Real success stories.
Remarkable results.
Business owners across Israel share their success stories — and how NIRMAKO's peer advisory board Israel program transformed the way they lead, decide, and grow.
NIRMAKO is the official TAB (The Alternative Board) partner in Israel, led by business coach Nir Makovsky. The success stories on this page come from real members of the peer advisory board Israel program. Moreover, TAB connects CEOs and business owners from non-competing industries who meet monthly to share challenges, exchange ideas, and hold one another accountable. In addition, every member receives individual coaching sessions. Therefore, these success stories represent authentic voices from real estate investment, industrial design, language localization, B2B marketing technology, structural engineering, event planning, and R&D innovation — including nine technical founders who used TAB's peer board, one-on-one coaching, and proprietary tools such as STRATPRO, HI-MAP, and the Business Builder's Blueprint to evolve from technical expert into empowered CEO.
Josh Rothstein
"Makovsky is both a friend and an investor. When I told him I wanted a board to share ideas with—he showed me TAB. I joined immediately and found a lot of value."
Josh Rothstein founded CSP Investments in 2014 in Florida with one goal: build a business that lives by cash flow and generates passive income for himself and his investors. Although Israeli, he chose the US market because its real-estate yields—around eight percent—far outpace Israeli rates of one to four percent.
Furthermore, his portfolio now spans residential and commercial properties in Florida, New York, South Carolina, Indiana, Ohio, and Oklahoma, managed by a team of thirty to forty people. Rothstein's speciality is upgrading properties: buying under market value, renovating, and selling above.
Every investor receives monthly updates and profit distributions. Additionally, Rothstein himself visits the US quarterly to personally inspect all assets.
Rothstein joined the peer advisory board Israel program specifically to connect with business leaders outside real estate. In particular, he values the one-on-one coaching for accountability and the monthly board meetings for diverse perspectives—both of which help him make better decisions and stay on track.
More TAB Member Success Stories
Ziv Goldin founded A2Z-Design after a career in electronics and industrial design—starting with army service and culminating in a degree that led him to build his own innovation studio. As a result, A2Z now provides full-cycle product development: design, engineering, manufacturing, and 3D printing.
Goldin runs a radically open workspace: no silos, no hierarchy—just designers and engineers collaborating in the same room. Indeed, he credits this environment with the team's year-over-year improvements in speed and quality. His guiding principle: "There is no such thing as impossible."
As CEO of a small company, Goldin lacked the formal board of directors that larger companies use for strategic guidance. Therefore, joining the peer advisory board Israel program filled that gap. He describes the group accountability as a "social incentive" that keeps him disciplined on goals—and the cross-industry perspectives constantly expand his thinking.
Batia co-founded Q-Lingua in 2016, bringing together a career in international business development and a lifelong love of language. Furthermore, the company translates from Hebrew into 15 languages and from English into all languages—while also producing content for user manuals, marketing materials, and more.
Q-Lingua's model centers on dedicated project managers who become experts in each client's voice and terminology. As a result, 70–80% of business comes from returning clients and referrals. Moreover, the company functions as its clients' in-house language department.
Nir Makovsky had been Batia's mentor before recommending the peer advisory board Israel program at a pivotal moment in her business. Indeed, she finds the monthly board meetings most valuable—a confidential space to surface dilemmas she can't share with her own team. Additionally, one-on-one coaching keeps her accountable to an achievable plan.
Yaron Shifman built Swayhly to solve one of the hardest problems in B2B: consistent deal flow. Through account-based marketing strategies, Swayhly helps companies systematically reach ideal customers and generate qualified pipeline—without relying solely on personal outreach or referrals.
His approach is data-driven and scalable, designed for founders and sales leaders who want growth that doesn't require them to be "always on."
The peer advisory board Israel program gave Yaron a structured forum to pressure-test his strategies with fellow business owners from different industries. Furthermore, the combination of monthly group sessions and individual coaching with Nir Makovsky accelerated his decision-making and kept his growth roadmap on track.
The Strategic Blueprint: From Technical Expert to Empowered CEO
Nine exceptional engineers, marketers, event planners, and developers launched businesses on their technical brilliance — then hit the founder's paradox: mastering the trade is not the same as mastering the business. Here is how each one engineered the shift from doer to leader with The Alternative Board.
