What incentivizes a founder’s move to the U.S?

Speaking at Expanding your Startup to the U.S. series being organized by Calcalist and LeumiTech USA, Omri Palmon and Zak Rubinstein, the co-founders of Weka and 1touch, spoke to Nir Inbar, Group Head, LeumiTech Business Center, about the process of moving abroad.

“It was quite simple, we understood on day zero,” Palmon told Inbar. Weka.ai offers enterprise storage solutions designed to deliver the full benefits of flash technology at scale. “Our OEMs and distributors are all U.S-centric. It was obvious from day zero, although our R&D is in Israel, there would be a shift to the U.S, it is where most of the capital is, where our market is, and where the distributors are… large mega-corporations, like OAMs, want the CEO in their timezone, in their area, speaking their language. Not just English, but culture-wise.”

“I think it depends on your marriage, really,” joked Rubinstein when asked the same question of how important it is to live in the U.S. as a founder and the leader of the company versus traveling back and forth and having some presence there. 1touch.io helps companies understand and reduce their privacy risks by uncovering hidden uses of personal data. ”When I actually lived there it was a lot easier. Your day was 9-5, and then you had evenings to yourself and you had Sundays as a day off… In Israel, your week starts Sunday morning and ends Friday afternoon. It’s a much higher quality of life from my perspective. Also the driving there is nicer.”

You can watch the extended answers and complete interview in the video above.