Tag: technology

Seeking to make an innovative change, five friends chose to pause their studies to pursue a dream. While studying Computer Science and Image Processing in the PhD program at Hebrew University, they discovered there was a gap between research in the academic world and what was available in the market.

After the discovery,  Zeev Farbman (CEO), Amit Goldstein (CFO), Nir Pochter (CMO), Yaron Inger (CTO) and Itay Tsiddon (Director of Business Development) founded Lightricks.  Shortly after, Eran Yacobovitch joined the team as Lightricks’ Marketing Analyst.

Well known for their photo editing apps Facetune and Enlight, Lightricks is producing the next generation of content creation tools. Founded as a bootstrap company, they needed to ensure their venture was profitable from the start. Launched in early 2013, Facetune was Lightricks’ first app, and at the time of their launch Facebook had just released the Mobile App Install ad objective. An amazing opportunity to acquire new users and capitalize on their paid application business model, Lightricks built a marketing strategy focusing on country- based burst campaigns.

Beginning with no budget, they invested 500 dollars into Facebook advertising. They were able to optimize their campaigns, and reach top ranks in multiple app stores. The duo quickly learned that this was a great opportunity to acquire new users with the best ROI, so they continued to invest most of their profits and scaled with Facebook – a strategy that is still in place today.

Soon, both Facebook and Apple recognized Lightricks’ accomplishments, the company scaled and Facetune quickly became the fifth most sold app in the AppStore, reached #1 in over 128 countries and was one of Google’s best apps in 2013 and 2014.

In March 2015, Lightricks released Enlight, the most powerful suite of image processing tools on mobile that was recently named as Apple’s App of the Year for 2015. Later that year, Lightricks received an investment from Carmel Ventures that allowed them to scale and make their vision come true faster. The talented team is currently working on 4 new apps, all in the field of content creation on mobile.

We sat down with Eran to get the inside scoop on Lightricks, and pick his brain on Facebook advertising strategies:

1.What’s your ultimate mission?

“Our goal is to provide mobile users with all the necessary tools to create and edit mobile content. We’re currently working on four new products, all centered around content creation and editing on mobile. Aiming to empower the creator in everyone, we continue to deploy research grade technology to create an ecosystem of mobile first creativity tools.

2.What do you love about living in Israel? What do you love about the startup culture in Israel?

“Born and raised in Israel it’s hard to imagine myself anywhere else. I grew up in Tsfat, and never thought I would move to Jerusalem. University is what originally brought me to Jerusalem, and Lightricks is what has kept me here. Jerusalem is the perfect place to found a startup in- there are organizations like Made in JLM that help startups grow, and foster communities, and the city itself is calm enough to allow entrepreneurs to channel their energies to their ventures.”

3.How do you use social media to reach your audience?

“We give our users value with our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages. We’ve found that Facebook is the most effective platform for our goals, and we use the platform consistently to increase our user acquisition. I love the accessibility of social media. Every user has the ability to contact their favorite brand, and we can effectively communicate with our audience and help them better understand our product.”

4.What are your top Facebook Advertising tips for startups?

• “Test, test, test. Channels, targets, creatives, prices, etc. You’ll never know what will work best. That’s pretty much our marketing department’s motto.”

• “Don’t always settle with the currently available tools. It’s not always the easy thing, but if you have the resources and you think you can do it better, build the tools that fit the way you work.”

• “Be sure to use all available ad types: Image ad, video ad, carousel, and others.”

• “Instagram proves to be a very good channel – check it out.”

• “Keep yourself updated with relevant blogs, pages and users. Online advertising and Mobile App Advertising in particular are very dynamic and ever-changing realms.

5.What’s one thing no one knows about your business?

“Our best hidden secret is our garden. We have the best office garden in Israel, and we invest a lot of time and money in maintaining it. Some of our many plants are tomatoes, strawberries, herbs, passion fruit, and many species of flowers. Each month we send an internal newsletter to the staff explaining a new aspect of the garden to them!”

Read more about Lightricks’ Facebook accomplishments here:

http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/facetune/429375/3

Want to join Lightricks’ team? They’re hiring: http://careers.lightricks.com/

“Story, story, story,” says Itzik Yarkoni, CEO & Founder of BOMAH. We had just stepped out of the Tel Aviv offices of the Wix Design Studio, and were met with a stunning view of the Mediterranean Sea. We had just been hired to help formulate their story for an upcoming presentation. Since Wix hosts the largest design studio in Israel with a dynamic team of over 100 designers, the project was itching for a creative and extraordinary edge.

How could we turn 100 people’s stories into ONE that everyone can relate to?  

 

“Emotion, emotion, emotion,” I said, understanding that while content is king, emotional connection is KEY.  I knew this story would have to elicit a genuine connection from the audience. Not only that, the 3 presenters would have to operate on the same frequency to get the one ultimate point across.

Given the explosive growth of ways to communicate in today’s era of Techlightenment, storytelling is a powerful tool when it comes to strengthening any brand and creating a memorable and engaging way to connect and captivate an audience.

