Since childhood, Ariel Rosenfeld has had a fascination for technology. At the age of 10, he developed his first software for his father’s business. It was from that day forward, he decided to study Industrial and Management Engineering.
In the year 2002, Ariel joined MSystems (nsdq:FLSH, acquired by SanDisk in 2006 for $1.6B). After a short period, he got a lifetime opportunity to be the General Manager of the USB Flash Drive Business unit, in its early stages. Based on his past experiences, he didn’t consider himself qualified for the position, but apparently Dov Moran, the Founder and CEO of M-Systems, and the person who invented the USB Flash Drive thought otherwise. During the next 3 years, Dov and Ariel experienced exponential growth in every aspect – revenues, profit, number of units, size of the organization, and more. He faced many challenges in that period and needed to take many decisions in an uncertain environment.
Later on, 3DSignals was founded in 2015 and Ariel was appointed as the CEO of the company in 2018. He found a lot of similarities between the USB Flash drive division in 2002 and 3DSignals in 2018, both with great vision and an easy but revolutionary to understand concept. Both the companies invested a lot of effort in great technology that created something from scratch created substantial awareness in the market and both had the potential to become a great business as well.
A Sound-based Predictive Maintenance Platform
3DSignals is a pioneer in machine hearing for industrial machines. The mission of 3DSignals is to transform sound, currently an untapped data source, into an attainable resource to better understand machines’ health and help increase their uptime.
3DSignals is a 24/7 end-to-end, condition-based monitoring and predictive maintenance solution. Its patented acoustics-AI proprietary platform listens to the operational signatures of machines with acoustic sensors, collects and processes the high-resolution data through machinelearning algorithms, and generates alerts that lead to critical operational insight. 3DSignals has been recognized worldwide as a groundbreaking solution for monitoring and maintaining industrial equipment and processes.
Sculpting Challenges into Stepping Stones
Ariel has learned a lot, both from his good as well as bad experiences. From every event that he failed in his life, he tried to learn a lesson and to become better for the forthcoming obstacles. From every successful event, instead of celebrating his success he has tried not to be too calm or complacent and understand the efficiency of the process that led to this success, and how he can duplicate it or even improve upon it for the next time.
When introducing a new concept and a disruptive product to the market, Ariel has faced the challenges of skepticism from investors, customers and even employees. Similar to every other challenge that might seem impossible from a first glance, the key for him is to break it down into smaller pieces that are easier to solve and to progress step by step. He believes that a gradual progress is important in order to gain confidence and move to the next step. 3DSignals has a lot of interest from the tier-1 companies in the market. Ariel’s main challenge was, and still is to focus on the best opportunities for this stage, and to excel in the company’s deliveries. He is planning to increase its installation base significantly over the next few months with its existing customers.
Redefining Entrepreneurship
In the last 10 years, Ariel has been running long distances of up to 247kms. He has participated in many races in Israel and worldwide, while some are considered as the most grueling and challenging in the world, some of them he even won. He finds a lot of similarities between the characteristics of a CEO and a long distance runner.
According to him both a CEO and a long-distance runner aim high, create a plan to meet their goals, very determined to achieve their dreams, flexible enough to change plans when needed but not willing to give up even when they face challenges and failures. He has invested lot of time in his hobby but doesn’t see it as a tradeoff for being a CEO, rather as a harmony between the two.
Ariel comes across a plenty of good ideas about his company while jogging, and in general he thinks it makes him a better person, and sharpens his skillset which is required in order to be a successful CEO. Enlightening Upcoming Entrepreneurs As the leader of a company, both internally and externally, Ariel believes that a CEO should be passionate and a visionary on one hand and determined and focused on the other hand. According to him, a CEO should be a role model to his/her employees with the ability to motivate them and understand their needs, and at the same time, ensuring that the customers’ and investors’ requirements are met by the company.
To enlighten upcoming entrepreneurs Ariel asserts that, “As an entrepreneur you’ll probably have a lot of challenging moments, face disappointments and failures, and a lot of uncertainties. Try to accept all of these as part of the experience and you’ll appreciate your success even more.”