
I love stories, and life has given me plenty to tell. It has long been my plan to put them down on paper. My path has taken me through 15 years of entrepreneurship, travelling, and finally, immigrating. I found myself again in a new place as an employed software engineer, and now, five years onwards, I am transitioning back to independence.

I was born in soviet Moscow and went to school in a new, unknown country that had yet to define itself. I belong to the single, non-indoctrinated generation of Russians around: we were taught that anything was possible and that our only limits were those we set for ourselves. This played some bad jokes on me: Once my childhood was over, the country decided to make another turn, this time back to authoritarianism, and together with its people, happily embraced the old and familiar soviet dogmas.

So, a year after graduating high school, I jumped on the website development bandwagon that has carried me for the last 20 years.

My experience was not purely virtual: my severe first \[ad]venture was an e-commerce website that sold shoes and accessories (my friend brought the idea, not a passion for shoes!). The next one was even more grounded: a chain of gadget repair stores. The third I would call 'Chinese adventures', as I was involved in trading activities for many small-scale entrepreneurs like me in China. These adventures, spanning from 2000 to 2014, were thrilling but ended abruptly as Russia took a turn I couldn't follow.

That time, my country decided to be, once again, the bad guy and no one asked me if I wanted to participate, so I quit.

The word 'quit' is nice and short! Applying it to reality was a grilling experience. It took me several attempts and struggles to acquire a new true home: Israel. Most of my current stories are related to this land and its people.

I'm practical, so I write about entrepreneurship, technology, business, and ideas in general. I have never been short of ideas, and I believe in the power of sharing them to make the ideas a part of reality, to let them sprout and witness the fruits.

To set the record straight, I am a Christian, so my viewpoint is not so common in Israel or the world of tech. This lens offers a distinctive angle to my experiences and reflections.


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Immigrant, Enterpreneur, Husband, Father and Son

Rodion Kuprin


That was the most well-prepared and thought-out attempt that eventually bore fruit. But before that, I had to deal with the fruits of the previous one.

When we moved back to Russia, I didn't have any plan for how I could be back yet, and my days were filled with efforts to catch up with the ongoing business. It was pretty hectic, so I could not reflect on what had happened and what to do next. Some opportunities were lost, some money burned, but most importantly, I burned up myself: I was utterly exhausted, and a few months afterwards, the signs of it started to appear: I lost sleep and felt pain in my stomach. That took me quite a while to understand that it is connected and that it's a result of anxiety and depression that took me by surprise.

At first, I was trying to keep up the pace of life I had for many years, meaning practically no rest. Then, the fact that something was wrong became evident to my family and, finally, to me. Suddenly, I could not produce any value; all I did was worry or be nervous. Jogging helped, as well as some sauna. That was all my remedies at the time.

My journey towards the norm took about a year, and skipping the dull parts, the key was the right medical professional with whom I developed trust. She understood immediately that my pains had nothing to do with organs and everything to do with my state of mind. She put me on a cocktail of antidepressants, tranquillisers and neuroleptics for some months, gradually decreasing the dosage. I dropped around 12 kilos that year; if anything was good back then, it was my weight.

A week or two after I started to take my pills, I entered a different state of mind: that was like being inside a well-oiled off-road vehicle that could ride you towards whatever destination. You don't need to exit the car. You steer it to wherever you want. This feeling gave me confidence and calmness that I haven't had in my life! To this day, this metaphor helps me to overcome the difficult times.

The problem was that I wanted to return to Israel but had no idea how to get there. Any business in Israel was out of the picture. I did not want to be back to the point of devastation that I just escaped. So, I put the plan B into action: get a job like a person without a crazy bug. The problem was that I never had a job (to be clear, I was 20 or 21 when I was hired the last time, and it was already 15 years ago).

### Getting a job

Getting a job that can feed a family of three in Israel is not that easy: historically, Israel is famous for its high cost of living and comparatively low wages. Given that my wife's professional adaptation had not yet even begun (she was working as a managing editor of a prominent Russian publishing house), I had to find a way to get hired and paid way above the average.

Here, I need to put some numbers: in 2019, when we finally made it back, our expenses were about 14000 ₪ monthly in Herzliya. That includes rent, groceries and other necessities, but no fun things. Our son was already at the age when public preschool institutions are available, so there are no nursery expenses (it's usually 2000 - 4000 ₪, depending on the location). Five years later, the minimum for a family with one kid has grown significantly; I estimate it to be 18000 ₪ somewhere around Tel Aviv (excluding expensive areas) or 15000 ₪ in some more distant but still compelling locations.

So, with that in mind, I embarked on my journey to acquire the only profession that paid well and was available to an immigrant without a solid Hebrew: software development.

I remembered people's attitude towards me in the accelerator: I am a Russian programmer, so I decided to make use of this bias to get a stance in Israel.

I used to know many things about software development and had many years of experience in web development, but more as a manager. Working with code took up at most 10% of my days. I always tried to avoid writing code myself, as I thought of it as something that could be easily delegated (true). But hard times lead to hard choices, and sometimes there's no choice, despite what they say.