So what’s the story with telling a great story? Whether branding yourself, your business, or both, here are 7 rules to remember for anyone who wants to create genuine connection.

1. DO know your ultimate purpose

Always have an end goal. Every good story infuses a lesson or message throughout to allow your audience to learn, connect and get inspired all at once. Determine your purpose and then repeat it a few times throughout your story. This will lock in the message and help your audience remember what you want them to.

2. DO NOT get fancy

No need for big words. The best stories are conveyed when they naturally pour out of you – however you speak is how you should share your story. Keeping it simple is key. Use cash instead of funds. Use rule instead of restriction. Use whatever you know.

3. DO know your audience

You wouldn’t speak to your best friend like you would your grandma, or at least we hope.  Knowing who your listeners are, what what they hope to gain, will ensure you can speak to them in a language they will understand.

4. DO NOT assume anyone knows what you’re talking about

Pretend you’re speaking to a 12-year old boy when explaining anything. When you assume no one knows what you’re talking about, keep the most important facts in, and the ideas short and sweet.  

5. DO hope for Hollywood

Make it interesting. Put your theater mask on and get loud. Use different voices, excite the crowd with movement, and put on a real show. Enhancing your story with movement allows your listeners to dive more deeply into your vision.  

6. DO NOT save the drama for your mama  

Entice your audience with the most dramatic, conflict-filled spot of your whole story. Drawing people into your drama within the first few seconds creates an attentive audience waiting on the edge of their seats to discover what will happen next.  

7. DO leave them wanting more

End with a bang – an unexpected turn, a mysterious question, or a sly hint at uncovering more of the truth. Doing so will help you gain both an air of intrigue and obtain interested followers who genuinely want to hear more of your story.

Use these techniques to infuse your brand with genuine intrigue, and relate emotionally to customers to increase engagement and unleash your mission into the world.

To learn how to create the best digital stories for your social media channels, sign up for our BOMAH newsletter to get insider tips, or get a free 30 minute consultation with us here.

We research and bargain for days on the best deal for that Chanel purse or the brand new MAC notebook. Question is, why don’t we make sure our lungs get the same treatment? Why don’t we look into the best QUALITY of air our lungs intake?

Unfortunately, we tend to overlook the things that we physically can’t see even if it’s as fundamental as the air we breathe. Our respiratory system works 24/7 to make sure that all parts of our body get oxygen otherwise we literally won’t make it. Simply put, we as humans need air to survive.

A few Israeli environmental engineers decided that these questions needed to be answered and quickly because our future livelihood truly depended on them.

Several years ago, environmental engineer Ran Korber was house searching with his family and before making any final decision he wanted to check the eco-friendliness of the neighborhood. As he researched the air quality of a particular part of town he noticed that the information he was looking for was entirely scattered and that it was nearly impossible to get a quick idea of what exactly he and his children would be breathing in. He needed this information to be a lot more accessible and simplified and knew others need it too. He called his buddy, Ziv Lautman, fellow passionate environmental engineer and they started to develop one of the most promising apps of 2015 – Breezometer.

Breezometer (illustrated below) is a mobile application that tracks real-time air pollution on a street level basis.  What used to be invisible is now available to us in plain sight. What now Co-Founder and CMO, Ziv, describes as “the Waze of air pollution” – Breezometer tells you exactly the type of air quality (Air Quality Index rating) you’re surrounded by this minute and where you can go to surround yourself with better air quality. Additionally, the app tells you what to do (i.e.: whether to keep windows open or go for a run…) for each specific rating.

Athletes, children, health sensitive women (i.e.: pregnancy…) and everyone in between can benefit greatly from getting lighting speed reports about their current environment. Furthermore, while the eco-green population is growing all over the world, Real Estate brokers are now benefiting from this app due to its street based availability.

So how exactly does Breezometer track the air so accurately? Data collecting at its finest, the innovative team created an algorithm that collects data from thousands of government funded air monitor sensors that are located between streets.

Okay so it’s great that environmental engineers are zealous about air but why should we still track our air to the point of getting an actual app for it? Well according to the World Health Organization in 2012 around 7 million people died – one in eight of total global deaths – as a result of air pollution exposure (Source: World Health Organization [http://bit.ly/1jpGo4S])

The team CEO Ran Krober and co-founders Ziv Lautman, Emil Fisher and Revital Handler received the honor of representing Israel in the Global Entrepreneur Week GEW50 competition and they are currently prepping for their trip to the annual Web Summit in Ireland where they will pitch Breezometer on November 4^th 2014 and have their official U.S. launch!

In addition to currently being available on Google Play for Android and soon becoming available in the App Store, Breezometer is also accessible to all the smartwatch users out there (perfect for your daily jog).

Stay up to date with Breezometer’s exciting team and follow them on Facebook here!

*This blog was brought to you by BOMAH’s “Empowerment” Strategy. Go ahead and click on that link and see the magical place it brings you too.