson is the Founder of Assistagram, an Instagram marketing agency with a network of over 220 million Instagram followers to drive brand awareness, leads, and sales. They've helped businesses grow their Instagram following by 30,000 or more followers per month.

Zach has worked with companies run by people like Russell Brunson, The Rock, and even helped the official Dubai account and so many more.

The size of your page traffic is a big deal in today's online business world. One of the many traffic sources that have proven to be incredibly valuable is Instagram. Instagram is a potential gold mine for driving traffic, increasing product awareness, and everything else that creates buzz online, and knowing how you can use this to your benefit can help make or break your business.

The problem is, not many business owners know how to leverage everything that it has to offer. An even bigger problem still is that a lot of them have no clue on how they can increase the number of followers they have and turn their Instagram page into a booming success.

Zach Benson of Assistagram dives deep into the world of Instagram and how to enjoy all that it has to bring to the table on this episode of Inspired Insider. Tune in as Zach talks to Dr. Jeremy Weisz about how his company grew to have 220 million followers on Instagram. He also shares his top Instagram growth hacks, the challenges he faced as he was growing his company, and how he determines the value of an account.

John Corcoran is a recovering attorney, an author and was a former White House writer and speechwriter to the Governor of California. Throughout his career, John has worked in Hollywood, the heart of Silicon Valley, and ran his own boutique law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area catering to small business owners and entrepreneurs.

John has been the host of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast since 2012 where he has interviewed hundreds of CEOs, founders, authors and entrepreneurs, from Peter Diamandis and Adam Grant to Gary Vaynerchuk and Marie Forleo.

John is also the co-founder of Rise25 Media, a company that connects B2B businesses with their ideal clients, referral partners, and strategic partners. They help their client generate ROI through their done-for-you podcast service.

The first step to cold emailing any VIP for an ask is to lead with the exact opposite. Lead with a give. According to John Corcoran, when everyone else is zigging, if you zag, you stand out. And this means that if you lead with a give, instead of an ask, it is more effective. But leading your cold email with giving is only one part of the puzzle. There are other elements that are just as important and as powerful in order to bridge that gap and create a connection.

Join Dr. Jeremy Weisz on this episode of Inspired Insider as he talks with John Corcoran, his co-founder over at Rise25 about the best tips and strategies they use when sending cold emails to VIPs. They discuss in details the give-first philosophy of cold emailing, the elements that make a cold email successful, and they also explain the difference between a short and a long version outreach. Stay tuned.

Fran Biderman-Gross is the CEO and Founder of Advantages, an award-winning New York-based end to end communications agency. She is also the co-author of the book, How to Lead a Values-Based Professional Services Firm: 3 Keys to Unlock Purpose and Profit, which she wrote with Don Scales.

Fran works with senior executives to see the results of purpose-driven marketing and leadership. She leads her clients on an invaluable journey of brand discovery that reveals their personal and organizational 3 keys: Purpose, Values, and Story. She empowers leaders and organizations to infuse meaning into everything they do so that their visions become realized.

When you open a swanky, membership-driven bar that has millions of dollars in paraphernalia with the intention of using it as the perfect place for a private breakout, how do you sell it? How do you get high net worth individuals excited to fork over a small fortune for this luxurious experience? Think exclusivity, lumpy mail, and direct response conversion—at least, that's how Fran Biderman-Gross helped Jay-Z's 40/40 do it.

On this episode of the Inspired Insider podcast, Fran Biderman-Gross, CEO of Advantages, shares with host Dr. Jeremy Weisz all the best tips on how to get the most out of lumpy mails and how it can drive your business through the scales. She discusses how Jay-Z relates to lumpy mail and direct response conversion, how she helped the Boxperience launch, and she also talks about the ABCDE rules of leadership and why it's important for leaders to keep them in mind. Stay tuned.