What was your first job ever?
Like anyone from Tel Aviv, I started to work as a waiter to get some cash before my military service.
What’s the background story? How did you start your company and what is your company?
I worked as a venture capitalist, and I always knew that I wanted to get to the other side of the table and get my hands dirty. I then met my co-founder, Brendon Silver, and understood that we have a unique opportunity to build something special. This was during the pandemic, when companies were looking for solutions to support distributed workforces, so the mission became simple: let’s create something built for people with service at its core. In 2022, I moved to London and we started Playroll, an employer of record software that provides companies the infrastructure to employ, pay and offer benefits to talent around the world within minutes. While Playroll wasn’t the first to identify the opportunity in the space, we had the ability to roll out a comprehensive solution based on the learnings of industry incumbents and their pain points, namely service and compliance. My co-founder and I are obsessed with giving our clients and their employees a world-class excellent experience, meaning our response time is industry leading and our UX-UI is built for the client and their employee. An EOR is a solution that acts as a legal employer for foreign employees, which abstracts the complexities and liabilities of setting up foreign entities for employers, which is why every feature we roll-out is prioritized by customer need – that’s the Playroll promise, a company built for the employee experience. We’re an extension of our client so we believe in becoming a trusted partner, not just an HR software solution.
Can you provide an example of a situation where security concerns impacted a decision or strategy within your startup?
As an Employer of Record provider, Playroll hosts employee and contractor private information. So in launching Playroll, security and compliance was core to everything we built, it’s in our DNA. All Playroll team members are required to undergo security and privacy training. We’ve also implemented various internal permissioning and security checks to ensure no unnecessary exposure to client information. Not to mention, our commitment to staying above industry leading standards, meaning we leverage third parties to run vulnerability assessments, and re-certification/compliance audits on a regular basis.
If relevant, when did you realize compliance was a non-negotiable?
We have built the company to have zero tolerance for any data security compromises from Day 1. With this in mind, we offer compliance support to our clients – we do this in providing country-specific compliant contracts to our client’s employees, as well as, expert advice to prevent misclassification issues to clients hiring international contract talent.
How do you maintain a work-life balance while dealing with the constant challenges and demands of running a startup?
This may not be a popular opinion, but in short, I’m not a big believer in “work-life balance”. Before you disagree, hear me out. I think the definition of “work-life balance” has evolved. I believe the complete separation between work and family is impossible, and in-turn, un-healthy. Creating this type of hard-boundary forces people to seek a sense of escapism and forces you to live in a constant state of competition between the two – instead, what I advocate for is a permeable boundary between these so-called lives. Think about it, when you love what you do – this in-turn enriches your professional and private life, your two roles should influence each other to create the life you want. If you’re looking at work as a place of a pay-check, I believe you’re doing yourself a disservice, instead what I urge myself and my team to do, is do what they love to do everyday, to create the life experience they want – this allows them and myself to build a life we’re excited to experience. For example, most days I leave work at 5pm to spend time with my 1.5 year old son before he sleeps, to me finding balance isn’t rooted in equal hours per-say, instead it’s in finding harmony between the experiences that bring me joy – this blend enables me to build meaningful engagement between the relationships and responsibilities that make up my life.
What’s your go-to podcast or publication?
It’s no surprise to anyone who knows me, I’m a big advocate of Monday.com so it’s only natural that it will be their podcast, “Startup for Startup”.
