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Entrepreneurship

Be There and Execute the Plan Every Day

July 1, 2017 By Bobby Voicu

Gelato Dondoli

One question that I get often from newly startup founders is “How do I set my KPIs? How do I know how much money should I make? How do I know how many visitsI should have?”

The answer, this early, is only one: be there every day. The KPIs should be initially related to your execution, not the results. Of course, you will improve, but focus on just doing the thing that needs to be done every day.

How do you get investors to invest?

Well, how about talking to a potential investor every day? Yes, that might mean a 30 minutes talk with a friend you know or a 10 hours search for a contact to get to a person that could invest in you. It’s the same result, though: you got to talk to one person. It doesn’t matter the time it took, that was your KPI: talk to one potential investor every day. As time goes by, you’ll get better at getting contacts, getting better pitches and so on. And it wouldn’t happen if you didn’t talk to so many people until then.

How do I get people to join my startup?

Well, why don’t you try to convince a person every day? Of course, you can learn from each interaction and get a co-founder/employee fast or you could do a half-assed effort and it might take 3 years. Still, by doing it every day, you’ll get better.

How do I get better at blogging? How do I get better at vlogging?

Create a video every day and publish it. Write 500 words every day and publish it. Even if you execute on the plan every day, but you don’t expose yourself to critics and failure, you will not move forward.

That’s it! It is that easy.

Once you do your main job every day, improving on the side things will be easier. It’s easier to get a bigger audience and promote your blog/vlog if you are already creating every day and improving. It’s easier to get someone to join your startup if you already know the answers to their potential questions. And, of course, you will get someone to invest in you once you improve your product, your pitch and your business. But you can’t do anything if you aren’t there every day, honing your skills.

I started going to the gym recently. And Miruna asked what my target is for the 3 months of the program. My answer? I just want to get to the gym every day (it’s a 4 days a week program) and respect the nutrition plan they gave me. I don’t care about anything else. I just want to get back in the habit of exercising and eating well. After that… we’ll see. For the moment, I don’t care about anything else other than being there and executing on it every day.

Oh, what if I fail to appear one day? I continue with the initial plan the next day. Again, and again, until I get it right.
————
The photo from the article is the gelato I’m gonna have once the 3 months are over. Just one. For 3 months. Because I need it! :))

The gelato is from Dondoli’s Gelateria in San Gimignano and, genuinely, it’s one of the best gelatos I’ve ever eaten (and I tested lots of icecream and gelato lately :D )

Subscription Boxes – A great business model :: Newsletter Spotlight

June 9, 2017 By Bobby Voicu

As you know, I send a weekly newsletter with business articles to read, things I find interesting and similar stuff. One of the best-received emails is this one about subscription boxes. I’m putting it here exactly as it was sent because I think it can be interesting for a lot more people than the hundreds subscribed there.

Interesting (for me) is that since then (January 2017) I helped my girlfriend start a subscription box of her own (Miruna’s Illustration Box) and it’s as interesting as a business model as I thought.

Finally, before reading it, consider subscribing to Bobby’s Curated Reading List, as well :)

subscription-boxes-business-model

Hello!

I’ve always had an attraction to things based on subscription (this newsletter is one of those, after all :D ). But an entire business model based on subscriptions? Yeah, baby!

This model is called subscription boxes and I recently recognized that it’s actually a thing. I mean, I knew about Dollar Shave Club (being sold for $1 billion), BirchBox or BlackSocks, but I didn’t know there is an entire business model out there based on this. And there are, actually, about 10,000 different “boxes” sold, from Japanese candy to all kind of toys, books, food and whatever you can imagine.

The business model is this: the customers pay a monthly subscription and they receive a box with stuff. The big thing about this type of business is that you don’t need too much starting capital because, at least in the initial stages, you just buy the things in the box as needed. You don’t have things to store, you don’t have maintenance costs. Almost perfect :)

So, to the links (and read the comments in the reddit threads, as well):

1. The inner workings of a subscription box company
2. Wet Shave Club – 1 year update
3. Ask Me Anything with these guys

These guys started by buying a subscription box business that had a $4000 monthly revenue and they’ve grown it to $350,000 in the first year:

4. Candy Japan crosses $10,000 in monthly revenues

This is a guy that sends Japanese candy all over the world (he also has a book written on the subject of subscription boxes).

