Meirav Oren (Versatile) - Forging Your Path as a New Founder
Oct 19, 2022
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Meirav Oren, CEO and co-founder of Versatile, discusses forging your own path as a new founder. Topics include filtering advice, asking for help, building with confidence, empowering superintendents in the construction industry, and the importance of vulnerability, transparency, and humanization in leadership.
Founders should filter advice and build their companies with confidence.
Asking for help requires being specific, accessible, and removing constraints to facilitate meaningful connections.
Deep dives
Versatile: Empowering Superintendents with Data-driven Decisions
Meriv Oran, CEO of Versatile, introduces the company and their mission to turn construction into a fully controllable manufacturing process. Through data collection and analysis, Versatile aims to empower superintendents with unprecedented control over their processes, enabling them to make rapid, data-driven decisions. By providing detailed insights about job sites, Versatile helps superintendents improve productivity and safety. Their solution collects thousands of data points, presenting the story of the job site in a highly digestible format and allowing superintendents to take control over time and resources. With over $100 million in funding and recognition as a technology pioneer, Versatile is leveraging technology to transform the construction industry.
Deciding When to Listen to Advice as an Entrepreneur
Meriv Oran shares her perspective on navigating advice as an entrepreneur. While she emphasizes the importance of listening, she suggests that following advice blindly is not the best approach. Meriv believes that founders should find their own path, even if it means going against the advice of experienced mentors. She highlights the value of filtering advice, considering different perspectives, and ultimately making decisions that align with one's own convictions. Meriv champions the idea that founders know best and should trust their instincts and insights when building their startup.
The Power of Asking for Help and Being Specific
Meriv Oran discusses the importance of asking for help and shares her secrets to getting the help she needs. She highlights the fact that people genuinely want to help, but time constraints can be a challenge. Meriv advises founders to make themselves accessible, be willing to meet others on their terms, and remove all constraints to facilitate meaningful connections. When asking for help, she emphasizes the importance of being specific and doing thorough research beforehand. By clearly articulating what you need and why, you make it easier for others to offer assistance. Meriv believes that being specific and making it easy for people to help leads to a higher success rate in getting the support you need.
Leading with Transparency and Vulnerability
Meriv Oran shares her philosophy on leadership, emphasizing the significance of transparency and vulnerability. She believes that leaders should be transparent with their team, providing them with information and insights, but in a way that they can understand and act upon. Meriv stresses the importance of understanding one's audience and using transparency to help people comprehend the message. Additionally, she discusses the power of vulnerability in leadership, where leaders share personal experiences, challenges, and emotions with their team. By humanizing themselves, leaders create an environment where team members feel comfortable being themselves and are more likely to engage and contribute effectively.
Meirav Oren is the CEO and co-founder of Versatile, which aims to turn construction into a fully controllable manufacturing process and help professionals make rapid, data-driven decisions that support jobsite productivity and safety. In this conversation with Stanford adjunct lecturer Ravi Belani, Oren encourages new founders to filter advice, learn how to ask for help, and build their companies with confidence.
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