America is not one market.
That’s why money didn’t buy it — and more won’t.
I’m Lawrence Tepperman — I have completed two nine-figure exits, raised over $100M and am currently the CEO of Berkeley Payments.
Israeli companies do not fail due to inadequate funding. They fail because they ran an Israeli strategy against an American buying process; and spending more just buys a more expensive version of the same result. I work with two or three companies at a time on the part that is actually broken.
Ideal for Israeli B2B companies — not government, not consumer.
Beyond that the strategy is agnostic: industry, sector and size don’t change it.
Two steps — a 13-week build of your U.S. growth engine, then I stay in and run it with you.
The asset is real. The go-to-market is the gap.
A product enterprises already pay for — and renew — in your home market.
U.S. revenue that traces back to a handful of personal relationships, not a repeatable sales process.
A pitch aimed at the wrong buyer — the one who evaluates, not the one who feels the pain.
No system connecting strategy, deliverables, CRM and weekly numbers — so effort doesn’t compound.
None of that is a funding problem. I don’t fix your product — I build the machine that puts it in front of the U.S. buyer who needs it, and we run that machine together until it compounds.
America is not one market. It’s dozens — and they don’t buy alike.
In Israel you can meet the entire market. You know who matters, and a warm introduction reaches almost anyone. Founders carry that instinct to the United States and it quietly fails. A hospital system in Nashville, a regional bank in Charlotte and a software company in San Francisco share a language and almost nothing else — different procurement, different risk tolerance, different proof requirements, different sales cycles, different price expectations. Treating them as one market is the single most expensive assumption an Israeli company makes, and it is expensive precisely because more budget makes it worse rather than better.
Choose the America you’re selling to
Region, vertical, company size and channel each behave like a separate country. Winning one does not mean you can win the next. We pick deliberately and sequence the entry, instead of spraying a round across a continent and calling the result a test.
How Americans actually buy
Champion, economic buyer, security review, procurement, legal — and a reference call you never hear about. U.S. enterprises buy through a process. If the way you sell does not map to that process, you stall indefinitely at “great meeting, send me something.”
How you have to sell there
Americans buy proof, not potential: customers who are American companies, numbers a champion can defend internally, and a reason to move this quarter. The pitch that lands in Tel Aviv frequently reads as under-baked in Chicago — same slides, different verdict.
Why spending more doesn’t solve it
Most Israeli companies buy their U.S. education with a $300K–$500K hire and a year of runway, then learn the sales process did not work. The constraint was never the size of the cheque. There is a cheaper order of operations: prove the sales process first, then hire into something that is already working.
You’re not hiring a consultant. You’re hiring someone who has already done it.
Most people selling U.S. go-to-market advice have never personally carried a U.S. number. I have built companies, scaled them into the United States, and sold two of them for nine figures. I still run one today.
I made Aliyah in 2022, and Israel is home now. I am not looking for consulting work — I run a payments company, I sit on boards, and I invest. GrowthMatters exists because U.S. market entry is the problem I have spent my career solving, and I would rather help a few Israeli companies get it right — without spending a fortune to learn it the hard way — than write about it. That is why I take on two or three at a time, and no more.
Earlier: BMO Financial Group, Capgemini Ernst & Young, Deloitte Consulting, SAS Institute. MBA in Finance & Strategy, Schulich School of Business (York University); BA in Finance & Economics, Western University. Canadian-born, made Aliyah in 2022, based in Israel and working North American hours.
A dollar of U.S. revenue is worth far more than a dollar from anywhere else in the world.
This is the part founders underestimate. U.S. revenue does not just grow the business — it re-rates it. The acquirers and the public comparables that set your price are overwhelmingly American, and they underwrite what they recognise: customers in their market, bought through a process they understand, at a scale they believe repeats. Two companies with identical ARR do not receive identical offers. The one with U.S. logos gets the better multiple.
Your buyer is American
The strategic acquirers, the growth funds, and the comparable companies that anchor your valuation sit in the United States. Israeli traction proves the product. U.S. traction proves the ceiling — and the ceiling is what gets paid for.
U.S. revenue strengthens the story
A buyer discounts what they cannot verify. Revenue from a market they know, from logos they can call, in a currency and contract structure they use, carries far less perceived risk — and risk is exactly what a multiple prices.
It compounds into the round after this one
U.S. logos are the reference set for your next raise as much as your eventual sale. Companies that establish U.S. revenue early raise on stronger terms later, because the hardest question in the room is already answered.
I have been on both sides of that table
Twice, at nine figures. I have sat in the diligence room and watched a valuation move on exactly this question. That is not a theory I read — it is the reason I think U.S. entry is the highest-leverage thing most Israeli companies are getting wrong.
Valuation outcomes depend on many factors and nothing here is a prediction, a guarantee, or investment advice. It is a pattern observed across two decades of building, selling, and investing.
Two things have to be true — and the first one is about you, not your company.
The method is agnostic. Industry, sector and size do not change what gets built, and there is exactly one hard boundary: B2B — not government, not consumer. What decides whether this works is the founder’s honest read of their own situation. Both columns matter, and the left one matters first.
Where your head is
- You have already put someone or something into the United States — a hire, a founder on a plane, a reseller, an agency — and it didn’t hold.
- Your U.S. customers, if you have any, all trace back to people you already knew. There was never a second wave.
- You think the gap is know-how, not budget. If your honest answer is “we just need more runway and the right American,” we will not work well together.
- You are willing to be told you are wrong — in week two, about something you were sure of — and to change what you do next.
- The founder or CEO is in the weekly meeting. Not a delegate. U.S. entry is an enterprise-value decision.
Where your company is
- Israeli-founded B2B — not government, not consumer. Beyond that, any industry or sector.