5. How I Built a Subscription Business that’s Made over $50k in 6 months

This guy started several businesses with this model (including going through Y Combinator and getting $1,000,000 as investment for one of those).

6. Hot Startup Trend: Boxing Up New Business
7. How an Ordinary Couple Made it Happen with Less than $1,000 and Our Insights on How You Can Too

8. Use Shopify: How to Launch a Subscription Box: Lessons from a Successful Korean Beauty Business
9. From Socks to Sex Toys: Inside America’s Subscription Box Obsession
10. How to Start a Subscription Box Service (Infographic)

There are some more interesting articles above and below, there are some subscription box directories, just so you see how many types there are:

– Hello Subscription

– Subscription Boxes
– Crate Joy

Yeap, lots of links, I know :) But really, it’s that interesting.

Bobby

P.S.: Oh, and don’t forget I might contact you next week to tell you that you won a book (one of these three I’ve written about here). And, also, if you think this email is interesting for somebody else, forward it and tell them to subscribe to this list, please :D

Effective or Efficient, Which One Are You?

June 2, 2017 By Bobby Voicu

Effective vs Efficient

A lot of people pride themselves on being efficient. And this is not bad. Unless you’re efficient about the wrong things. Which means you’re not being effective.

Take this: you have a business selling a hat. And you devise the most efficient marketing plan for selling the hat. But truth is, the hat is bad. SO BAD! And you just spent 3 months creating the best and smoothest marketing plan. And you don’t sell anything. Because people can see that your hat is bad.

Effective = successful in producing a desired or intended result.

Obviously, what you need to do is make a better hat and THEN create the best marketing plan. And, I know, sometimes it’s not that clear.

Basically, what you need to do is to become effective instead of efficient. You’re being effective once you move things forward, once you put your energy in the RIGHT things. Like improving your product. Or creating a great marketing plan ONCE you have the right product.

To sum up, effectiveness is the combination of good efficiency and good prioritizing.
It’s being efficient about the right things.
. Once you have these, all you need to do is put in the work.

Anytime you hear someone saying “I’m very efficient” ask “what about?”. Because you want effective people around you. Those that are efficient about the right things.

A recent example from my own history was when we tested if people wanted to play Solitaire Arena in a very efficient way – time and money wise.

If it’s not “Yes”, look for a fast “No”

May 25, 2017 By Bobby Voicu

Fast No, if it's not Yes

The best answer you can get to any business request/proposal is, obviously, “yes!”. But what’s the second best?

For a long time, I thought that I wanted to hear at least a “maybe”. Or “let’s talk later”. Or “if you do this thing, I might be interested”. Oh, boy, how wrong I was.

If it’s not “yes”, the answer you want to hear is a fast “No!”. And don’t be afraid to ask for it, no matter who you’re talking to. Even if, in the short term, you might lose some deals, you’ll earn a lot of time in the long run.

By getting a fast no, you spend less energy on things that are unlikely to succeed. You will not fill your mind with hope even if it’s pretty clear you won’t get what you want.

If you’re raising money, look for a fast “no” if you can’t get to “yes”. If you’re looking for a deal, the same. You’ll be better for it.

The delusion of investor supported startups

May 12, 2017 By Bobby Voicu

I was reading a Reddit thread the other day. A guy was doing an AMA about his startup and had this to say about it:

As a result of this, we are now a pretty rare breed of business as we started with no finance, no VC Funding etc etc, we did it the hard way and are building it the ground up. We use our profits to grow and have no outside help.

Most of the businesses people build are not VC funded or started with huge financing. Most of the businesses are started with some savings and a lot of time put into growing it. I looked for some information on it and I found the infographic here, that gives you a better image of how people finance their own entrepreneurial endeavors.

