People are always asking us about Paypal and how it works in Israel with the Shekel. So, I went back to the announcement on the PayPal blog, New PayPal Currencies: Mexican Peso and Israeli Shekel. After reading over comments from Moshe,  Fabio,  Roi, Roberto,  Yeong-Ping Koh and the like, I learned more from the comments section than from the post itself. Here's what I discovered: You can withrdraw money to any Israeli-issued VISA cards or U.S. Bank. Israeli PayPal users cannot withdraw funds to a MasterCard. You can use your ILS balance to pay anyone in 190 markets worldwide. You can also receive funds from buyers or family and ...

CNN Money maintains a section of their site for displaying 20 Great Employers for New Grads. Their first pick: Lehman Brothers. Oops. I think new grads are going to have to look elsewhere to find great employers. I think a lot of people may have to look elsewhere to find great employers. Of course this affects Israel, as it does the rest of the world. The TASE is already slipping as a result of Lehman's collapse, and the repercussions will probably trickle down. So what does this mean for us? ...

The Israeli economy is growing at a tremendous pace, yet a recent study by BDI-Coface has shown that despite the fact that there was a 3% rise in 2007 of newly-founded businesses over previous years, most Israeli businesses are doomed to failure. According to the study, only 58% of ventures are still around after two years, and 30% are around after five. Tehila Yanai, joint CEO of BDI-Coface, told the Jerusalem Post that founding a new business requires a delicate balancing act which can be easily upset by any number of factors: "When entrepreneurs start new businesses, they take out bank loans for investment in their venture. They ...

Towards the end of September, I discovered a US State Dept.-sponsored training program for Middle East entrepreneurs that was accepting Israeli Arabs, but not Israeli Jews. The program, called Middle East Entrepreneur Training (MEET), had a number of tracks for application, and made it clear that they were particularly interested in female applicants. After verifying that I indeed was a female living in the Middle East, I made a fuss, and thanks to the work of some intrepid journalists, the acceptance conditions for the program were ...

Update: A few interesting things have happened since I wrote this article. 1. The Beyster Institute has taken down all the pages I have linked to here. But they can't beat Google! If you want to see them, simply paste the URL in your Google search box, and on the results page, click on "Cached" to see them. Contact me if you have any questions. I've also saved the pages on my hard drive. 2. A reporter contacted me for a story on this issue, and told me that "coincidentally" the Beyster Institute is redoing their program requirements, and now ALL Israelis are welcome to apply! Well, I'll be applying, and ...

Ok folks, the next Entrepreneur Breakfast is coming up next week, so mark your calendars! The topic: Creating Financial Models for Assessing the Success of your Business. Read on... Entrepreneur Breakfast is a not-for-profit effort to strengthen the small business community in Israel. The group meets monthly and the idea is to come together to gain valuable knowledge, advice, and support from each other. Date: July 31, 2007 Venue: Cafe Joe, 38 Keren Hayesod, Jerusalem - corner of Keren Hayesod and Jabotinsky. Time: 8:30-10:00 am; Cost: 45 NIS Lecture topic: Creating Financial Models for Assessing the Success of your Business Speaker: Mark VanGelderen, Manager of Israel Resource Network Financial Planners. Mark has been in the financial planning business in Israel for over ...

Small businesses have small marketing budgets. In a previous post, I listed 5 low-cost ways to market your business. Two of the methods mentioned were advertising on Google Adwords and Dapei Zahav. Since bootstrapping businesses need to ensure that every advertising dollar is justified, I decided to conduct an unofficial study comparing Google Adwords and Dapei Zahav (the Israeli version of the Yellow Pages). The winner with no holds-barred: Google Adwords. Here is a comparison of the features of both advertisers: Dapei Zahav: For a relatively low monthly fee, you can have your business appear on their site at the top of the classification of your choice. I put ...

In Israel, businesses may set up Google Adword campaigns that use their competitors' names and brands as keywords. In August 2006 an Israeli judge ruled that Crazy Line, a women's clothing retail chain, was not guilty of any wrongdoing when they set up an Adwords campaign using the keywords of another clothing store, Matim Li. But I still think it's a bit sneaky to do that kind of thing. If a person is looking for a certain store, it is unfair to shove your brand in their face. It's pushy, and even demeaning to try to ride the wave of someone else's success. Whether it's right or wrong, imagine my surprise when I discovered ...

There is still the perception that business is a man's world. I would maybe say that it's a "man-style world," i.e. women are welcome as long as they act like men. From conversations with other women who run their own businesses, I see that many feel very self-conscious about being women in what they see as "a man's world." Some make efforts to suppress or hide signs of femininity, and try to blend in with the men around them. As a result, many women will also never discuss the fact they are mothers, and will even ...

In Israel, everyone is an entrepreneur. At least, sometimes it seems that way. Everyone knows someone who has started up some kind of venture, whether it's related to technology, finance or industry. Sometimes I can't believe how many people I personally know who have technology startups. Many of these ideas do come to fruition and succeed on a large scale. Look at Teva, Amdocs, and Comverse for some examples of the biggies, and see this list of the top 10 Israeli Web 2.0 wonders for a look at some of Israel's most promising startups. But how does Israel rank on a global scale for entrepreneurship? According ...