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Uri Levine

22 statements across 2 episodes · 5 bullish · 1 bearish · 1 people on the record · first statement Jun 9, 2024 by Uri Levine · said 1 times in 1 episodes since 2025 · across every show →

On the record as a speaker too: Uri Levine's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.

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Everything said about Uri Levine, oldest first

Jun 9, 2024 neutral
Disclosure
Uri Levine: Waze originally planned to sell map data before pivoting to ads
“When we started Waze, we thought that we're going to sell map data and traffic information. And we ended up with doing advertisement.”
Uri Levine Jun 9, 2024 ▶ 31:41 Lessons from a 2-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor and 20-time board member | Uri Levine
Jun 9, 2024
Insight
Levine: Low-frequency products must figure out monetization before scaling
“If you have high frequency of use, you will end up with growth coming by itself, right? Word of mouth. And therefore you should do that at the beginning. If you don't have high frequency of use, you are sentenced to acquire users or customers all of your lifet…”
Uri Levine Jun 9, 2024 ▶ 35:16 Lessons from a 2-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor and 20-time board member | Uri Levine
Jun 9, 2024 neutral
Insight
Levine: Companies stop fundamentally changing their product once they reach PMF
“So once a company figure out product market feed, they don't change their product anymore. Because this is the value that they create to the customers, and you don't want to change that.”
Uri Levine Jun 9, 2024 ▶ 20:04 Lessons from a 2-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor and 20-time board member | Uri Levine
Jun 9, 2024
Insight
Levine: Startup pitches should lead with the problem, not the product
“If you start your story with Our company is, or our system is, and in the recent years, everything is, our AI system is, or our AI company is, right? But generally speaking if you start your story with that, you focus on your solution. If you start with the st…”
Uri Levine Jun 9, 2024 ▶ 6:22 Lessons from a 2-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor and 20-time board member | Uri Levine
Jun 9, 2024
Insight
Levine: Founders should pitch early-stage investors completely alone
“The first one is that the CEO goes alone to the meeting. I need the headlight on me. I don't need any distractions. I don't need my team members. I don't need anything else in the room, just me.”
Uri Levine Jun 9, 2024 ▶ 43:30 Lessons from a 2-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor and 20-time board member | Uri Levine
Jun 9, 2024
Assertion Supported
Levine: Waze raised approximately $50M throughout its entire existence
“So Waze raised about fifty million dollars throughout the entire journey. We started by raising 12. That was this, the first investment round, and then we raised 30. And then was the last round that we raised, actually not a lot.”
Uri Levine Jun 9, 2024 ▶ 40:02 Lessons from a 2-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor and 20-time board member | Uri Levine
Jun 9, 2024 positive
Insight
Levine: Interviewing 20 strangers validates whether a startup problem is real
“So if you speak with a hundred people, but if you actually speak with 20 people that you don't know, you will get validated whether or not this problem is real or not.”
Uri Levine Jun 9, 2024 ▶ 10:14 Lessons from a 2-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor and 20-time board member | Uri Levine
Jun 9, 2024
Insight
Levine: A pitch deck's title slide is the most important
“The most important slide of your presentation is the first slide. Not the one that you think about it, the first slide, the one that says company XYZ intro. This slide is going to be presented for the longest period of time.”
Uri Levine Jun 9, 2024 ▶ 48:14 Lessons from a 2-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor and 20-time board member | Uri Levine
Feb 16, 2025
Insight
Levine: Startups need 18 months of runway to avoid constant fundraising
“The gen, my general rule will be around 18 months. Are you okay with 12 months? Yeah, if you risk taker, bigger risk taker, then you can survive with 12 months. But the challenge is that, look, if you have shorter period of time, then you don't have enough tim…”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 1:19:22 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
Feb 16, 2025 positive
Insight
Levine: Try fixing job unhappiness for three months, then quit if unresolved
“If you're not happy at your working place, then ask yourself, is there something that I can do to change that? Then try to change that for the next three months. If you're unable to change that, then leave.”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 1:13:02 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
Feb 16, 2025
Insight
Levine: Delaying expense cuts in a cash crisis rapidly destroys strategic options
“If you want to reduce the burn, the expenses, in order to extend the run rate, if you wait two more months, then it's going to become nearly impossible to do. If you wait six more months, then obviously this is impossible to do. So the more, the longer that yo…”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 27:07 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
Feb 16, 2025 neutral
Insight
Levine: An A player leaving a startup is not a crisis
“Because if, you know, if an A player leaves I hate it, but it's not a crisis.”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 29:04 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
Feb 16, 2025
Insight
Levine: Founders should share raw, unsugarcoated fundraising failures with teams
“So number one, don't sugarcoat. Right. So you basically, you don't need to share all the feedbacks from all the investors. You can tell them, look, I met dozens of investors in the last couple of weeks, and they're all saying no. Or, you know, we had a signed …”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 48:20 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
Feb 16, 2025
Insight
Levine: Failing to communicate crisis decisions causes top performers to quit
“Look, if there is a crisis, everyone knows. Everyone knows, and you don't do anything about it. This is not a good practice. Now you might want to decide, no, we're gonna keep on running full steam ahead until we hit the wall, because by that we increase the l…”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 27:54 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
Feb 16, 2025
Assertion Supported
Levine: Personnel makes up 70% to 75% of startup budgets
“Look, if you look at the startup and you look at the budget, 70% of the budget is people. Maybe 75% of the budget is people. Everything else is, is nickels and dimes.”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 56:17 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
Feb 16, 2025
Disclosure
Levine: Diluted all shareholders during cash crises to give staff 5x equity
“In many cases we had to engage the employees, right? No, we don't have cash. So what we did is that we diluted all shareholders in order to give employees way more equity, right? So five times more equity than they had before.”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 44:25 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
Feb 16, 2025 positive
Insight
Levine: Pivoting founders are more attractive to investors than first-timers
“Even if you don't have the money for it, let's say that you don't have plenty of cash in the bank, go back to the investors and go back to raise capital, because now you actually have a very significant advantage, right? You already have a technology, you alre…”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 1:07:56 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
Feb 16, 2025
Insight
Levine: Companies die solely because they run out of cash for bills
“That's the only way that they die. Okay. By the way, all the companies in the world, right, they are unable to pay their bills and therefore they die.”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 43:58 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
Feb 16, 2025 positive
Insight
Levine: Let customer validation build your passion instead of starting with it
“When you validate the problem and the value proposition, even if you don't have the passion, if it's being validated, your passion will be built up... And so don't start with the passion. Let the passion be built.”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 1:09:18 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
Feb 16, 2025 neutral
Disclosure
Levine: Waze cut only executive management salaries during 2010 cash crunch
“What we did is we reduced the salary of the management only. And to a certain extent, I would say people didn't even know. We decided in the management meeting that this is what we're going to do.”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 1:15:23 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
Feb 16, 2025 negative
Disclosure
Uri Levine vows never to build startups subject to regulatory approval
“What I decided on a personal level is that I'm not going to deal with the regulation anymore. I don't want to rely on a regulator to allow me or not allow me to do what I want to do.”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 18:00 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
Feb 16, 2025 positive
Insight
Levine: Layoffs are probably better than broad salary cuts
“I, in general, I would say letting people go is is probably better than reducing salary for everyone, right?”
Uri Levine Feb 16, 2025 ▶ 54:57 A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)
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