The future of food supply will soon be on its way to the Northeastern states, courtesy of the ingenuity of USC alum Jordan Markus.
Originally a sports management major, Markus graduated from USC in 2015 with a degree in supply chain and operations management afterbeing inspired by a management science course as an underclassman.Over the summer, he took part in Birthright Israel Excel Ventures, a fellowship program for Jewish college students who plan to pursue careers in business or technology. As part of the program, Markus spent ten weeks in Tel Aviv working alongside Israeli businesspeople. He also founded a unique food startup which he hopes to soon expand to the United States.
Markus came across Birthright Israel Excel Ventures while seeking a "career reboot" after two years working for Lockheed Martin.
"It was a great experience," Markus said of his time at the D.C.-area defense contractor. "I learned a lot, but I was ready to dive into the entrepreneurial world, and this was a perfect blend of the social, Jewish aspect plus the entrepreneurial and business aspect."
During his time in Tel Aviv, Markus was able to meet with Yuri Levine, co-founder of navigation app Waze, and Adi Soffer, CEO of Facebook Israel. Markus' personal mentor was Litan Yahav, co-founder and CEO of Segoma Imaging Technologies.The program's first few weeks consisted of team-building exercises like the Five Dollar Challenge and speaking engagements with tech industry figures such as Levine and Soffer.
The Five Dollar Challenge?
"They gave us five dollars and we had to run up and down the street and try to make as much money as possible," Markus said.
In the latter portion of the program, the pool of participants were split into teams. Markus' team consisted of two Americans and two Israelis. Each team attempted to form an original idea for a company and put it through the "ideation process," which Markus said was a key lesson in the program's first two weeks.
"It's something that not only my team struggled with, but every team kind of went through probably four or five ideas," Markus said. "It's pretty incredible to see the rollercoaster of the process go through."
The ideation process was particularly grueling for Markus and his group. During a late-night brainstorming session, they conceived Hava, which fights food waste by delivering fresh produce directlyto workplaces and office parks in Tel Aviv.
"You have all these other companies that are doing door-to-door," Markus said. "We plan on being different by doing one-stop delivery locations where we can get to many customers at once."
Aside from arranging deliveries, Markus intends Hava to connect farmers with communities they deliver to and provide analytic software to better predict crop yields.
Markus plans to stay in Tel Aviv through September before returning to the United States. With co-founder and tech developer Shira Gold, 27, he hopes to bring Hava across the Atlantic, specifically to New York and Washington D.C., by the end of 2017.
"We feel like our background is what is going to get us through this business," Markus said of his and Gold's respective backgrounds in supply chain management and technology.
Reflecting on his time in Tel Aviv, Markus said that more than anything, Birthright Israel taught him the importance of community, overcoming cultural differences and hard work in starting a business.
"There's gonna be a ton of ambiguity and a ton of unknown, and that's okay," Markus said. "It's gonna be difficult, but you're gonna learn a lot from it."
This story has been updated to correctly name the program Jordan Markus took part in. A previous version referred to the program as "Birthright Israel Ventures" instead of "Birthright Israel Excel Ventures."