Strategic Insights with Eran Gefen: How to Master Personal and Business Strategy for Growth?

Ever Wondered What It's Like to Sell Your Company to a Company Like Wix?

Join me for an episode with Eran Gefen, founder of G^Team, a strategic consulting firm that helps businesses develop new growth engines. Eran has extensive experience working with CEOs and management teams of leading global companies, including Coca-Cola, GooglePalantir, Wolt, Microsoft, Bank Hapoalim, Strauss, and Kimberly-Clark.

Eran's previous company was acquired by Wix, a significant milestone in his career. He is also the host of the podcast "Half an Hour of Inspiration" and the author of the book "Creating Growth." We sat down together to explore the emotional rollercoaster of being an entrepreneur and selling a company, personal and business life strategies and the connection between the two, and the importance of vision and values in implementing strategy. We also touch on the similarities and differences between startup and corporate strategies.

Eran shares how the sale to Wix happened quite unexpectedly. Wix was a client of his company, and one day, they expressed interest in acquiring it. Initially, Eran resisted the idea because his personal strategy was not aligned with selling at that time. He was committed to his journey, willing to spend years without immediate success to achieve a deeper sense of fulfillment. Ultimately, he identified the opportunity as the right move.

"I didn't want to feel that 'I've reached' feeling," Eran explains, reflecting on his initial reluctance. This personal strategy, driven by the desire to carve his own path in the business world, highlights the importance of staying true to one's values and long-term goals. Years later, he has allowed himself to feel that "I've reached." And this is a significant feeling in our journey and the different stages we go through within it. The very recognition that "I've reached" allows us to open up to new opportunities.

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Personal and Business Strategies: A Lifelong Journey

Do only businesses have strategies? In our conversation, I (Gali) discuss this with Eran, and we believe that everyone needs a personal strategy. Reflecting on his childhood, Eran shares how his difficult experiences, including his parents' divorce and feelings of social and academic isolation, taught him to rely on himself and find strength in solitude. These qualities later benefited his business endeavors.

Eran talks about the "hungry category" of managers, describing entrepreneurs driven by a deep, unrelenting hunger often rooted in their past.

"People whose entrepreneurial hunger started in childhood, but when is it enough?"

he asks, pondering the balance between hunger and creativity.

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So, What Is Strategy?

A central part of our conversation is about strategy. Eran explains that both individuals and companies need to choose where to play and how to win. For companies, strategy involves deciding on the playing field and how to achieve success in that arena. We emphasize the importance of clear vision and values as a guiding North Star, not just for immediate goals but for long-term success. As we dive together into the strategy process, we realize that it also involves a lot of movement between categories, between fields. Eran talks about his envy of small startups that can quickly pivot between strategies, something that large companies he works with don't do.

"The big ships, sometimes with CEOs who don't know how to let go and are too ego-driven, move slower."

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Vision and Values: The Guiding North Star

Two significant words when building a strategy are vision and values. Vision is not for tomorrow morning but for several years from now. Eran shares his approach to developing a vision for companies. His natural approach was Vision > Strategic Questions > Product Innovation > Work Plans, as if the logical flow. At some point, he realized it wasn't working for him because most management teams are not used to thinking like that. There are few people who are truly visionary and not just leaders. He moved the vision to the end of the process, he gets there after business creativity process, after 150 value proposition ideas. Through examples it is easier to formulate visions for companies.

To create a good strategy, it is important to be well-versed in the state of our market, both immediate and larger. Competitive analysis helps us learn about our competitors and through them also about ourselves. Who are our direct and indirect competitors? "As an entrepreneur, as a business owner, you should always have a good friend, a good mentor, and a good competitor," I (Gali) say to Eran. And most importantly, to believe in ourselves even in the face of the challenges along the way.

Eran suggests that companies need to be more authentic with themselves because they tend to lie to themselves about their values. Values are measured in edge cases, in what we are willing or unwilling to do when the value is put to the test in reality. I (Gali) add and say - that it is about expanding awareness in businesses, coming with humility, personal response-ability and openness, creating transparency for values and acting according to them.

"It depends on the right questions. To break down all the internal barriers, imagine you are in a world without challenges, what would you do?"

Eran explains that part of building a strategy is creativity, the key to getting good answers from people. He believes that everyone is born creative, but internal barriers such as fear of failure often block this creativity.

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Towards the end of our discussion, we talk about the definition of success. For Eran, it is a personal strategy documented in a notebook, in which he regularly revisits and updates his life values and goals. This reflective practice helps him stay aligned with his vision and maintain a balanced approach to achieving his goals.

Eran shares that he works on his notebook every few years, dedicating two weeks to the process. He reviews the notebook weekly to ensure his plans are aligned with his life values.

"We end the conversation by saying that there is no 100%,"

Eran says, noting that achieving 70-80% of the goals is typical, for both people and companies.