February 13, 2022, 10:20 am
If you had to name an Israeli power couple, some glitzy pairs may come to mind: Gal Gadot and Yaron Varsano or Quentin Tarantino and Daniella Pick, perhaps.
You probably never heard of the couples below. Yet each one deserves the moniker “power couple.”
Not because they’re rich and famous but because they built businesses alongside building marriage and family.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, ISRAEL21c asked these entrepreneurial couples about the pros and cons of working together and whether they draw a line between their personal and professional relationships (spoiler alert: they don’t).
GILAD HERTANU (cofounder and CEO) and LIAT MORDECHAY HERTANU (cofounder and CMO), 24me
Liat and Gilad Hertanu say they learn from each other’s different perspectives. Photo courtesy of Liat and Gilad Hertanu
Gilad and Liat, both air force veterans, were computer science students when they met on a blind date. They later worked for separate Tel Aviv startups, got married in 2004 and moved to St. Louis in 2007 to pursue master’s degrees in business administration at Washington University.
By the time they came back to Israel in 2011, they had two children and would soon have another.
“With three little kids, we felt overwhelmed with daily life management,” says Liat. So they made another “baby” together, founding 24me in 2012.
The startup’s flagship smart personal assistant app has been downloaded by millions of people in more than 30 languages. Their GroupCal app followed in 2020 and a new version for small and medium businesses will be released this month.
ISRAEL21c spoke with the couple over Zoom while Gilad was at the 24me office in Or Yehuda and Liat was in their home office in Ganei Tikva, the central Israeli city where they are raising four children, aged 14, 12, 10 and two and a half.
“We have no boundary between our personal and professional relationship,” says Gilad. “24me is part of our life all day and all night, but in a very natural way. We’re very devoted to what we do.”
Best aspects of working together
Photo courtesy of Liat and Gilad Hertanu
Gilad and Liat said their success as business partners is based on good communication and synchronicity and learning from one another’s very different ways of seeing things.
“We bring mutual forces to the table. We can openly talk about our differences and appreciate the other’s strengths and weaknesses,” says Gilad. “We can leverage our strengths and we don’t have …….
Source: https://www.israel21c.org/5-power-couples-reveal-how-they-mix-love-with-business/