SoundmateS
It all started at StarTAU, Tel-Aviv University Entrepreneurship Center, where I participated in BEE 2015, an exclusive program that mentors and cultivates the next generation of entrepreneurs in Israel. As part of the program, students with leadership skills and English language proficiency were required to establish a startup company, with an emphasis on creative thinking and business approach.
The program's mentors then teamed me up with qualified team members from the computer science, accounting, and law faculties, and I knew we had great potential in order to form a successful startup company. When I realized our common passion is music, I combined my social approach into it and came up with the idea for Soundmates, a social music app that aimed to connect people through music wherever they go.
Soundmates Investment Pitch Video
Learning each other's strengths, we assigned ourselves to various company roles and responsibilities. Given my education and skills, I naturally fitted the CMO role and became responsible for creating our Go-to-Market strategy, business model, one-pager, branding, messaging and feature positioning, social media channels, Investor Pitch Deck, and I even designed the app's mockup while thinking of how exactly I wanted our app's algorithm to work.
Together we prepared for TAU Innovation Day 2015, excited to show the world the magic of formulating social thinking with technology. During that day, we got to pitch our idea to hundreds of prospects and created an amazing buzz! We even signed over 80 leads to our newsletter who were extremely interested in following our startup progression.
My first-ever mockup design
Finally, we got to the final startup competition for which we prepared all year long. Equipped with our animated presentation, I came on stage, and presented our app in front of a panel of four highly respected Israeli investors and business leaders, followed by my team members who answered their tough questions with insightful information about our innovative technology and business vision. It was all worth it, the judges were very impressed with our pitch and we were privileged to win second place!
This amazing journey taught me so much about the process of building a startup from idea to ideation, the development of standout marketing strategies, and the importance of teamwork. It became clear to me that I should follow my passion and dedicate my future to promoting innovative technologies that aspire to change the world for the better.
Elena Donets, the CEO of StarTAU, giving us
our BEE Program certificates
 From left to right: Yoav Rosenberg, Raz Mayshar, Me, Maor Israeli, Shay Barel Ozana. |  |  |
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 Presenting our animated Investor Pitch Deck and app mockup in front of highly respected Israeli investors and business leaders, our great program mentors and peers. |  Izhar Shay is interviewing us at Alphabet Bar. Photography: Dor Nevo |  Photography: Dor Nevo |
 Aviv Frenkel is interviewing us. Photography: Dor Nevo |  Photography: Dor Nevo |  Photography: Dor Nevo |
 |  |  TAU INNOVATION DAY! |
 |  |  With Tomer Sagi, one of our business mentors |
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 How it all began... [Spicy shoes, don't you think? (;] |