So, with the help of my friends in the field, I started my journey to the 'exciting' new world of JavaScript and Node. [[My journey to becoming a professional Software developer]] It took me about a year to revamp my business expertise into something digestible for the Israeli Job market.
I gradually removed the exciting parts from my CV, leaving only things that could be understood by someone looking for a full-stack developer.

As I remember it now, I learned around 6-7 months every day for about 5 hours by watching courses on Udemy and consulting my savvy friends when needed, and then I started to prepare my CV and send out the applications.

I haven't had any success during the first five months: I've applied to numerous jobs (my goal was ten applications daily) and received zero interview invites. Every couple of weeks, I rechecked my CV and adjusted it more and more, looking at the examples of successful career shifters on LinkedIn.

After one of those efforts to become someone else on the paper, I finally started receiving interview inquiries. That was sudden, and I am not sure now what has happened. Was it me or the market? One of my apparent gaps was that I was still in Moscow, which was not something HR people wanted to see, but it didn't prevent my phone from ringing. I remember having a couple of short phone interviews and doing some tech assignments, but no solid results. And then, someone called: that was a CTO of a small promising startup in the logistics area. He noticed my entrepreneurial experience and wanted to interview me. I said I was fine coming to their office but needed time to book a ticket and return to Israel. That did not turn him away, so in about ten days, I was already biking through the fields between Herzliya and Hod HaSharon to meet the company and my future boss.

During those ten days, I was able to secure another two interviews, so in total, I had three: one in this logistics company, another one in the ad-tech startup that was in a more advanced stage, and one more in a company that had a real estate business in Israel. Of the three interviews, I was able to get two job offers. That was an impressive result!

Five years later, I should acknowledge that I could never meet the demands of any HR, and all the interviews I passed were directly with a hiring manager. So, as a developer, I was bound to work in relatively small companies where HRs have not yet taken hold.

### Departing Russia

That was sometime in late May of 2019. COVID was ahead; the full-blown war in Ukraine was ahead. Planning the trip, I felt like I was jumping on the last ship coming out for some reason. I don't know why. It may be a coincidence, but I felt it strongly: day by day, I saw propaganda at work and no sign of a thaw coming.

Another few weeks of preparations in Moscow came and went. Olga grew increasingly anxious and felt like she, this time, could not escape Israel easily. Those two previous attempts were brutal on her, and now she enjoys life in the big city where everything is open 24/7 and where she knows every corner. The big deal was our friends: they became resentful towards me as they saw Olga's frustration about the move. Mark was four and a half years old then, and he had started to develop individual relations with each of the grandparents, so there were many things to lose.

As you can imagine, bringing the news that I got accepted was a sour moment: we had to prepare for the move and repeat goodbyes.

With our friends, it was rough: we used to have a tight group of friends who were together from the early twenties. The annexation of Crimea cracked us down: some members favoured this advancement, but we were still together, holding our differences to ourselves most of the time.

People in Moscow had adjusted to the new life: the war was raging on the outskirts of the empire; officially, there were no Russian troops, and it was easy to ignore. The city was thriving and had just welcomed the FIFA World Cup. The colourful event made many believe the future would be bright and stable.

I was surprised then and am surprised now at how easily the mind bends where pressure is applied. And how fast Moscovites were at returning to their pre-Crimea way of life. It was as if they were in a big hurry to return to their important life: paying the mortgage, advancing their careers and getting new cars.

I was considered to be crazy among our friends for many years. Before, it was more like harmless-crazy, but now, as I was determined to take my wife back to Israel, the move she did not want, I started to get many worried looks and understood that my position had changed. In their eyes, I became an abusive husband or a psycho.

So, our departure took the form of a funeral this time, as we were leaving the thriving developed city for some more struggles in the desert. My parents, though, were quite optimistic as, this time, I would have a regular and well-paid job.


In this part of the story, I struggle with the consequences of my previous reckless immigration attempt and finding my first job in Israel.

Part 6: Securing the basics


Some eight months later, I got up on the flight to Israel, this time with a plan to found a startup.

I was accompanied by my Moscow friend, rich in ideas and dreams of leaving Russia like mine. We were travelling to meet the startup accelerator board to present our idea. The accelerator was located in Ashdod, another southern city on the shore of the Mediterranean. We were aiming to get on board the accelerator focusing on helping olim entrepreneurs like me, and I was full of energy and hoped to pull off another sharp turn. This is Aliyah's story, so I will not share many details about the business side here.

The plan was simple: get accepted, become exposed to the Israeli startup scene, and hope the idea and its execution would be good enough to attract funding. My other ventures were looking solid at the time: the web development project went fine and stopped being all-consuming, and the gadget repair business was still a thing and produced some steady income. I wanted to move my family to Israel once more and try to juggle the needs of my family, our startup, and my ongoing business.

Looking back at this decision, I recognise many shortcomings, and I am still unsure if I would like to do something like this had I known the consequences. In short, I burned out, lost much money and had to deal with anxiety and depression for the next two years. If there could be a positive side, it's that I learned a lot about myself, Israel and life in general. But all of it is in the future! Back then, I was optimistic and tried to play my role as close to perfection as possible.

