Scroll-Stopping Success: An Olah's Path to a Million Dollar TikTok Agency

Gili Fleekop's remarkable story of building Pink Chili in Israel demonstrates how embracing cultural challenges, networking relentlessly, and having unwavering self-belief can create a thriving business in a new country.

Pink Chili

Who are you and what's your business?

I'm Gili Fleekop, originally from Philadelphia, moved to Israel six and a half years ago. I started my career working in-house on a marketing team within a tech company, managing their global social media accounts. I learned a lot during that experience and eventually left my full-time job to start a TikTok marketing agency called Pink Chili. Essentially, what Pink Chili does is specialize in TikTok marketing for tech companies. Big tech companies outsource their social media to us, and we do everything from strategy, ideation, content calendars, filming, editing, uploading, managing, and really making sure they have spicy social media. That's why we named it Pink Chili. What we deliver is scroll-stopping content—content that pierces through the noise, tells their stories, and shows the unique value proposition of these tech companies. Most of our clients are really big tech companies because we found a nice product-market fit there. We've also worked with tiny startups and solopreneurs, but mainly we focus on large tech companies that happen to be global. Some have sites in Israel, some are Israeli-founded. That's a little bit about me and my business.

What inspired you to make Aliyah and did you always know you wanted to start a business in Israel?

I grew up with an Israeli mom and an American dad, so I always had this love of Israel deep within me from a very young age. My mom would always speak Hebrew to us, play Israeli music around the house, and serve us Bamba. I remember bringing Israeli snacks to school, and I was always counting down the days until our next trip to Israel to visit our extended family. I was really, really proud to say that I was Israeli and that I had Israeli roots, so it was no shock to anyone that I would try to get to Israel at every opportunity. Any chance I could have to go to Israel—I staffed a Birthright trip, studied abroad here, came during summers—I really tried to visit as much as possible.

It's funny because I never really thought I was going to start a business. Looking back, I don't think it was a clear path, but I was always a leader, very opinionated, and very creative. It was like this perfect mixture of ingredients that led to my entrepreneurship journey. I think at a certain point, even if you don't know what the word "entrepreneur" means or what it actually means to start a business, if you're a natural-born leader with passion, creativity, ambition, and drive, you figure out a way to build, create, and lead.

That's kind of what happened to me. I just downloaded TikTok for fun when I was working at my first job in tech. I was posting on nights and weekends, and that was my first mini-attempt at entrepreneurship—creating content that was entirely mine, with no approval processes, from start to finish. I started growing on TikTok so much that people began coming to me asking for advice on their content, and that's what led to me finding and starting Pink Chili. It all started as a fun passion project of posting on TikTok, and then little did I know I would turn that hobby into a fully functioning business.

It all began when I was posting on TikTok for fun, and companies would message me saying, "Hey, can we pick your brain about how we should be on TikTok?" I thought, "Wait, what? People actually want to learn how to create TikToks at scale for a company?" That's when the light bulb clicked. Also, the TikToks I was making for fun while fully employed on a marketing team were bringing in millions of views for my company and driving CVs in. I was noticing that every TikTok I posted was reaching 100,000, 200,000, 300,000 people. This was a really powerful marketing platform that nobody was really using. I was using it for the company I worked at and for my personal needs, but it was this untapped market that gave me an "aha" moment—no one was really doing this, and I could be one of the first to get in there.

What were the biggest cultural or logistical challenges you faced as an Oleh starting a business in Israel?

Luckily, I have an incredible co-founder named Noam. She's Israeli, and I could not have built my business without her. She handles all of our finance, accounting, payroll, and administrative work. It's really hard for me to manage the admin side of Pink Chili because it's all in Hebrew, and I really struggle with reading and writing Hebrew. Logistically, that has been tricky, but fortunately, I have Noam to help me.

