Yuval Kaminka, co-founder and CEO of Simply (formerly JoyTunes), on nearly running out of money, losing his co-founder Roey Izkovsky, and taking on Duolingo with an app that teaches piano, guitar, singing, and drawing.
On this episode of Invested, Michael Eisenberg talks with Yuval about the moment Simply ran out of money and even its own investors believed it wouldn't survive. They get into why that near-death experience shaped the company, how it fired a third of its staff and shared the bank account with every employee, and how Simply grew to millions of users.
They also talk about the last few years: Yuval's nephew Yannai, a search-and-rescue officer killed at Zikim on October 7th, and the sudden death of Roey, his co-founder and best friend, at 44. Simply responded by building Harmony, a therapeutic music room at Sheba Medical Center's rehabilitation hospital, and by bringing Simply Draw into the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
Yuval Kaminka is an entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of Simply. He holds an MSc in computational neurobiology from the Weizmann Institute of Science and is a veteran of an elite technology unit. He co-founded JoyTunes (now Simply) with Roey Izkovsky and his brother, the musician Yigal Kaminka. He has built his career around a powerful idea: creating things that matter and elevate people's lives.
KEY TOPICS
00:00 - Intro
01:58 - What Simply Actually Does
05:38 - Out of Money and Written Off
09:25 - Two Principles Born From Crisis
10:35 - Firing a Third of the Company
13:05 - Sharing the Bank Account With Everyone
15:40 - Why Simply Chose to Stall Growth
18:40 - COVID Swapped the Weights for Feathers
22:17 - Free Apps in Times of Crisis
23:23 - From Cyber and Neuroscience to Music
26:08 - Why 90% of Kids Quit Instruments
27:30 - October 7th and the Iran War
31:20 - Remembering Yanai
38:18 - Building the Music Room at Sheba
45:08 - The Music Room That Brought Back Her Voice
47:20 - Simply Draw at the Tel Aviv Museum
49:40 - Losing Co-Founder Roey Izkovsky
55:42 - The Pod Structure Meets AI
59:02 - Building a Company With Family
63:01 - Velocity and Work That Matters
64:45 - Competing With Duolingo
#Invested #Simply #IsraeliTech #Entrepreneurship
RESOURCES
Follow Yuval on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuvalkaminka/
Follow Yuval on X - https://x.com/yuvalkaminka
Learn more about Simply - https://www.hellosimply.com/
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CREDITS
Executive Producer: Erica Marom
Producer: Sofi Levak, Dalit Merenfeld
Video and Editing: Nadav Elovic
Music and Creative Direction: Uri Ar
Content and Editorial: Jackie Goldberg
Design: Nimrod Sapir
