Techstars Atlanta: Get to Know Joonko

Techstars Atlanta, in partnership with Cox Enterprises, selected 10 companies to participate in the program's 2016 class. Applications for the 10 coveted spots came from around the globe, including 69 countries and six continents.

Joonko is one of the 10 participants. Identify and solve gender bias in your workplace, as it happens!

Get to know the Joonko team.

What excites you about Techstars?

It’s hard to explain why Techstars excites us. We could say it’s about the mentors, or the personal touch or maybe just being part of a unique group of people. At the end of the day, we think that “excites” is not the right word. We look at Techstars Atlanta as the stage where we’re actually transforming and shaping our company - from selling a product to selling value, from being founders to becoming a team, from having a dream to making a reality. We’re on the path to change the world, and Techstars is our first big step.

How did you hear about Techstars?

We heard quite a lot about Techstars in the past, through friends and peers in the Israeli Tech industry. We heard about Techstars Atlanta through an Israeli Techstars alumni, who mentioned that the program’s managing director (Michael Cohn) was coming to Israel and we should meet him. From there, the rest is history.

What do you hope to learn/take away from Techstars Atlanta?

We want to learn as much as Techstars Atlanta can offer and take away new lifetime friends.

How did you come up with the idea for your company?

We actually worked on a different product for about seven months, but decided to move on as we lacked the passion and personal connection to the idea. Once we decided that, each one of us had to bring another idea, one that he has a personal connection to. One evening, Ilit and Guy watched a documentary about gender discrimination in the Israeli workplace, and Guy suggested we do something about that. Ilit immediately agreed, working 13 years in tech industry and experiencing first-hand what it meant to be a “Woman in Tech.” From there, it took us 2.5 months of brainstorming until we found the right approach on how to solve this issue, and after about 9 different ideas we came to the data-driven approach. That’s it.

Are there any entrepreneurs or business leaders who inspire you?

Mark Benioff would probably be the first one that comes to mind. While his success with Salesforce is phenomenal, we see his brave stand and leadership for diversity and equality as our true source of inspiration.

What did you know about Atlanta before relocating for the program?

We actually didn’t know anything about Atlanta. During the application process, we learned that it has a high concentration of Fortune 500 companies, a Jewish community of 70K people, similar weather to Israel and great southern comfort food.

What’s the one piece of technology or app that you can’t live without?

If you ask Ilit, our CEO, it’ll probably be anything by Apple. If you ask Guy, our CTO, it’ll probably be his hardcore gamers’ laptop. If you ask Elad, our CMO, it’ll probably be Nike+ running app.

Where was your company founded?

We originally founded our company in Hod Hasharon, which is outside of Tel Aviv. Today, our company is based in Atlanta.

Who can use your product?

We sell our product mostly to senior HR and Diversity managers and occasionally to COOs/CEOs, but our product is meant to be used by all of the enterprise’s employees - from entry level to executives.

Located at Ponce City Market, Techstars Atlanta provides 90 days of rapid acceleration to boost entrepreneurs’ early stage business and product development efforts through focused education, mentorship and funding.

Techstars is a global ecosystem that empowers entrepreneurs to bring new technologies to market wherever they choose to live. With dozens of mentorship-driven accelerator programs and thousands of community programs worldwide, Techstars exists to support the world's most promising entrepreneurs throughout their lifelong journey, from inspiration to IPO. Techstars provides access to tens of thousands of community leaders, founders, mentors, investors, and corporate partners, allowing entrepreneurs to accelerate the pace of innovation and do more faster.