By Méryl Assayag.
It’s always exciting to meet with entrepreneurs, exchange with them their journey, their company and their projects. Last week, we had the chance to interview Avichai Belitsky, CEO of the rising startup Youtiligent!
We would love to hear and learn about you and your background. Could you please introduce yourself? What defines you?
I started my way in tech 20 years ago. I launched the first engine that generates automated websites based on templates. It was a great success. I then proceeded as the CEO of a few websites such as REST, the leading restaurant website in Israel, bringing the first food delivery app for mobiles to Israel. I really enjoyed this journey and dealing with disruptive technologies has always been something that I found interesting.
After this experience, I continued to be a marketing specialist and industry manager at Waze. I then joined Inneractive, a leading company in the ad tech industry. I was the VP International manager, with the goal to develop business outside the US. I then decided that it was time for my own startup and it led me to YOUTILIGENT. I would 100% define myself as a businessman continuously looking for opportunities in tech.
You have a great entrepreneurship experience. Can you tell us more about it and about your thoughts on entrepreneurship?
I’ve always found myself interested in tech that can disrupt and provide a real change and opportunity to the market. Entrepreneurship for me is always about finding the need. I always try to come from the angle of “what is the problem we are trying to solve?”.
Could you tell us about your company, Youtiligent. I read about it and it is an incredible solution! Tell us more about it.
When I met Aviv Levin, the COO and the visioner of Youtiligent with the CTO Vadim Hashansky, I fell in love with the people and the idea. It’s a great solution for a big problem.
Today, 99% of the appliances are not connected and there’s a huge lack of data that can be used. Our UNIVERSAL plug and play solution, together with the unique machine learning algorithm we’ve developed provides customers actionnable business insights leading to optimization of their maintenance and operations. This results in cost reduction, and new sales opportunities the companies didn’t even realize they can seize. Now, with the Covid-19, many companies came to us as the situation emphasized to them that they must act in a more optimized and efficient way.
More than that, now that Covid vaccines are being delivered, Youtiligent is crucial to healthcare institutions for keeping vaccines safe! Vaccines require very strict conditions to ensure high quality and safety, and distributing an effective vaccine to the population worldwide while keeping the vaccines cold as they’re transported and stored around the world is a great logistical challenge. But with Youtiligent, hospitals and healthcare institutions can track and predict the quality and status of its refrigerators, warning technicians before any maintenance technicalities will happen, thus saving and securing thousands of vaccines.
What are the biggest challenges for you as CEO of Youtiligent — and what are the biggest opportunities and rewards?
It’s very challenging to educate the market when you’re bringing something new. Today, manufacturers and service providers don’t imagine that they can connect all their existing appliances and extract data. So when we introduce our unique solution, the biggest challenge is the education and long process. But when we succeed, the satisfaction is limitless because you enable so many companies to work in a much smarter and optimized way.
Also, as a startup you need to bring revenues and provide results very fast to investors to get to the next round. The challenge is to adapt and act fast enough before it’s too late.
“Do something that you really believe in.”
TAU Ventures recently invested in your Technology. How was the partnership established and what values are you getting from it?
We pitched to the TAU Ventures team and they really liked our solution. They understood what we had to offer and saw a real opportunity in our technology. Because they’re part of Tel Aviv University, they have connections with labs and universities. We’re now expanding Youtiligent to retail, pharmaceutical and also industry 4.0.
You have experience working with China, Europe, the US and of course Israel. What are your global sales’ directions ?
Our main market is Europe and the US because we’re looking for mid size factories. Small companies don’t have a data team like large ones do. They need Youtiligent to be their data experts. China will be our next stop. Because of the restrictions concerning the Cloud, we still need some adjustments. I also know from experience that you can’t work remotely in China. We’re currently speaking with different Chinese VCs. Once we’ll have the investments, Youtiligent will open a team there as the chinese industry represents a huge opportunity.
What do you see for your company in a year, 5 years, 10 years?
We want to be the Google of the appliances. We want every factory or service provider to be able to use Youtiligent for optimizing their business decisions and maximizing their operations.
While we’re focused on the food and beverage industry and are increasing traction in this area, our technology is relevant to many industries. As we mentioned before, with the Covid19, we’re now providing a solution for medical authorities and healthcare facilities for storing vaccines and keeping their refrigeration process and logistics safe for the public.
I am a business student, very interested in sales and entrepreneurship, and it’s a pleasure to meet you and receive all these rich insights. Would you have tips for 20–25 years old students who would like to become entrepreneurs?
I believe that the most important thing is to believe in what you’re doing. You can sell anything if you really believe in your product…
You also need to look not only at the economic value but at the spiritual one. You need to ask yourself what your product is bringing to the world. If you find this value, and you’re devoted to it, you’ll manage. I think this is the formula. Do something that you really believe in.
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