Uri Levine - Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs

Contents

Praise for Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution

Waze founder Uri Levine has one of the rarest of all entrepreneurial traits: he has the skills and persistence to have launched multiple successful companies, paired with the self-awareness to know how he did it. In Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution, he shares these hard-won truths with the rest of us. If you are curious about how Waze (or any of Uris other companies) came to be, or are just looking for the actionable advice you can use to turn any idea into a reality, this deserves a place on your bookshelf. In fact, it should be required reading for every aspiring entrepreneur.

Marc Randolph, Cofounder, Netflix

Uris book is a window into the entrepreneurial mind that through passion, perseverance, and accountability can change the world. This book reminds us of the importance of always connecting with the end consumer, and provides the road map of tangible tips to build businesses. Reading this book feels as if youre a mentee sitting with Uri to understand the next step in your start-up adventurepractical considerations combined with memorable mantras that drive entrepreneurs to ask the right questions and optimize chances of success throughout their journey.

Jenifer Fleiss, Cofounder, Rent a Runway

Uri Levine provides unique insights on what builds enduring entrepreneurial success. The entrepreneurial path is a journey through a labyrinth of challenges that requires a passion for problem-solving that delivers timely solutionsa must-read for every start-up that yearns to be a unicorn and beyond.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson & Founder, Biocon

Uri Levine was at the forefront of achieving a signature milestone in the history of Israel as a Start-up Nation. Waze was the first Israeli consumer app to blast through the entrepreneurial equivalent of the 4-minute mile barrier: a billion-dollar exit. Since then, Israel has produced dozens of unicorns, but it was Waze that paved the way. And Uri just kept going, the quintessential serial entrepreneur. When he gives you advice, its time to sit back, listen, and learn.

Saul Singer, coauthor, Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israels Economic Miracle

Fall in
Love
with the
Problem,
Not the
Solution

This book is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information about entrepreneurship. Neither the author nor the publisher is engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services by publishing this book. If any such assistance is required, the services of a qualified financial professional should be sought. The author and publisher will not be responsible for any liability, loss, or risk incurred as a result of the use and application of any information contained in this book.

Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution copyright 2023 by Uri Levine

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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First E-Book Edition: 2023

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022027904

ISBN 9781637741986 (hardcover)

ISBN 9781637741993 (electronic)

Editing by Katie Dickman and Adi Barill

Copyediting by Scott Calamar

Proofreading by Madeline Grigg and Becky Maines

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Text design and composition by PerfecType, Nashville, TN

Cover design by Brigid Pearson

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To the more than one billion users of Waze, Moovit, and the rest of my start-ups.
Without you, this story would never have been.

Contents

SPOILER ALERT: this book will change your life and become your bible if you are an entrepreneur.

I do a lot of public speaking, largely on topics of entrepreneurship and start-ups. At one conference, I heard Uri Levine speak. It wasnt that he was an exceptional speaker, which he is. I hear many exceptional speakers. But Uri had a casual style, like a friend, that made his material easy to follow and understand. I learned that Uri was the force behind the app Waze. We recognize apps that become a big part of our lives but few are like Waze, better than the other similar apps. If you care about quality and excellence, Waze is always spoken of in those terms.

People often look to me as an Apple cofounder for advice. I may have a lot of internal feelings, mostly related to personality, that I relate but in general, Apple is a bad example as a start-up. Apple was a rare case that doesnt apply to people starting companies. With Apple, there were extremely favorable elements of our success that you cant count on or control.

One product was our only successful one, earning money, for the first ten years of the company, and it wasnt even what people think. Our Apple II computer was the best, most usable computer in the PC early days, but who would buy a computer to do inventory and sales figures and employment in your home? Games were the key. Atari was starting the arcade industry right here in Los Gatos, California. In the hardware days, a game had thousands of wires with all the signals that the engineer understood and it could take a year for a new arcade game to be prototyped. I had a vision that these games would be much better when they were in color. The Apple II computer was the first time that arcade games had color and the first time that they were in software. A nine-year-old could use a simple language, BASIC, to make colors move on the TV screen and could complete a decent working arcade game in one day. That product led to great wealth for Apple, and to eventually change lives for all of us.

I dont have enough free time to read many books. But from the first pages of this book, Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution, I had to read every word, taking handwritten notes on paper. I even noted many typos in an early draft. I could tell from the start that this book was very meaningful to me, but for a business book, it was natural and understandable. Uri uses metaphors of human life to get across his thinking in product and business terms. Entrepreneurs know that great passion for the products and company is necessary. Uri speaks of it as falling in love with the problem, not with money or yourself. He relates this love to dealing with personal relationships in ways we have all experienced. Falling in love with the problem means valuing the end user as the key to success, not even your own ideas and creations. I have always believed in this.

As to the need to create a product that strikes the first-time user deeply and emotionally, Uri refers us to the deep emotional feelings of our first kiss, something you never forget. I will use this as a guideline in my thinking from now on. Its worth the effort to connect with a user or investor this way. Recently in Berkeley, I was half a block from where I had my first kiss and this metaphor rang truer than ever. Thats the emotion that a new product should bring out in first-timers, both investors and users.