Our presentation went well: we got accepted and started to plan the move. I began to look for a spacious flat to rent. My partner planned to join and live with us for most of the accelerator program. I tried to find something in Ashdod on the budget, but for some reason, I had terrible luck: apartments were available everywhere but not in Ashdod. I found options to live near Tel Aviv in Holon or Rishon LeZion; another option was Ashkelon again.

After several consultations with my wife, we decided to go the easy way and stay close to my wife's family and my new accelerator. I signed a lease in Ashkelon, but this time, it was a much better apartment in a much better neighbourhood.

Again, it was a wrong decision: staying close to Tel Aviv would've helped my networking and provided a sense of the business side of Israel. Staying in Ashkelon or Ashdod without a car made networking practically impossible, given my tight schedule. But most importantly, it prevented Olga or me from knowing the country and having a chance to make new friends, as we found out that even in this new neighbourhood, it proved impossible to meet someone we could befriend. Writing this some years later and being blessed to live among like-minded families, I can't emphasise this more: people matter.

A few weeks after we started the program, my partner's plan to stay in Israel changed, and he had to return to Moscow; the acceleration appeared to be quite demanding and required me to visit the office three times a week for the whole day. Every day there required some preparation, so it was like a full-time job that did not pay any money. The program was meant for the group of cofounders so that one is attending the workshop or a meeting and others are working on the product. For me, it was a nightmare: I struggled to meet the demands of the accelerator and not drop the ball on my other businesses, as well as trying to help out Olga with Mark, as they shortly followed me.

It required around two months to understand that it couldn't continue like this, and without my co-founder's help on the ground, I would not be able to reach the goal: MVP development and some advancements with financing. At this point, I had to readjust the goals and to shift gears. It became apparent to me and the accelerator's management that we were not progressing on the product, and I had to stay for some long meetings explaining myself. I am not sure that I did a good job explaining, as I was angry toward my co-founder, who practically abandoned me and the accelerator management, who appeared to be not very understanding. My dream was falling apart, and I was frustrated and tired. My usual workday was about 12 hours long, the tension in the family grew, and I was desperate.

One goal I set up before signing up for the accelerator I managed to achieve: the program provided me with some valuable knowledge about Israeli business and high-tech culture.

### English is not enough.

Everybody speaks decent English, and most of the documentation is written in English, and you can be employed as a software developer knowing only English. But running a business, especially a startup that requires funding, is different. The primary language of Israeli commerce is still Hebrew. The business is conducted in Hebrew; all the small talk happens in Hebrew. It was not particularly helpful with my Hebrew, which was akin to the level of a 4-year-old. My partner, who spent about two weeks in the accelerator, knew no Hebrew at all, so even though we had a lot of exposure to like-minded people, we were a bit too isolated. It affected our ability to engage in the free flow of idea exchange that happened there.

### We had to prove ourselves from the ground up.

This may seem obvious, but it was not so much to me. One of the essential things I learned on my immigration path is that there's a constant stream of Eastern immigration to the West. It's like that from the Roman times! East and West are not always the same: it could be Chinese immigration to North America, Russian Jewry moving to Israel, or Turkish people moving to Germany. Most of the experience and achievements of the easterner should be revalidated and reapproved by the West. Whenever I talked to someone from the business field, I felt it: why do you think you can make things here? That question was never asked up front, but I felt it constantly.

### Use positive stereotypes, as there may be no other choice.

It was pretty funny: I never meant to present myself as a 'high-tech' person before entering the accelerator. Most of my businesses involved some part where I wrote code, developed websites or dealt with SEO, but I treated it as a tool, like a screwdriver or a flashlight. Having a flashlight in your pocket is good when it's dark, but you can do much more than just lighting the way.

So, talking to the Israeli startup mentors, I found that they were pretty sure that we could build any product that required writing code or overcoming any technical difficulty, as we're Russians, and everybody in Israel knows that an immigrant from Russia could be a great engineer, medical doctor, or musician. But they were less sure about our ability to steer something more complex than a moving services business or a grocery.

There are a lot of stereotypes related to immigration in Israel and to Russian immigration in particular. In general, it does not affect the lives of immigrants, but it's not like that when something is at stake.

## Leaving Israel again

It's not like I decided to leave: the decision was made based on the lack of alternatives: the accelerator demanded either to progress with MVP (while attending all the meetings and workshops) or leave. So, I left and appeared again in Ashkelon with my family. It was summer, and I remember spending many evenings together on the beach and having some enjoyable moments. Our friends and family from Moscow visited us often. Still, there was nothing else to do: I was dealing with the ongoing business and trying to overcome the experience of being rejected. Somewhere early in the autumn, we packed our bags, handed back the apartment and left for Moscow.


In 'Back to Ashkelon,' follow a journey of renewed hope and challenging setbacks, as a family returns to Israel with entrepreneurial aspirations.

Startup

Part 6: Securing the basics

Part 5: Back to Ashkelon