Spotlight on Joongel: Zell 2008 Project
By Joy Pincus

The following article was published in the Herzliyan, winter 2008 issue.

ONE EXCITING PROJECT IN THIS YEAR’S ZELL CLASS is Joongel, a website designed to act as two entities: a one-stop, one-click gateway to all the popular sites in a specific country, and a focused search engine with comparison tool. Joongel is the creation of Dror Ceder and Daniel Tal, two third-year students at the Arison School of Business.

According to Ceder, “About a year ago, Daniel and I discovered that each time we interacted with different, small websites on the Internet, we ended up at the same big websites. We looked for a site that would take us directly to the big websites but couldn’t find any.  ‘Wow!’ we said. ‘It doesn’t exist…we should create it!”

Ceder and Tal, unlike most Zell teams that start working from scratch, have already been working for about a year on their project. So far they have created a platform that allows users to interact with the most popular websites in their country. Currently the platform is created for the US and the UK, and the duo is now working on a Chinese and an Israeli version.

“We now have an IT manager and an interface designer,” explains Ceder. “Currently we are in a status of a private beta testing. And now we are looking to raise funds for next year and are also in negotiations with a company in China that is looking to invest in us.”

The two young entrepreneurs feel they could not be in better hands, says Cedar. “The environment here is so helpful and people are guiding us to start this company and succeed in a new business. We have an endless number of advisors, which is so helpful, and makes us feel that we are in an incubator for startups.”

From their first year at IDC, Tal and Ceder heard about the Zell program, and as they moved on through the years, they became more aware to the potential it offered to its participants. “We came to know people in the program,” says Tal, “so we were aiming for it from the second year. It’s something all students would really like to achieve and we are both thrilled to be part of it.”

Adds Ceder: “It’s an innovative program and every second we spend listening to people and meeting people, we understand more and more the great opportunity we were given….It’s really an incredible program. You really learn a lot and participate and everything is on the highest level. Each day we finish, we say this was the best day so far.”

“We really have the opportunity to combine academic studying and the practical side to its maximum,” emphasized Tal. “We get reviews from the faculty concerning our real life venture. I think this is the first time we can get that chance here at university.”

While the two are looking forward to the trip abroad as a nice ending to the year, they are far more interested in the process they are in now.  “Every day is exciting,” says Ceder. “It never stops. A whole day of work is like a month of work before. And after we finish this year we’re going to join the Zell alumni group - an incredible group of 120 people who have finished the program. We really needed some help at one point, and almost all of them were so helpful – it didn’t matter if they were in London or Europe or the US - they all helped and contacted us. It’s a special group of people we will be happy to join at the end of the year.”

Another major benefit, says Tal, is to be surrounded by twenty motivated classmates. “You get to know everyone intimately and you get treated as a real individual. It’s like a support group that gives you feedback all the time – new ideas about what you have created so far and ideas for future developments.”

Of equal value are the Zell faculty, says Ceder. “It’s just amazing how much the faculty is putting into this program. You see them working day and night for us. The devotion of all the people is extraordinary.”

What lies ahead? According to Tal, “We plan to develop Joongel and maybe we’ll go forward to an MBA, maybe one abroad. But we’re still waiting to see how Joongle will evolve. This will ultimately affect all our plans and the future.”