From Perth to Netball, Writing a Book and High Tech: Rachel Caplin's Aliyah Journey and Career Lessons
Aliyah Success is a weekly newsletter for Olim and Potential Olim to land their dream job in Israel tech by Andrew Jacobson. For Season 1, we are interviewing 12 Successful Olim, including top professionals across finance, venture capital, marketing and more. If you got this email forwarded to you, subscribe here:
Now onto the show!
Super excited to share this interview with Rachel Caplin.
Rachel and I first met a few years ago through Nevo Network, a fellowship for Olim in hightech. I didn’t do the program, but I got to meet a ton of impressive Olim through the organization while I worked with Michael Eisenberg, who set it up with Abbey Onn.
One of them is Rachel – a humble, intelligent, motivated rockstar who lives in Ra’anana with her husband and two daughters. After a couple years outside of hightech, she landed a job at Team8 and recently became VP Business Development for Fijoya, a newly-launched fintech x healthcare startup from the Team8 foundry. In this interview, Rachel describes her key tips for breaking into high-tech plus invaluable reflections on the nuances of Israeli culture, job-hunting, and Israel. Enjoy. –Andrew
Where I grew up:
Perth, Western Australia
Something most people don’t know about me is that I wrote a book, hopefully published soon.
I also represented Israel on the national Netball team in 2017 at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, and the European Championships in Scotland.
Today I am VP Business Development at Fijoya. We launched on March 7th with $8.3 million in Seed funding. It has been a crazy ride since October 7th.
Fijoya is a new Israeli startup backed by Team8, the venture capital firm where I worked for the last 2 years.
I fell in love with Fijoya. When they asked me to join in-house around midway last year, I couldn't say no. My first day at Fijoya was slated for October 15th. Little did we know that our world would be turned upside down before then.
Building a new company, in its most fragile and fledgling state, in the wake of October 7th, meant weeks where we were all stunned, and emotional. There was so much uncertainty.
Meetings interrupted by air raid sirens. Sheltering in an industrial fridge that moonlights as a mamad. Trying to plan and execute with part of the team drafted to reserve duty, without warning, constantly.
I had never heard of high-tech before making aliyah.
Most of my friends picked a path to some sort of profession - whether a doctor, lawyer, teacher, or an accountant. The industry norms in Israel are so different. Israel was the first place I met an engineer who worked in software and not in a mine.
When I made Aliyah, I was doing my Master's degree in Political Economics. So high-tech was not in the cards for me at first. Then I was hit with the financial reality of living in Israel. My first job in Israel, as a research assistant during my Masters, paid dismally. The math didn't add up, how I was supposed to make a decent living.
I reached out to the Israel-Australia Chamber of Commerce—which builds relationships between Israeli and Australian companies—and asked if they had any upcoming networking events.
We're hiring, they said.
I interviewed, got the job, and stayed for four years.
But I didn't make aliyah for high-tech. I made aliyah because Israel is home.
Growing up, I thought: We finally have a State of Israel, how can I watch it from Australia? It just wouldn’t make sense to me. I don't know why I wouldn’t be here.
I'm not the type of person who is comfortable living on the sidelines of anything. I like to have a seat at the table.
The network I developed at the Chamber of Commerce was priceless.
I got to help Australian businesses mostly, but also other internationals, corporates, and investors searching for opportunities in Israel. I also created opportunities for Israeli companies.
After four years, I had 2 things: (1) a local Israeli network and (2) one-on-one time with investors. Both were incredibly valuable.
The network was huge. I met people all the time. If there was anyone in Israel I wanted to meet, I reached out to them for coffee. Of course, we talked about the Australian market opportunity but, in the end, I ended up building relationships beyond that.
The other thing was one-on-ones with investors. I didn't just get to join meetings between the investor and the opportunity, but got on the bus with them afterwards, and hear what they really thought. That was priceless.
Then I made the jump to Team8.
At first I worked with Team8 from the Chamber of Commerce. HR reached out a few months later saying the new Fintech team needed someone to run business development. Now, here we are.
At Team8, I got to help new companies with their initial validation and go-to-market strategy. I fell in love with the process of building ideas into companies. So it was a natural step for me to join Fijoya to lead business development.