I didn’t want to point fingers to this guy, though. He’s not the only one that thinks that most entrepreneurial initiatives are heavily funded by outside investors (especially semi-pro and professional investors, like angels and VCs). There are lots of people that think this (at least in the circles I move and read of). And I think we’re a little deluded. And I say “we’re” because I think I’m also heavily biased toward invested startups, as well. After all, MavenHut raised several rounds and this is how it got to be successful.

What’s wrong with the invested startup delusion?

It’s bad thinking that you can’t really start anything if you don’t have outside investment. That all you need is an idea and someone to put $50k-$100k-$500k-$1M in and you’re set, you’re gonna change the world. Because you should focus on doing something and improving your product. Instead, the wanna-be entrepreneur will waste time running after potential investors, “networking” the hell out of all the events in their immediate (and not so immediate) area and, in general, being annoying. Really, have you ever had a guy that never raised a dollar in his life explain to you how to raise money from VCs? Even if you’ve done this several times in the last years? It really gets on your nerves at some point.

Being annoying aside, even more important is that you deprive yourself of a lot of experiences that will generate the great ideas that will help you get a good company off the ground.

And I talk from my own experience: I started doing “business” online in 2005 with no savings or money whatsoever. I was lucky my sister allowed me to stay in a room in her apartment for a while, but that’s all I had going for me. I looked for work on what is now Upwork, this helped me understand SEO, that helped me understand WordPress, that started me on blogging, that led to a car blog that I wanted to monetize through a racing game that went nowhere. All this took about 6 years. By the beginning of 2012, I started a new project, a platform for 1 vs 1 single player games, with 2 guys that I worked with at the second version of the racing game I told you about. The project would later become Solitaire Arena and MavenHut. Without a doubt, the final result changed my life a lot for the better.

My entire online experience came from starting “something” online without any kind of financing. Yes, MavenHut was eventually financed by a VC and I’m happy for it. I still think starting an investor supported startup should be the natural evolution of your experience with entrepreneurship, not the start of it.

The next time you hear someone saying they just need a “small” investment and they’ll change the world, slap them across the head and send them to ask for investment from their close friends and family (the talked about FFF, the third being fools). If they can’t convince someone that knows them and should trust them, why do they lose time trying to convince someone they don’t know?

Finally, I know this won’t change, people will still dream about the VC fairy instead of just doing something with the resources they have. But if I get to convince at least 1 person to start anything, my job’s done ;)

Oh, and a plug for my Curated Reading List, where I often add articles about bootstrapped businesses. Subscribe and see for yourself.

P.S.: my sister got handsomely remunerated for the “investment” she’s put in more 10 years ago when she gave me and my cat the smallest room in her apartment. The cat didn’t care about rules, he got the entire apartment as hunting ground the next day. I didn’t :)

Food for Thought: Over Invested, Less Objective

April 26, 2017 By Bobby Voicu

“Because of the amount of money I’d spent, I felt incredibly invested in making sure the car was always perfect. It made me realize that most rich assholes are just too protective of their stuff.”

I’ve found this quote on the okdork blog, in this article. While Noah Kagan talks about buying a $70,000 Jaguar F-Type (which in Ireland is about €140,000), I think we feel the same about anything that we invest a lot in – either money or time.

What happens when we invest too much in something, relatively to what we can afford? We become overprotective. We stop being objective, all of a sudden. We overvalue the thing even more. It also becomes a defining part of us. And I don’t think it’s good.

It happens when you invest money in a business, as well. The business you invested the most money in gets the most of your time, even if it might not be the best business you invested in.

It happens when you invest time in relationships: it’s gonna be a lot more difficult to see the problems with your childhood friends or your long term relationship.

Food for thought: when is it too much for you? Financially and time wise?

I almost quit MavenHut 6 months after starting it

April 19, 2017 By Bobby Voicu

One time. It was that moment when I woke up and said: I can’t take it anymore. It was just 6 months into MavenHut, at the end of August 2012, but I felt that all I was doing was for nothing, I wasn’t moving forward at all.

