Entrepreneurship is often framed as a sprint. The narrative is familiar: raise as much as you can, as fast as you can, chase valuation, chase headlines, chase scale. The scoreboard is public and relentless, and founders are pushed to optimize for what looks impressive from the outside.

Those moments can be thrilling. A funding announcement, a big valuation, a splashy partnership. But they are not what entrepreneurship is really about.

At its core, entrepreneurship is about ownership. Ownership of what you build, how you build it and the impact it has on the people and communities around you. That single belief has shaped every major decision I have made since founding my company, Soft2Bet, in 2016.

When we started, we made one defining choice that went against the prevailing wisdom of the startup world: we would grow without external investors. No venture capital, no private equity, no angel rounds. We would build steadily, reinvesting our own revenue and letting the business fund its own ambitions.

On paper, it was a risky decision. It meant no safety net, no war chest to burn through, no cushion to hide mistakes. But it gave us something far more valuable than capital: freedom.

By remaining independent, we kept full control over our direction. We were not building toward a funding cycle or a future exit. We were not optimizing for short-term optics or the next pitch deck. Every decision was anchored to one question: does this make the product better for our customers and the company stronger for our people?

That freedom reshaped everything. It influenced how we grew, how we hired, how we chose partners and which opportunities we walked away from. Independence did not just affect our balance sheet; it became our business model and our culture.

Operating without external funding demands discipline. When you know that every euro you spend is one you earned, you treat it differently. Every hire has to justify their role. Every tool has to prove its value. Every feature has to solve a real problem, not just look good in a demo.

Constraints sharpen focus. They force clarity. They strip away the illusion that growth for its own sake is progress. When you cannot afford distractions, you learn to say no more often than you say yes. You learn that survival and success depend on execution, not on storytelling.

Most importantly, constraints create real ownership. When everything is on you, outcomes matter more than appearances. You cannot hide behind investors, market conditions or the next round. You either build something that works or you do not.

There is another benefit to not fundraising: you gain the space to focus on meaning. Instead of spending months on the road pitching, you spend that time with your team and your customers. You build systems that generate growth from within. You ask not only what you are building, but why it should exist at all.

As the company grew, another belief became just as central to how we operate: leadership is physical.

In recent years, the way companies work has changed dramatically. Remote and hybrid models have opened access to global talent and given people more flexibility in how they live and work. In many cases, these models function well and are here to stay.

But I have also seen what happens when leaders drift too far from the day-to-day reality of their teams. When leadership becomes a series of video calls and email threads, something essential is lost. Energy fades. Culture flattens into transactions. Decisions become abstract, disconnected from the people who live with their consequences.

You can manage people remotely. You can track performance, assign tasks and close projects. But leadership is something different. Leadership is presence.

For me, leadership means being in the room. It means feeling the tension of a difficult decision instead of reading about it in a report. It means catching the rhythm of a team working through a problem together. It means staying late to share a pizza while you brainstorm the next product, the next market, the next big risk.

Those moments do not show up on a dashboard, but they build trust. They create alignment. They turn a group of employees into a team that believes in a shared mission. And they cannot be delegated or replicated in isolation.

That is why, at my company, we believe in working together in person whenever we can. Not as a form of control, but as a commitment to connection. Innovation thrives on shared energy and a sense of common purpose. When leaders show up, they send a clear message: I am here with you, not above you or apart from you.

Showing up is a form of ownership. It is taking responsibility not only for results, but for culture, momentum and morale. It is accepting that you cannot outsource the soul of the company.

Ownership, however, does not stop at the office door. It extends to the world your company touches. Many people see philanthropy as something you do after you have “made it” — a chapter that begins once the pressure eases and the numbers look good.

I believe that mindset misunderstands both business and responsibility. If you wait until everything is perfect before you give back, you never start. And if you treat philanthropy as a side project, it never truly shapes who you are as a company.

From the beginning, we chose a different approach. Philanthropy is not an afterthought for us; it is embedded in how we build. Inside the company, we run charitable initiatives that support our employees’ families and our local communities, from education programs for children to partnerships with schools and organizations that need resources and expertise.

Our team does not just donate to these efforts; they participate in them. They volunteer, mentor and help design initiatives that reflect the values they want to see in the world. This shared involvement turns giving into part of our identity, not a line item in a budget.

This belief in integrated responsibility also led my wife, Yael, and me to establish the Yael Foundation, focused on expanding access to education. The Foundation now operates in dozens of countries, supports more than a hundred educational institutions and reaches tens of thousands of children worldwide. The numbers matter because they represent real lives, but what matters most is the principle behind them.

What matters is integration. When philanthropy is woven into the fabric of the business from the start, it changes how decisions are made. It raises the bar for what “success” means. It attracts people who want their work to matter beyond a paycheck. It reframes growth not as an end in itself, but as a means to create wider impact.

In that model, business becomes the engine. Purpose becomes the direction.

Looking back, the lessons that have mattered most all return to the same core idea of ownership.

Ownership means having the courage to believe in your ability to build before asking others to believe in it. It means accepting constraints and using them to sharpen your focus instead of chasing easy money.

Ownership means understanding that leadership requires presence. You cannot outsource culture. You cannot inspire from a distance. You have to be willing to stand in front of your team when things are hard, not just when they are going well.

Ownership means letting purpose define success. Philanthropy does not follow achievement; it shapes what achievement means. If your company grows but leaves no positive mark on the people it touches, that is not success. It is a missed opportunity.

Entrepreneurship is not a title. It is a mindset. It is the willingness to take responsibility — not just for revenue and profit, but for the environment you create, the standards you set and the impact you leave behind.

Build things that matter. Own them fully. And do it now, not someday.