| Immigrant entrepreneur: | Tal Frankfurt |
| Company: | Cloud for Good |
| Place of birth: | Israel |
| Employees: | 100 |
Show notes
Tal studied Business Administration and Communications in college, back home in Israel. He came out to the U.S. for a short program and met his wife. He later came out to live in the States at 26 years old and had to go find a job.
But 4 months later he found himself jobless and merely out of a necessity he started his company. Initially, it didn’t even seem like a company because he had no idea what he was doing. Cloud for Good was created over 11 years ago and they offer services that are directly related to what Salesforce.org offers to their non-profit and higher education institutions.
Tal never had any computer science degrees, or a whole lot of experience in the computer science world. But because he had no other choice, he got creative. Cloud for Good is a 3x Salesforce.org Partner of the Year, Certified B-Corp and a 7x Inc. 5000 company that creates transformation value for nonprofit organizations and higher education institutions with Salesforce.
Prior to his involvement with Salesforce, Tal was the Director of Resource Development for a nonprofit organization that worked with at-risk immigrant youth in Israel. He was looking for tools to better manage his donors, participants, and volunteers. It was through this experience that Tal learned about Salesforce. The adoption of Salesforce into his everyday work was what sparked the inception of Cloud for Good.
After 4 months of starting his company he signed a 6 figure contract and it grew rapidly, and all organically. He now operates with amazing and talented 100 employees! Tal is completely self taught, and drops a lot of wise advice to all immigrant entrepreneurs about what he learned along the way in his journey!
Quotes by Tal
I started Cloud for Good as a job, not a business, and it grew from there.
I didnāt raise any capital to start Cloud for Good, and I also donāt have any partners.
It was completely bootstrapped and we just grew organically.
Everyone on my team is Salesforce certified.
Because weāve been doing this for so long, weāve built a lot of assets and accelerators that get our clients up and running faster and reduce the risk in migration.
I donāt have a computer science degree, it was a lot of trial and error.
I get really focused on something, I spend a lot of time on it, thatās just how I operate, until I learn everything about it.
No one thought that virtual is going to work.
The amount of times that Iāve heard, āNo, you cannot do thisā or āNo, itās not going to workā itās just everywhere.
If you really believe in something, go ahead and try it, trust yourself that you can execute it.
If I gave up everytime someone said: āYou cannot do somethingā we would never be where we are today.
When youāre fully virtual you have to be more intentional about who you hire, and how you onboard them and how you measure success.
Listening and learning from other people and other peopleās mistakes is key.
Weāve been consistently writing on our blog at least once a week for a decade.
Iāve made so many mistakes in the last decade.
Yes, take the risk but also, constantly evaluate and donāt be afraid to say, āI made a mistake.ā
I moved here with nothing, and started something really big. I donāt know if I couldāve done that in other places.
Donāt be afraid to start something, just do it!
Where to find Tal
Cloud for Good | LinkedIn | Facebook
Links mentioned
Trailhead virtual training
Vistage (peer support group)