Cristi and Elvis, my co-founders, were creating a great product, that was interesting for our users. We were at about 100,000 installs in July-August 2012. I still said to myself: I can’t do this anymore.

I was the one raising money for MavenHut. I was the one meeting investors and talking to them, getting all the criticism from them, trying to convince them that a trio of guys from Romania can build a global business in gaming using a Solitaire game. And investors would say things like “oh, interesting, let’s talk next month, to see if you are still growing”. Or “I would invest $50-100k now, but only if you find someone else to invest the rest”. We were, at that point, looking for about $500,000 in investment, so it wasn’t that easy to come out with “the rest”.

Nobody told me that raising money took this long. When you were reading the startup literature you were under the impression that it takes several days, the most, to raise money.

Cold Truth

Well, that day of August 2012, I was finally accepting the hard truth. It might be even longer than the 6 months I had already under my belt. Even though we had good signs from investors, even if we could take €50,000 as investment from Enterprise Ireland because we won a pitching contest with them. Gaming is a cash hungry business. €50,000 would not be enough to hire 2-3 good people and also promote the games. We would be running out of money almost as soon as that money hit our accounts. And this time we would have to pay the salaries of the people that trusted us enough to come and work with us, not only the food for the 3 co-founders.

Add to this the fact that I started 2012 with several tens of thousands of dollars in my accounts and now, when I looked up the balance, all I could see were $300. I had put almost all my money in MavenHut.

Moreover, I no longer had any personal revenue to speak of.  Previous clients from my old consulting business asked me constantly when I was coming back and “make real money”, not “startup money”. I’ve already promised my co-founders that I would only focus on MavenHut, so it was no contest. We all quit on previous opportunities, it wasn’t like I was some kind of hero.

That’s when I stumbled. For a second, there, I didn’t believe that I could do it. I didn’t think I could make it for 4 more months until the end of 2012. That’s when we would shut down the business, provided we didn’t raise enough money.

That was the only time I ever felt that I would quit MavenHut.

How come that I didn’t quit, then?

First of all, I wasn’t alone in this. At one point or the other, my co-founders felt that it wouldn’t work, as well. But we found that talking to each other helped. So I had a long talk with Cristi that day.

Cristi suggested I should take one of the consulting contracts my previous clients wanted me to take and see if I really wanted to go back there, while also making some personal money. He also kept reminding me that SOSv, the investment fund, was really interested in us. And the only reason it was taking so long was that we were trying to close the deal during the holidays. Lawyers and investors need to take vacations as well. So we had a business deal in place, but no contracts to show yet.

Actually, this is what pushed me over to almost quitting, if I think about it.

The context: we already had the deal in place with SOSv. They would invest 50K now and, based on MavenHut hitting specific KPIs, they would follow with another €500,000 investment. But signing the documents kept getting postponed by different things I perceived to be “small” and “not that important”. The last block on the road was that the lawyers (ours or theirs, I don’t remember exactly) just let us know that they would be on vacation for a week. Or something like that.

Keep in mind that SOSv was one of the 50-60 potential investors I’ve talked to in the previous 6 months. People that kept telling me things like:

– “Solitaire is free on all computers, nobody will give you money for it”
– “what if Zynga decides to do a similar game?”
– “right now there is another team starting in Dublin and the 6 guys in it were part of big companies like Tilt Poker, Ubisoft, EA” (random names, I can’t remember the exact companies, but they were big)
– “you only have one developer in 3 co-founders, that’s not good”
– “gaming is too risky”
– “I have gaming companies in my portfolio and I don’t want to invest in another ever”
– “I will put $50k, $100k, only if somebody else puts the difference”
– “let’s talk in a month when you should have more users”
– “I don’t invest in companies pre-revenues” (it was a lie)
– “I am not interested in revenues so early, but you should have another product besides Solitaire”

All of these reasons are not something new for anybody that raises money. It’s the same, with a different flavor. And it’s killing you slowly.

