"I invested a lot in building the story and the ability to tell it"

Ran Sarig, entrepreneur, investor, and founder of Datorama, met with Eliav Ser, CEO and co-founder of WalkImpact, a platform designed to strengthen the mental resilience of security, emergency, and rescue forces. The platform uses a chatbot to build personalized training programs. The conversation was held as part of the Growth+ project by Calcalist and Poalim Tech, now in its second year, aimed at strengthening the resilience of Israel’s high-tech industry through a series of 1:1 meetings between experienced entrepreneurs and early-stage startups. The goal is to advise, support, and provide knowledge about entrepreneurship, creativity, startup management, and building companies for growth.

Ran, tell me about a challenge you encountered early on and what you learned from it that can help entrepreneurs who are just starting out.

Sarig: "As a tech person, my storytelling skills were mediocre at best, and a lot of what you have to do when building something new is to convince — to convince investors, employees, other entrepreneurs, or customers. One of the most important things you deal with at the beginning is building the story, so I worked on it and invested a lot of effort. I built the story and started going over it with friends, family, early investors, and people who were with me along the way. I repeated this hundreds of times. It was very difficult for me to accept the feedback because it’s embarrassing when it comes to your storytelling skills or your presentation, but it’s something I really invested in and worked on along the way."

Eliav, what was the hardest challenge you faced in the past year?

Ser: "Building a company around a very painful personal issue — post-traumatic stress disorder. I experienced the symptoms of October 7 after returning from the reserves. As CEO, I have to lead a cold, precise, and efficient business process. This combination of a personal mission with the need to present to investors and tell the story in a relatable way is emotionally and mentally challenging. We are living in complex times, but this is how we build, create, and find ways to help others better cope with such difficult events."

Ran, what advice did you give to Eliav?

Sarig: "It’s not a difficulty I’ve personally experienced, but in my opinion, it’s a matter of training and faith in the path. His product was born out of a real need, his experience proves there is a market and a product people need, and it’s doing well. From here, there should be confidence in the pitch and the story. Many people sit in a room thinking about what would be cool to solve - some technological problem. But when you know the problem personally, it fits much better."

What did you learn from each other?

Sarig: "I’m already past the age of reserve duty, but I see people who take their most difficult experiences and turn them into something positive. It’s a real inspiration."

Ser: "Ran’s story inspires me because he practiced how to tell the story, and the results speak for themselves. In addition, I learned about listening - sometimes you’re so in love with your solution that it becomes the muscle of the story. But you also need the muscle of listening, which allows you to question what you think you know and are sure of, and really learn from others - not just say ‘I know everything.’"

Anything surprising you discovered about each other?

Sarig: "I was surprised to discover how widespread the problem of pre-PTSD (pretraumatic stress disorder) is. It affects hundreds of thousands of people and is a problem that requires a solution, or at least attention."

Ser: "I was surprised by Ran’s modesty. He’s a successful entrepreneur, yet he still approaches people at eye level. It strengthened my belief that there are people who genuinely want to help and support."