Culturally, being in a room with Israeli entrepreneurs or decision-makers and knowing how to negotiate has been challenging. Many Israeli clients will ask for flexibility on price, which I found was different from the culture I came from. Learning to navigate those rooms with decision-makers who come from a different culture, who learned business differently because of their experiences in the army or growing up in Israel—that's been a learning curve for me.

Did your background or previous experience help you, or did you have to reinvent yourself in a new industry?

I think it was a mixture. Working at ironSource those first few years after moving to Israel molded me and taught me the basics of marketing, tech marketing, and professionalism—knowing how to flesh out ideas, think strategically, and be creative in everything you do.

But I did have to reinvent myself quite a bit. With Pink Chili and the early stages of getting clients, I had to brand myself as the TikTok expert at a time when TikTok was new. I had to quickly and credibly tell people, "I'm an expert here. I know what I'm doing, and TikTok is going to be an extremely important marketing platform." It took a lot of branding, building credibility, teaching people, and educating tech companies on why they should invest in TikTok.

How did you get your first customers or clients? Was there a moment when you realized, 'This is really working'?

Getting the first clients was definitely the hardest. Noam and I realized that we needed to be fiercely confident and say everything with conviction until someone took us seriously. Many people in the beginning tried to convince us to work for free, saying things like, "Come do TikToks for us so you can build your portfolio." We never said yes to that. We knew we were experts. We knew we deeply understood TikTok, video marketing, and short-form content.

It was a matter of time—a numbers game. If we spoke to enough potential customers, one or two had to say yes and believe in us. So we kept pitching people, going to events, networking, posting on LinkedIn and TikTok, and really branding ourselves.

After getting our first client, we decided to try a different approach. Instead of chasing clients, we'd bring them to us. We planned an event teaching tech marketers why TikTok was important. I reached out to social media people at companies like Monday.com, Wix, and Lightrix, asking if they wanted to speak on our panel. Everyone loves speaking on panels and getting publicity, so it was pretty easy to organize. I asked a local nonprofit, Nefesh B'Nefesh, if they could host us, and we managed to get 200 people to attend.

Noam and I used that opportunity to emphasize the importance of TikTok marketing. One of our first big clients was sitting in that audience, listening to our presentation and thinking, "Wow, we should get on this." That's how we got our first major client. Then they told their friends, and it became mostly word-of-mouth from there. Once you really impress one big tech company, they tell someone else, and it created a domino effect of signing clients really fast.

About a year to a year and a half into our business, we reached full capacity. We had to hire more people because companies were chasing us down, knocking on our door. We had so much demand that we couldn't keep up with the supply. That was the moment when I felt, "OK, we did this."

How did Israel's unique business environment—its startup culture, bureaucracy, or community—impact your journey?

Israel's unique business environment shaped me as an entrepreneur. I've grown here over the past seven years, and Israel's DNA has shaped me into the tech entrepreneur I am. I'm confident, fierce, bold, hardworking, and ambitious. "No" is not an option in Israel. I always say, if someone closes the door, you try the window.

Israel is surrounded by enemies on all sides. There are no natural resources here. Despite all of that, we build, we create, we go against all odds. We don't just survive; we thrive. That's really the DNA that I applied to myself and to Pink Chili.

Despite being a first-time entrepreneur with no experience, never having signed a client, never having negotiated a deal, never really understanding business models, cash flow, P&L, or mapping out quarterly goals—we did it. Everything we said we'd do, we just did it. I have a philosophy: we say what our goal is, we write it down, and we make it happen. Every goal we've set for ourselves, we've hit. We've reached over a million dollars in total revenue, which was a major milestone. We once made a list of dream clients, approached them, and were able to sign one or two from our list.

Israel taught me that you go after what you want, you build, you make it work, you figure it out, and you don't let anyone tell you no.

How is your business doing?

We've become a Chevrat Ba'am, which is like the highest bracket. We're an LTD. We've been profitable from day one, and we're seeing very healthy numbers. I won't share the exact annual or monthly revenue, but it's profitable, healthy, and growing. I'm really proud of what we've built—the system, the brand, the fact that I can pay the salaries of myself, my co-founder, and multiple freelancers. We have one full-time employee and five freelancers who work with us on a monthly basis.