What did I do?

Finally, what happened is that I took a consulting contract. Which should’ve been over and done in 2 weeks. And it took 3 months. By the time I got the money from that contract in my account, we already signed the deal with SOSv and already got the follow-on €500,000 investment, as well, because we moved really fast to the KPIs set up for the €50,000 deal. By the end of 2012, when we would’ve killed the company if we didn’t raise money, we were 8 people at MavenHut and the company was growing fast. And in January 2013, the first month we made any real money, we made enough to pay all the salaries from revenues. By August 2013, one year after the fateful day, MavenHut was generating about 30 times the revenues from January 2013.

I sometimes wonder what would’ve happened if I was alone in MavenHut. If I had no people to confide in that would understand me: Cristi and Elvis. I don’t think I would’ve quit, to be frank, but it was a lot easier to be able to talk to someone about your frustrations.

It’s interesting that, 4 years later, I rarely remember those bad, bad moments.  If you ask me about the early years of MavenHut, just 4-5 years ago, most of the things I would tell you are good things. Elvis coding like a ninja, Cristi understanding the product, me raising the investment “almost” overnight.

But then, I meet with an early stage entrepreneur, like I did recently. And she was beyond frustration with the responses she was getting from investors she was meeting. And I remembered how frustrated I was during 2012 when I was raising money. All of a sudden, the memories came back and it wasn’t “me raising the investment almost overnight”. It was me almost leaving MavenHut.

When you read on the internet about startups, you mostly read about the AirBNBs and the Dropboxes that raised money easily. Even though, I’m sure, it didn’t happen like this for them, as well. But, hey, it’s all fun and games until it isn’t.

So, what next?

What should you do if you think about quitting?

First and foremost, think about what you’re feeling? Is it just the frustration talking or you really don’t trust your business to make it anymore?

If it’s the second case, you should quit. You will be the worst resource for your startup ever if you don’t trust what your company is doing.

If it’s just the frustration talking, then you can go to the next step: removing the frustration or learning to live with it.

Identify what frustrates you

For me, the frustrating thing was the speed (or lack of) with which things were happening. When I looked at it carefully, I understood I was expecting something else. Years of reading about startups made me believe that things happen a lot faster. It wasn’t true for us, though. And, after talking to a lot of entrepreneurs, it’s not true for everybody but a few, few exceptions.

I was also frustrated by not having money anymore. Personal money. Since I spent most of my savings on company related stuff (buying ads, paying for trips to Ireland/Romania and back, really small salaries for us to pay for rent and food), I felt uncomfortable with not having any stream of income.

You can be frustrated by lots of things. By not having users. By not having the best product you can build. By not hitting your targets. By having bad KPIs. By your relationship with your founders. With your employees. With your investors. All of these reasons are valid reasons to feel frustrated, but you need to identify them and face them.

Face the frustration

Waking up wanting to quit doesn’t just happen over night. You probably had issues with something for the last months or so. But you just kept saying it’s just a phase, it’s a thing everybody goes through. And you’re right. Everybody goes through this kind of moments, but not everybody does something about it.

So, how do you face it? Well, the easiest way is to talk to someone as involved as you are in the company. One of your co-founders would be good. If not, talk to your mentor (you do have a mentor, right?). Your investors, if you have them already, could be good discussion partners. Or maybe you have some company advisers. Tell them what you feel. Ask advice. Most of the times, they have more experience than you and they might know what you are going through or put you in contact with someone that does.

You’ll find out that most of the times, just talking about the things that frustrate you will solve the issue. You just need to relieve some pressure. Or you will find the solution on your own, once you speak out loud.

Obviously, be careful who you talk to. Not all investors are ok with you saying you want to quit and not all co-founders will keep trusting you. Just don’t be stupid about who you trust. And, if you were, well, it’s just another thing you need to sort. And you just learned you can’t trust that person for advice or help.

Solve the frustration

Once you identified and faced the frustration, you need to solve it.