- Real traction at home, and ready to make the U.S. the next market.
- Funded or self-funding — typically seed to Series B, or growth stage, with cash to fund a sales process rather than just a hire.
- A product enterprises already pay for and keep renewing.
- The constraint is U.S. distribution, not the technology.
- Founder- or CEO-led, lean, and ready to commit to a 13-week engagement.
- Open to aligned, outcome-based terms — not just buying hours.
I take on two or three companies at a time. If most of the left column is true, we should talk — even if part of the right column isn’t yet. The cases where I say no are written down here.
Operator-led. The system we run ourselves.
My own record is above, and none of it is anonymous. These are recent client engagements — anonymized because the agreements require it, not because there is nothing to point to. Names, metrics and outcomes are shared under NDA on request.
From demo to a real U.S. sales engine
Full acceleration: competitive teardown, per-segment ICPs and messaging, a 13-week operating plan and tracker, ~20 deliverables, CRM pipeline, and an AI-ready site rebuild — the whole system, live.
Relationship-led to repeatable
A high-converting pilot that hinged on a few personal champions. We reframed the buyer, productized a fixed-price entry pilot, and systematized referrals into a channel the team could run.
From cold start to a clear U.S. plan
They arrived with no U.S. plan at all. In the opening weeks we settled four things: who the American buyer actually is, what message lands with that buyer, how they expect to be sold to, and which slice of the market to go after first. The team went from guessing to a clear order of operations.
Engagement examples are anonymized and illustrative of approach. Specific client names, metrics, and outcomes are shared only under NDA and with client permission.
What I turn down — which you can check without anyone’s permission
Anonymous case studies are the weakest proof a firm can offer. Here is a stronger one: the work I say no to, in public, before anyone asks.
Government and consumer. B2G and B2C are outside the method entirely. Not a preference — a different buying process I have not personally run.
Anyone competing with Berkeley Payments. Branded payment programs, prepaid or virtual card issuing, embedded disbursements in North America. I will tell you in the first conversation.
Founders who are certain. If you already know the answer and want someone to execute it, you do not need me and I will be an expensive irritation.
Fundraising help. I do not raise money for clients and I do not take success fees on capital raised. Commercial revenue only.
Companies where the U.S. is not the binding constraint. If the product or the home market is the real problem, I will say so and decline the engagement.
More than three decision-makers. Below the size where the founder can still change direction inside a week, this does not work.
Two steps. Build the engine — then run it until it works.
Most advisory stops at the plan. This doesn’t. The first step builds the machine. The second is me staying in it with you until the U.S. revenue is real.
Step 1 — Build the U.S. growth engine · 13 weeks
The full system: competitive read, ICP and positioning, the operating plan and tracker, ~20 ready-to-use deliverables, the CRM pipeline and selling process, and an AI-ready site. Three go/no-go gates are built in — the first at week six — so there is a defined place to stop if the position isn’t sharp and buyable.
Step 2 — Operationalize it, and see it through
Where most engagements end, this one continues. I stay in it with you — running the weekly cadence, working the live pipeline, reviewing the numbers every Friday and iterating on what they show — until the U.S. sales process compounds, the team owns it, and the revenue is real.
Aligned to your outcome — not billed by the hour.
We don’t sell time. We take a position in your growth and structure the engagement so we win when you do.
If you don’t grow,
we don’t win.
Phased to your stage
Light cash while you’re pre-scale, stepping up to a market retainer once you’ve raised or grown into it. The structure follows your cash reality.
Skin in the game
An equity component on standard advisory vesting, so our interests and yours point the same direction over the long run.
Paid on revenue we move
Success fees tied to commercial revenue we help you originate and close — earned only when real dollars land in your account.
Engagement terms are illustrative and non-binding; specific structures are set per engagement under definitive agreements. Success fees are scoped to commercial revenue outcomes, not capital-raising activity.
What founders ask before they call
The questions that come up in almost every first conversation with an Israeli founder looking at the United States.
We already tried the U.S. What makes this different?
Isn’t the answer just to hire an American?
Which companies do you work with?
Doesn’t this just take more money?
When is the right moment to start?
Does U.S. revenue actually change our valuation?
What does it cost, and how are you paid?
How is this different from a consultancy or a fractional CRO?
Who is Lawrence Tepperman?
Why only two or three companies at a time
Lawrence Tepperman · CEO, Berkeley Payments · Advisor, GrowthMatters
Berkeley Payments is my day job, and it stays my first priority — I am its CEO. I say that up front because it is the honest answer to how I have time for this, and it is exactly why the number is two or three companies and not ten.
It works because Berkeley already runs on North American hours, and so do I. I made Aliyah in 2022 and Israel is home, but my working day is built around the time zones your U.S. buyers sit in — which means the hours I put into your U.S. sales process are the hours that market is actually open, not leftovers at midnight. You get a fixed weekly cadence you can plan around.
And you get me. Not an engagement manager, not a team of analysts with a template, not a partner who appears at the kickoff and the readout. The person who built and sold the companies is the person in your weekly meeting. That is a real constraint and I would rather name it: I turn work down, timing matters, and I will tell you plainly if the U.S. is not your binding constraint right now — because taking that engagement would waste your money and my reputation.
One firm rule: I do not work with companies that compete with Berkeley Payments. If you are in branded payment programs, prepaid or virtual card issuing, or embedded disbursements in North America, I will tell you in the first conversation that I cannot help you. Anyone who holds an operating role while advising should draw that line — and draw it out loud.
Tell me where you’re stuck. I’ll tell you if I can move it.
A focused first conversation — no deck, no pitch, and you speak to me, not to a salesperson. We’ll pressure-test your U.S. growth constraint and I’ll say plainly whether the Acceleration Model is the right lever, or whether it isn’t.