It's really awesome to know that we help a lot of people—many families have income through Pink Chili, which is honestly the biggest win you could ever have in a business. Knowing that you're supporting the economy, supporting families, supporting individual people—it's really exciting.

What was the biggest mistake new entrepreneurs make?

I would say the biggest mistake is doing too much research before starting a business. I know that's really counterintuitive because everyone says, "Do research, do research." But many people get stuck in what I call "the armchair dilemma"—they sit in a chair trying to research everything and think of every possible challenge. If you don't just go out, try, test, try to sell something, learn from it, and send a quote, you're going to be stuck in that armchair forever.

My biggest piece of advice is honestly just to do it. I know it sounds simple, but just try. You're going to fail, you're going to learn, and you're never going to sit in an armchair and come up with the perfect business model with your exact ideal customer profile, target audience, and revenue model. It's going to take trial and error, failing, making mistakes, and learning from them.

Having the courage to start is as simple as opening a Google Doc and writing down what you want to start doing today, breaking your goals and tasks into bite-sized, approachable, manageable pieces. In the beginning of Pink Chili, it was just making a template for price quotes, making one LinkedIn post a day, or writing one paragraph for my website. That's a much more realistic and less intimidating way to start a business. So "just do it" would be my biggest advice.

What role has the Olim community or Israeli networking culture played in your success?

The Olim community and Israeli networking culture have been crucial. One thing that really helped me was that in Israel, "coffee" is a verb—"let's coffee." It's perfectly normal to get coffee at 2 PM on a Tuesday in the middle of a workday because it's considered work. I always say your network is your net worth. The people you know will actually be the most significant factor in whether you succeed or not, and I found that to be true here.

Israel shaped me into a networking enthusiast because I love sitting down, learning what people do, asking questions, and picking their brains with no intention of getting anything out of that coffee—just to learn, connect, and form meaningful relationships. In my first year of business, I was probably having coffee meetings six or seven times a week. It really helped me drive the business, bring leads into my sales funnel, and get my name into conversations.

When you have coffee with someone like me, even if it's just for fun, you go back to your office and say, "I just met this girl who's doing TikTok marketing." Then one thing leads to another, and someone might say, "I know someone who needs a TikTok marketer." That's how you generate business. You have to put your face and name out there. You have to give a lot of value. I would give free advice, have coffee all day long every week, teach people about TikTok, and answer their questions and concerns. It was honestly a really smart approach, and I recommend other people lean into the networking and coffee culture here.

What's next for your business, and what's your long-term vision for its growth?

I want to turn Pink Chili into a product. Currently, I'm in the service-based industry, which is great, but I want to "build once and sell twice." I really want to develop some sort of product, software, or tool that I can build out of the back end of my business—something that can sell itself. I also see myself doing a lot of public speaking, workshops, and consulting, maybe slowly moving away from doing TikTok for people to teaching people how to do it themselves.

What advice would you give an Oleh/Olah thinking about starting a business here?

First: Believe in yourself!

Second: I really believe in the law of attraction. If you're on a date with someone or getting coffee with someone you want to become friends with, and you sit down giving off desperate energy (sorry for being a bit abrasive), the person's going to feel it and think, "Why are they so desperate? What's the catch?"

In general, if you don't believe in yourself, how is the person sitting across from you going to believe in you? If you're going to start a business, do it with your full heart and believe in yourself, even on the days when you think you're an imposter and won't be able to pull it off. I promise you, you will.

More than that, if you really, deeply believe in yourself, you're going to succeed no matter what. If you show up to a call with that first client or prospect and you believe in yourself, they're going to believe in you too. The future of your success comes down to many things, but I really do think it comes down to how much you believe in yourself. You have to be fiercely confident—that's my biggest piece of advice.

To learn more about Pink Chili, please visit https://www.pinkchili.io/

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