If you spend enough time working with Israeli innovators, you notice a recurring superpower. It’s the ability to look a challenge in the eye, adapt quickly, and deliver under immense pressure. In Israel, we call it tachlis. It’s a relentless focus on immediate action and results, no matter the circumstances.
But as a PR and marketing professional who bridges the gap between Israeli tech ideation and global market implementation, I see the dark side of this superpower every day.
The very characteristic that gets a start-up off the ground, the preference for immediate tactical execution over long-term strategic planning, is a likely pitfall when Israeli entrepreneurs move to scale in the US or Europe.
We are conditioned to live in the moment. However, global markets don’t always reward the fastest reaction time. They reward the company that builds a predictable, proven, and scalable framework.
If Israeli innovators want to win globally, a long-term strategy cannot be treated as an afterthought. Breakthrough science, strong technology, and entrepreneurial speed absolutely matter, but they are not enough. Success in the US and other global markets requires early planning for distinct market realities: regulatory expectations, reimbursement pathways, institutional buying behavior, workflow integration, clinical evidence, data governance, cybersecurity, trust, and scale.
The budget illusion: ‘We’ll raise more when we get there’
The Israeli mentality often treats capital as cash to spend on the next milestone, rather than as a long-term investment for a sustained market rollout. Founders typically allocate almost their entire budget to R&D and product milestones, leaving very little capital or thought for marketing, PR, and market education.
The assumption? “Once the product is perfect, the market will be so engaged, traction will come, and we’ll raise more funds.”
Global markets do not work this way. In the US, market entry requires sustained, strategic capital. If you haven’t budgeted for the long-tail costs of building brand trust, establishing thought leadership, and nurturing a pipeline months before launch, you aren’t conserving cash; you are delaying hitting the wall.
The regulatory blind spot: The algorithm is not the cure
I see this constantly with tech-oriented founders, particularly in health tech and deep tech. They fall in love with their code or their platform. They assume that because their AI model is accurate and transparent, regulators, compliance officers, and customers worldwide will welcome the idea with the red carpet. The same assumption applies when a digital health application ensures product compliance. Both may be 100% true. However, the US system requires someone to pay for the use of that product or platform.
Many founders treat regulatory strategy as a hurdle to clear after the product is built.
In reality, regulatory, compliance, and data privacy frameworks (such as HIPAA and GDPR) are the foundation of your product architecture, not an administrative afterthought. When you delay this strategic thinking, you risk building a much-needed platform or product that is legally unusable in your target market. True tachlis means designing for compliance on day one.
The<strong> rollout reality: A press release is not a strategy</strong>
I regularly see this mismatch play out in real time. A founder will call me up and say, “We are launching our new product in two weeks. Can we get a press release out to The Wall Street Journal?”
That is immediate and naïve tactical execution. It treats a major corporate milestone like a box to be checked. Also, I hate to break it to you, but The Wall Street Journal will most likely not be covering your niche product launch. The WSJ evaluates coverage based on strict corporate parameters including whether an enterprise is public or private, the scale of capital raised, and broader market implications.
For a scaling start-up, the real value is deep, sustained coverage in trade publications read by healthcare CEOs, CFOs, and industry decision-makers.
A successful global market rollout doesn’t happen in two weeks. It must be built into your road map well in advance, carefully accounting for every moving part.
A strategic PR plan goes far beyond a single press release, giving you the runway to build the right commercial narrative. It allows you to cultivate supporting advocates, patient communities, and payer connections, while coordinating early adopter testimonials and ensuring ample peer-reviewed data backs your clinical claims.
With that foundation, you can effectively brief key reporters, prepare your sales team, and leverage major industry events. When you treat a launch as a check-the-box deadline rather than a thoughtful market strategy, your news will not create that memorable milestone, and you won’t get the market uptake you want.
Market adoption: Selling the hammer vs the picture
Israeli innovators excel at explaining what their technology does. They love the specs, the metrics, and the architecture. Yet when they pitch to seasoned leaders in the US, they often face indifference. Why? Because they are selling the hammer instead of the perfectly hung picture, focusing on the tool rather than solving the customer’s urgent problem.
Immediate planning focuses on product features. Long-term strategy focuses on market adoption and value.
For Israeli innovators entering the US market, the proprietary algorithm is only the starting point. Hospital leaders need to understand how the technology fits into current workflows, relieves operational pressure, reduces cost, strengthens care delivery, or protects the enterprise from risk. The companies that scale are those that translate technical advantage into institutional value.
The culture shift
The phrase “yihye beseder” (it’ll be okay) is the ultimate Israeli fallback plan – optimism. It embodies our cultural resilience. However, in global business, this alone is a business liability.
US investors and enterprise buyers value confidence, but they also look for predictability, risk mitigation, and structure. The Israeli instinct to improvise can be powerful in moments of urgency. In a complex market such as US healthcare, however, global partners need to see more than agility. They need evidence that the company has planned for market realities, understands institutional decision-making, and is prepared to reduce uncertainty for the buyer.
Start-ups should not lose their agility or their entrepreneurial grit. But founders must learn to channel it differently.
The bottom line: Strategy is execution
To the Israeli innovators I work with every day: Long-term strategic planning is not corporate fluff. It is not an academic exercise that slows down momentum. Strategy is operational vision. It connects where you are today with the market you intend to win tomorrow.
That means planning for market realities before arrival. It means understanding the regulatory pathway, budgeting for market entry, building the evidence case, anticipating buyer concerns, and shaping a global narrative from day one. The same chutzpah that drives Israeli innovators to challenge impossible problems must also be applied to the long game.
The world needs Israeli innovation. Patients, health systems, investors, and communities need the solutions being built here. The opportunity is too important to leave to improvisation alone.
Build the brilliant product. Then build the equally powerful pathway that allows the world to adopt and deploy.
The writer is a senior partner at FINN Partners, a leading global marketing communications agency with 35 offices worldwide. As co-lead of the Israel office, she specializes in cross-border communications, helping Israeli innovators scale effectively into global markets.