Work culture is very different from Australia, and frankly, anywhere else.
I think our generation has more skepticism of decades-long careers at one company, and generally climbing the corporate ladder for twenty or thirty years. In Israel, there is also the financial imperative. The big corporate firms in Israel simply don't pay as much in the early stages compared to those same corporates abroad.
Sure, you can earn more as you move up the ranks and some will choose that route and do very well. But in Israel it’s less of a natural path for everyone to stay the course, since Israelis begin university studies and work later because of the army. I had just turned eighteen when I started university in Perth, and that was already after a gap year in Israel.
The decision tree is a different shape.
There is also a totally different risk appetite in Israel. That’s hardly news.
I have a huge amount of respect for my peers in Israel who lived as teens during the Second Intifada. The things we start doing in those early teenage years - going for pizza, a movie, on a bus, out with friends - it was all a risk here.
I see in my Israeli friends and my husband a general inoculation to small doses of risk, even before the army, the training ground for entrepreneurship everyone usually talks about. These teens are now the adult generation in Israel. They are the entrepreneurs and innovators of this generation and we can see they are far more likely to take chances and make bets, whether on themselves or others.
What do you tell Olim who want to climb the corporate ladder in Israel?
I think it can make sense for some people, it just may not necessarily be the beginning of a 30-year career as it may have been where we come from or in a different generation. Training from a Big 4 or consulting firm is great. You can learn a lot from these channels.
Again, the decision tree is just a different shape.
A lot of Olim are going to want to jump into the tech and innovation scene. Early in your career, money is important, but should not be the only driver in deciding what job to take. The greatest handicap for Olim is a lack of network. We don’t have friends from school or the army or the neighborhood we grew up in.
Olim need to immerse themselves in it as early as possible to become part of the conversation for when these back-door conversations and opportunities pop up.
Being an Olah has been provided me with unique advantages and opportunities.
It’s an asset. I believe it comes with adaptability and ability to connect and understand people with diverse backgrounds. I can be a bit of a chameleon. We all can. Plus the resilience to start from scratch. It takes bravery, courage and boldness to start a new life here.
The Nevo Network has also been important. Being part of this community of ambitious, high-achieving Olim who want to have a meaningful impact on the ecosystem here elevated my career and my life in ways I hadn't anticipated. It has introduced me to some of my closest friends and it’s been part of every small and large decision and move I have made in my career since.
There’s also the language. I am very lucky to have native English, it’s a huge asset in Israel. Israeli companies don't build for the Israeli market, in general. They build for the US or the global market.
Having gone through Aliyah and the experience of starting from square one, I think it has helped me develop more empathy. I try to help whoever I can because I know what it's like to try to just claw your way into whatever door is open, or open any door that's closed. That empathy is one of the most important muscles I have built as an immigrant.
I have a great deal of admiration for Olim of older generations. They didn’t have this nice, sparkly high tech industry to join with their native English. My mother-in-law made Aliya from Perth - yes, we are both from Perth - in the late 70s. She had to take a bus to do her laundry, lived at Bar Ilan University where she did a degree in Hebrew when she didn’t speak the language yet. She didn’t have WhatsApp or Facetime to speak to her family everyday.
Olim today, yes we have our challenges, but we are lucky that our languages and our skills can fit very nicely with the engine of the economy and while we are far from our families, technology makes it a lot easier to feel a bit closer and in touch.
And some parting advice about Venture Capital.
I have a lot of young people reach out to me trying to break into venture capital (VC) early in their careers.
Some people have taken the VC route early and done exceptionally well, they are very talented investors.
You can read about cars, you can look at cars, but it’s not quite the same if you haven't been inside one. I try to encourage young Olim in particular to get in the car, join a startup whether early stage or growth, and see from the inside how it works.
My other piece of advice is to remember that there is a lot of mobility in this ecosystem. One day you are from the big VC with the cheques to sign and the next day you’re a startup looking for capital. You can be the one hiring today and next year you may be affected by layoffs. Meet with everyone, make the time, and remember that we move around a lot in this industry - whether by chance or by choice - and we are swimming in a relatively little pond.