10 Things You Didn’t Know about Doron Myersdorf

Doron Myersdorf is the CEO of StoreDot. For those who are curious, said company offers fast-charging batteries, which are meant to overcome one of the great barriers to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. Very recently, StoreDot has been in the business news because of its success with its Series D funding round.

1. Went to the Technion

For his education, Myersdorf went to the Technion, which would be the Israel Institute of Technology that can be found in the city of Haifa. Said school is the oldest institution of its kind that can be found in the country, seeing as how it was established in 1912. Furthermore, the Technion has an excellent reputation, so much so that it is considered to be either the best or one of the best schools in the whole of the Middle East. Unsurprisingly, this means that it has contributed a great deal to Israel’s tech industry.

2. Took an Early Interest in Management

A lot of business executives chose to study management at a later point in their career. However, it seems that Myersdorf took an early interest in the subject. This is because he studied industrial engineering management for his bachelor’s degree. After which, Myersdorf went on to study information systems for his master’s degree and then R&D management for his PhD.

3. Tech Industry Veteran

By this point, chances are good that interested individuals can guess that Myersdorf is a tech industry veteran. To name an example of his experiences, he was responsible for building as well as maintaining SanDisk’s SSD business unit in Israel. Before that, he had been a vice president who oversaw annual sourcing worth about $1 billion as well as annual revenues worth more than $1.5 billion. In other words, Myersdorf has plenty of both expertise and experience when it comes to running a tech company.

4. StoreDot Is Not His First Start-Up

Speaking of which, it is important to note that StoreDot isn’t Myersdorf’s first start-up. In fact, it isn’t even his second. After all, Myersdorf was the founder of InnerPresence, a security software company based in Silicon Valley. Similarly, he was a co-founder of Siftology, a company focused on interactive media search. Entrepreneurship always comes with an element of risk. However, experience has a very real effect on its chances of success by making entrepreneurs more capable of navigating potential pitfalls.

5. Has Big Ambitions

Myersdorf and the rest of StoreDot have big ambitions. Simply put, electric vehicles are expected to become more and more important in the future. There is ever-mounting pressure on everyone to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the purpose of reducing the impact of climate change. Much of this focus is on transportation, which includes switching over from conventional vehicles to electric vehicles. StoreDot has made big promises about the capabilities of its electric vehicle batteries. If it can live up to those promises, it could reap huge rewards from the continuing switch from conventional vehicles to electric vehicles.

6. Has Noted Both Range Anxiety and Charging Anxiety

These are well-known facts. However, it is interesting to note that Myersdorf had StoreDot do market research anyways, which is very sensible. Their findings reveal that the widespread adoption of electric vehicles is still being held up by both range anxieties and charging anxieties. These are pretty much what they sound like, which is to say, concern about how far an electric vehicle can go on its battery as well as concern about how long an electric vehicle will have to spend charging up its battery.

7. Has Noted the Need for Infrastructure

Myersdorf has noted the need for infrastructure as well. Essentially, the widespread adoption of electric vehicles will require specific infrastructure to support their use in the same way that there is already specific infrastructure to support the use of their conventional counterparts. StoreDot’s situation is particularly interesting because the extra fast-charging nature of its batteries will require infrastructure that is capable of keeping up with those charging speeds.

8. Believes that Governments Have an Important Role to Play

Unsurprisingly, Myersdorf believes that governments have an important role to play in this whole process. After all, businesses are businesses, meaning that they are run for the purpose of making a profit. As a result, while there is no doubt that utility companies, charging infrastructure companies, and other businesses will play an important role in creating the necessary infrastructure, they are neither able nor willing to cover everything. Thanks to that, there is very much a need for governments to work to ensure that creation of the necessary infrastructure. Something that will be particularly important in places where existing capabilities are already being strained by population growth as well as the increasing use of power-hungry technologies.

9. Believes that Start-Ups Need a Strong Ecosystem of Stakeholders

It is interesting to note that Myersdorf believes that start-ups need to establish a strong ecosystem of stakeholders. He believes that this is particularly important for tech start-ups because of their potential to tunnel-vision. To elaborate, Myersdorf believes that tech start-ups are at-risk of becoming obsessed with making the best possible version of their product based on their own opinions rather than the opinions of the people who are actually meant to make use of it. Something that can do horrible things to a product’s chances of success out on the open market. As far as he is concerned, more feedback from more stakeholders makes it easier for tech start-ups to remain on-track rather than veer off-road because they are focusing on the wrong things.

10. Believes that Start-Ups Need to Think about Practical Considerations As Well

On a somewhat related note, Myersdorf also thinks that tech start-ups need to spend more time working on the practical side of things. One example would be finding a manufacturer that they can work well with because otherwise they won’t actually have anything to sell. Another example would be working to make themselves more attractive as partners, whether by reducing the cost of entry for interested parties or by establishing robust supply chains. Like the previous point, these are fundamentals that can nonetheless have a huge effect on how a start-up is received as well as how a start-up performs in other respects.