![]() I chose to be an entrepreneur instead and I’m glad I did it that way. I think that if I’d taken a job after the army, I’d be on a more common path. KM: Have you ever felt like you were at a disadvantage because of missing college? AR: No. I really learned how businesses were run and ended up leading several acquisitions that eventually helped the company change its offerings. I didn’t have a college degree or finance background and they put me in charge of mergers and acquisitions and strategy. How’d that go? AR: It was a great learning experience. KM: I understand you worked for Comverse for a few years after the deal went through. We needed bigger checks than the ones we were getting in Tel Aviv from rich folks (laughs). audiences and needed to raise additional money from institutional investors. KM: When did you move to New York? AR: I moved when I was still running Odigo. In 1998 I left to start Odigo and in 2002 I sold it to Comverse. I spent the next few years working on an intranet for the Israeli Defense Force and loved it. It got me more excited than anything else and I asked to transition into the Force’s computer unit. It was the first time I’d ever seen a browser and a website. This was back in 1994 and I was fascinated. One day I found a computer that was connected to the Internet. How did you transition from being a solider to being a tech entrepreneur? Avner Ronen: I started in the combat unit. Katie Morell: Take me back to your days in the Israeli Defense Force. I sat down with Ronen, who now lives in New York City, to hear more about his entrepreneurial story and how he fends off big, angry companies. If a customer still wants cable channels, they must pay a cable provider. It also comes with unlimited DVR in the cloud and access to YouTube, Hulu, Pandora, Netflix and other Internet media. It allows users to stream basic TV channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox) and connects to the Internet. Boxee is an open source service that comes with a physical box designed to connect to a TV. Now Ronen is at the helm of Boxee, a VC-backed startup with 50 employees that is disrupting the TV industry and enflaming the tempers of media moguls around the globe. ![]() His company, Odigo, was acquired and he stayed on for a few years-all the while wanting to start something new. “Through a connection, it finally worked.” “We would go up to people and tell them our story, hoping that they would be interested enough to give us cash,” Ronen says. He doesn’t know how to raise capital for his first venture, so he and a friend crash a technology conference in Tel Aviv and start asking people for money. The trailer would go something like this: Israel-born teen graduates from high school and joins Israeli Defense Force, never takes a college class, hops on a computer one day and starts building companies. Avner Ronen’s life story could be made into a movie.
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