Go-to-Market / AI Startups / Israel
You have built something genuinely new in Tel Aviv, your buyers sit in the US, and the category you are creating does not have a search volume yet. Generic GTM advice does not fit an AI startup that has to define its own market. Here is how I build go-to-market for Israeli AI companies selling into the US.
Most go-to-market playbooks assume the category already exists: there is a keyword, a competitor set, and a buyer who knows they have the problem. An AI startup creating a new capability has none of that. Nobody is searching for what you do because they do not yet have a word for it. Your first job is not demand capture, it is demand creation: teaching the market that the problem is solvable, then positioning yourself as the obvious answer.
For an Israeli AI startup the problem compounds. Your engineering and founding team sit in Israel, but the buyers, analysts, and capital that define your category sit in the US. You need a motion that creates a category narrative in the US market while running from a Tel Aviv time zone, and most early growth hires have done neither half of that, let alone both at once.
A narrative that names the problem, frames the new category, and makes your product the reference point. Positioning that survives a skeptical US buyer, not a tagline. See product marketing.
Content, founder-led distribution, and AI-search visibility that teach the market before they search. The goal is to own the category conversation, not bid on keywords that do not exist yet.
A split-day motion that runs strategy with your team in the Israeli morning and reaches US buyers and analysts in their hours. See Israel to US expansion.
When buyers ask ChatGPT and Perplexity who solves your problem, you want to be the answer. I build that visibility directly. See GEO.
Israeli AI founders move fast, hate process for its own sake, and want an operator who ships rather than presents. I am native to that style. I work in Hebrew and English, so internal alignment with your team happens with zero translation cost while the US-facing work stays polished for an American buyer. You are not paying a US agency to relearn how Israeli teams run; you are getting an operator who already knows both rooms.
| Signal | Good fit | Not yet |
|---|---|---|
| Product stage | Working product, early design partners or first customers | Pre-prototype, no product to position |
| Category | New or emerging, needs a narrative | Crowded category with a clear keyword and playbook |
| Market | Selling into the US from Israel | Israel-only domestic SMB play |
| Need | Demand creation and positioning, hands-on | Pure performance media buying at scale |
| Founder | Wants an embedded operator who ships | Wants only a strategy deck to hand to an agency |
I led growth at cnvrg.io, an MLOps platform, which is as close to an Israeli AI startup defining a new category for US buyers as it gets, ahead of its acquisition by Intel announced November 2020 (TechCrunch). I led acquisition at Elementor from roughly $200K to over $20M ARR as it scaled past five million users worldwide. I drove 337% MRR growth at Riverside. The category-creation and US-from-Israel motion is not theory for me; it is the work I have shipped. Full detail on the cnvrg.io and Elementor case studies.
Three ways to work together, depending on how hands-on you need the GTM to be.
2-4 week audit of your growth stack plus a 90-day roadmap. Fixed scope, converts to a retainer.
The category usually does not exist yet, so nobody is searching for what you do. The work is demand creation and positioning, not demand capture. You teach the market the problem is solvable, then become the obvious answer.
Yes. I run a split day: strategy and standups with your team in the Israeli morning, and US buyers and analysts in their business hours. Both windows in the same week.
Yes. Internal alignment with your team happens in Hebrew with zero translation cost, while the US-facing work stays polished for an American buyer.
A working product with early design partners or first customers is the right point. If you are pre-prototype with nothing to position yet, it is too early.
I led growth at cnvrg.io, an MLOps platform defining a new category for US buyers, ahead of its Intel acquisition announced November 2020. The motion is one I have shipped.
This page is the GTM motion for Israeli AI companies selling into the US. The AI startup CMO page covers the broader fractional role. They overlap and often run together.
Yes. AI-search visibility is part of demand creation for a new category. When buyers ask an AI model who solves your problem, you want to be the answer. See GEO.
A fixed-scope diagnostic sprint runs $6,000 to $8,000. Infrastructure builds start at $5,000 per month. A full embedded operator engagement runs $8,000 to $18,000 per month.
Book a 15-min call. I will tell you whether your category is ready for demand creation and what the first move should be.