Faces Of The Startup Nation: Q&A With Mobli Mogul Moshe Hogeg

Moshe Hogeg is the CEO and founder of the real-time visual medial platform Mobli, which has brought you apps like Yo!, the messenger app that went viral, and Mirage, a Snapchat rival. Moshe is also the founder of venture capital firm Singulariteam that has offices around the globe, funding startups like StoreDot and META. Moshe hails from the desert city of Beersheva, Israel, and currently resides in Tel Aviv.

What is your biggest inspiration? Elon Musk, since he’s changing the world on several fronts. I admire his professionalism and versatility. He is extremely sharp in many areas that usually conflict with one another – it is an amazing thing to see.

Bar Refaeli or Gal Gadot? Gal Gadot, since she’s more ‘Israeli’ in my eyes. She’s more my taste. Bar Refaeli wears sunglasses and a bikini, Gal Gadot is cool! She drives fast cars and she’s Wonder Woman! With a Sword!

Who is the one person, past or present, you’d love to have dinner with? I’d love to have dinner with Albert Einstein. He seems like a fascinating person. I would love to discuss philosophy, math, life… Just listen and learn.

If you were a selfie, what would you look like?

Falafel or shawarma? Shawarma. I’m a meat lover.

Tel Aviv or New York? I spent three years in New York and now I live in Tel Aviv. Generally, the fact that I left New York to go back to Tel Aviv says I prefer the latter, however, if you have an anchor in New York, it makes doing business in Tel Aviv easier. The two cities are very connected as far as Israeli business goes. I would rather live in Tel Aviv and do business in New York. I had fun living there.

What are some of your favorite weekend activities? Nothing. My favorite thing to do on the weekend is nothing. I do so much during the week that on the weekends I do nothing. All of my hobbies I do over the week. On weekends I’m a couch potato, with my kid and family.

What’s your homepage? http://www.singulariteam.com/

The Mobli team

What’s your hidden talent? I play piano. I love playing Israeli music.

Star Wars or Star Trek? I’m a Star Trek person. It’s more tech-oriented. It’s still sci-fi, but it has a realistic foundation. It’s closer to our world and it is very inspiring. It feels much closer than Star Wars.

What are you addicted to? My job, soccer and my two-year-old son.

Who was your first celebrity crush? As a kid I was in love with Alyssa Milano from ‘Who’s the Boss?’

Milano on ‘Who’s the Boss’

What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken? The biggest risk I ever took was becoming an entrepreneur. I’m in the risk-taking business and take risks daily. Looking back… I was an officer in the army with a very clear path – and it’s not like I came from rich family. Leaving that, without knowing where you’re going, was a meaningful decision. It was giving up everything for something unknown.

What were your first steps in the business world? My first steps in the business world were due to my love of soccer. In 2006, there was a game in which Barcelona’s coach wouldn’t let Lionel Messi play, and the fans were outraged. That gave me the idea to create a platform for crowdsourcing coaching. Eventually, that led to a platform called Web2Sport, where the fans could influence coaching decisions for a third-league team in Israel. It was a great platform with a lot of fans, but I made a lot of mistakes building it. But that’s fine, I learned from all of them.

If you weren’t an entrepreneur, what would you be? I find it hard to imagine myself doing anything else… But definitely something creative. Maybe an artist.

If you could be a movie character, who would you be? I’m trying to decide between Iron Man, Batman and Spider-Man. I love superheroes. Iron-Man is all science and Spider-Man is all supernatural, while Batman is a little bit of both. Who doesn’t think about building an Iron Man armor? We actually have a robotics company that we keep asking to develop something like that, and we’re also invested in META, that developed Iron-Man-like AR glasses.

What’s the best advice you ever got from your parents? If there was one mantra that repeated itself it was “there’s no such thing as ‘can’t.’” Kids always say they can’t do things. I was taught that there’s no such thing as ‘can’t’ there’s only ‘I don’t want to.’

What’s your favorite Hebrew word? Yo. Even though that works in almost any language.

NoCamels “Faces of the Startup Nation” features the leading entrepreneurs, innovators, investors and visionaries to give you an exclusive peak into the movers and shakers of Israel’s innovation scene. If you want to suggest a “Face”,  write us in the comments below!