Roadmap to Success in Tech and Entrepreneurship with the Founder of Waze

Uri Levine, co-founder of community-driven navigation application Waze, kicked-off his journey at IE Business School as a guest speaker at Venture Network, hosted by the IE Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center.

Levine is a passionate Israeli entrepreneur and a double ‘unicorn’ builder with a focus on startups that solve problems and change the world for the better. His entrepreneurial journey includes selling the startup Waze to Google for $1.1 billion, as well as Moovit, the public transport version of Waze, to Intel for another staggering $1 billion. In 2023, Levine published a book titled "Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution – A Handbook for Entrepreneurs."

Uri Levine shared valuable insights and experiences from his 40-year high-tech career and 20-year entrepreneurial path. He recounted the story of how Waze was invented and the challenges the team faced in achieving product-market fit over four years to a jam-packed room.

“Product market fit means creating value for the customer. Once you figure that out you don’t change it anymore…. If you create value, they will come back. If the customers don’t come back, you don’t create value. Therefore, the only metric is retention.” said Levine.

The entrepreneur shared many lessons about the complicated dimensions of entrepreneurship and advised the crowd about dealing with failure.

“[Entrepreneurship is] a rollercoaster. It’s a journey of failures. If you are afraid to fail, you already failed because you failed to try…. but when you fail fast, the more time you have to try again.” said Levine.

Levine joins IE Business School not only as guest speaker, but he will be teaching a masterclass for our MBA and Master in Mangement students. Additionally, he will be an instructor in two sections of Master's programs in marketing, communications and sales. This includes Masters in Customer Experience & Innovation, Market Research & Consumer Behavior, Creative Direction, Content & Branding, Strategic Marketing Communication, as well as Digital Marketing & Analytics.