Yitzchak Abraham is the founder of Cider Consulting, a software development company. Yitzchak came to the US from Eretz Yisrael not knowing a word of English. He first used a computer at the age of 18. Today he speaks English fluently and has built a successful company creating multimillion dollar custom ERP software systems to help companies run more efficiently.
Starting off by creating small programs as a side hustle, Yitzchak took a chance on himself and the gamble paid off. Gradually, he built a company with a reputation for delivering large projects on time and within budget, something that has become less common in the software development industry.
Interestingly, he runs a “remote first” company. Even before Covid, Yitzchak felt his employees could work more efficiently and get into “the flow” of working better at home than at the office. We discussed his software company as well as advice for small business software management. Whether it be the daily meetings with key staff or his daily lessons of Shaar Habitachon, I learned a lot from him.
Enjoy! —Nesanel
I was born in Yerushalayim, the seventh of nine children. I learned in Dushinsky mosdos from cheder until I got married. Both of my parents emigrated from Romania when the Communists opened the gates for six months in 1951; their parents came a few weeks later. Anyone who could take in kids did so, and my father and his two brothers went to Dushinsky.
“Lack of money defined my childhood. We had enough for Shabbos, but we got a lot of our things from the gemach. My siblings and I grew up with a deep fear of poverty that was, and still is, a central consideration of my life. It is the driving force, at least on a personal level, of almost everything I do.
“My father was a sofer; today, he’s retired. I made a decision as a little boy that I was never going to be a sofer. It’s funny because my kids have decided that they never want to go into software, so it’s a cycle.
“My low self-confidence prevented me from becoming noticeably involved in anything public. The only ‘entrepreneurial’ thing I did was manage a choir when I was 17. I am very musical; I started singing in a choir when I was nine, and I am still a baal tefillah.
“I always strived to be the best in the class. I skipped two grades. I began yeshivah gedolah when I was just 15, and I focused heavily on Shulchan Aruch.
“I was 18 when I got married. My wife is also from Yerushalayim, also from the Dushinsky community, and also from a large family. We were living in Yerushalayim, where I was learning in a kollel, but we soon had two children, and I had to put bread on the table. I got a job as a secretary at a school for kids with reading difficulties, and in the evening, I took classes in accounting at a frum college in Yerushalayim. That’s where I used a computer for the first time in my life.
“One course gave us a short lesson in programming, and I was hooked. I went home that night and told my wife that I wanted to go into software development. I studied it and began writing programs. I designed a program that allowed me to complete my full-time secretarial duties in half an hour.
“Different kids have different issues—some have visual problems, some have hearing issues; one child can mix up a beis and a veis, and another can mix up a beis and a chaf. We needed to customize study sheets to each child’s learning difficulty. I used to do it manually, but then I programmed Microsoft Word to format and print them automatically.
“After about 18 months, I became an office manager in an organization for baalei teshuvah. They used a customized Microsoft Access program that managed the entire thing. It was designed by a programmer in the Israeli Air Force who would come to check it for bugs once a month. One day I asked him to grant me access to the source code so I could study it.
“That changed everything for me. He let me start doing the fixes. I heard that other mosdos were looking for ERP programs like this one, so I asked him if I could be a salesman. I made some sales and earned $500 on each one.
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