Mastering the Trade vs. Mastering the Business
You are an exceptional technician who successfully launched a business on that expertise. But at a certain scale, technical brilliance is no longer enough. Growth plateaus, isolation sets in, and the sheer mechanics of running an organization become overwhelming. The shift to CEO means you stop doing the work that made you successful and start building the infrastructure that lets others succeed.
"Running a business is a whole other skill than knowing your trade. And I had absolutely no idea how to run a business." — Frankwin Hooglander, Treasure Valley Solutions
| The Technical Founder | The TAB-Empowered CEO |
|---|---|
| The trade — solving client problems | The organization — building systems to solve client problems |
| Reactive, "DIY-ing" everything | Proactive, strategic delegation |
| Sharing for sharing's sake | Structured, intentional accountability |
| Enduring the shock of a crisis | Deploying pre-existing risk-mitigation strategies |
| Isolated, project-by-project perspective | Supported by a board, viewing the big picture |
"TAB played such a big part in our succession planning. The board has been an anchor — they care about me and my journey, not just my business."
When majority owner John Hart stepped back, he recommended Kristi take his TAB seat. The Board — intimately familiar with Peak's history — anchored institutional knowledge, accountability, objective guidance, and emotional support to guide her through the daunting execution of succession.
"Everything in my risk-management strategy was something I leveraged during the pandemic."
Years before COVID, Jennifer's TAB Board helped her build a strategic plan with a dedicated risk-management component. When the event industry vanished overnight, that plan served as the exact roadmap to survive with zero layoffs or furloughs.
"Small changes in management style yield massive operational savings."
Kevin deployed TAB's High-Impact Manager Accelerator Program (HI-MAP). The structured coaching fit his engineering brain perfectly, giving him precise tools to set crystal-clear expectations — transforming meetings from updates into strategic assets and saving substantial time and money.
"Everybody feels their opinion is heard and that we'll win together as a team. It makes everyone much more personally invested."
Lindsey used StratPro to solidify her brand culture. By involving the entire staff in setting Key Performance Indicators, the team finally understood the "why" behind their daily actions — achieving total organizational buy-in.
"I imagine most other business owners would never even know where to start to create that themselves."
Matt deployed the Business Builder's Blueprint (BBB). This centralized platform transformed a disjointed staff into a tight-knit team by clearly mapping accountability, defining the mission, and prioritizing Critical Success Factors.
"I'm a great estimator, but that doesn't mean I know everything about running a business. I've become more of a CEO than an owner-operator."
Michael leveraged his TAB Peer Board to gather tactics outside his industry. Peers provided proven blueprints for remote-work policies and LinkedIn recruiting strategies to staff his new Raleigh and Charlotte offices.
"My partner and I pretty much DIYed everything. The challenge is really delegating a lot of the things I now spend my day doing."
Board and facilitator coaching helped Mike introspectively identify his strengths, delegate administrative tasks, and start treating his 45-employee R&D firm like a business rather than a series of completed contracts — shifting his time from DIY accounting and HR to strategic vision and next-gen leadership.
"Early success brought severe growing pains. Then I realized these amazing business owners struggle with the same things I do."
After grossing over $1M in year two and being named Idaho's Best Home Audio Video Business, the Hooglanders hit a hiring and retention wall. The collective experience of their TAB Board provided a playbook for employee retention — proving even hyper-successful startups need external navigational support.
"My TAB Board made me understand: recognize the problem, fix it, and move on."
With a goal to scale to 200 employees, Tom was reluctant to make tough personnel calls. The Board guided him through hiring a President so he could elevate to CEO, provided the accountability to make hard changes, and warned against cutting his way into growth.
The TAB Ecosystem: Peer Board · 1-on-1 Coaching · Proprietary Tools
Single-point solutions fail because business challenges are interconnected. You cannot fix a hiring problem without a unified vision, and you cannot build a vision without the time management to step back from daily operations. The peer advisory board Israel program brings together objective peer advice, introspective one-on-one coaching, and proprietary tools — STRATPRO, HI-MAP, and the Business Builder's Blueprint — into the complete, interlocking ecosystem required to engineer total business transformation.
"You know your trade. It's time to master your business."
Learn More: Peer Advisory Board Israel & Beyond
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