More often than not, you just solve your frustration by understanding that some things take time. And you need to learn to wait it out. Like the holiday of the lawyers I told you about earlier. Not even a month later we already signed the initial investment and we had €50,000 in our accounts.

Of course, you can still work during that time. One thing I remember doing then was to jump on the plane and go to Cork, where SOSv offices were, and talk to their CFO. I wanted to be sure that he had all the elements he needed to correctly estimate the potential of our company. I had a three-hours meeting and I learned a lot in that meeting. And Steve, the CFO, confirmed to me that it became a lot easier to understand our business model once he talked to me.

On the other hand, if it’s something that is not time-related, you need to solve the issue. But now you know what’s it about. So you can find someone to do it if you are not good at that. You can read about it. You can take courses. Whatever. As long as you know what the issue really is, you can do something about it.

In the initial stages of the investment process, I needed to do some sort of revenues/cost estimates. And while I could’ve probably done it, it was easier to talk to someone to help me. And this is how our first CFO got into the picture.

What if the KPIs of the company don’t look good?

Well, this is not a good reason to quit. You just make the numbers better.

If you don’t trust that you can make the KPIs better, then you talk to your co-founders/investors and you quit. Or take a different position in the company.

Finally, if you still want to quit, talk to the stakeholders in the company and leave. It might be the best solution for everybody. Just don’t leave tomorrow. Give people time to adjust to your leaving, make the transition and then go. And, probably, in 2-3 years, you will forget the bad things and you will want to start a new company. And the cycle goes like that again.

And, to answer my own question in the title: What if I quit then? Well, I would’ve probably missed a great adventure. I’m just glad I didn’t :)

Article illustration specifically created for me by Miruna

P.S.: Don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter. I send a weekly email with the best things I find to read online (mostly business, but not only).

What’s it like to start a company?

April 11, 2017 By Bobby Voicu

Last week I’ve talked to the entrepreneurs from the 2017 cohort of RebelBio, in Cork, Ireland. I’m hopeful I’ll be helping them overcome at least some of the ongoing issues you face as a startup founder. So I had a presentation that touched some of these points:

1. You’re not alone

You’ll often feel that you are alone and nobody understands you. While it may be true that most people don’t understand you, there are some that do: the people around you, that go through the same shit. People that just went through it are also a good source of help (I’ve started MavenHut 5 years ago, I still remember the feeling of waking up and not knowing what I should do next).

"I remember the bad parts. If you asked me to start a company now I'd go on a corner and cry" thanks 4 keeping it real @bobbyvoicu @RebelBio pic.twitter.com/6rpzFZB3Nj

— Emilia Díaz (@EmiliaDiazCL) April 7, 2017

2. Too much information, too many mentors

You don’t have to act on everything NOW. Just know that these mentors are available to help and know that what they say is something that you will need at some point. It’s a resource you can use at some point.

3. You will fight with your co-founders

This is not an issue. It’s an issue if you don’t sort it out and let it linger. All of you are together in this so find a way to sort out the issues when they appear.

4. Draw a co-founder agreement

Look, maybe the most important thing you have to do along with your cofounders is to align your expectations. Even if you don’t make it a document, make it an email that you all know. Things get forgotten in time (everybody kinda forgets things that they don’t really care about), so keep this as a reminder.

5. Define success

What is it that you want from this company? Money? How much? Reputation? What does it mean? Being in scientific journals? Appearing on the cover of Forbes? All of you need to understand what the others want so that you can align.

6. Define failure

When do you stop? While it’s anticlimactic to think about it, you should. It’s not a bad thing. If you say that you will stop if you don’t get enough funding (and define the amount clearly) in a year, you will have a lot of fire under your ass to make that thing happening.

7. What are your cofounders’ limits?

Each one of us has limits: being it family time, not being able to travel, financial issues (mortgage). Talk about them as early as possible.

8. How to use the accelerator (if you go through one)

– Meet with as many people as you can and pitch your business
– Ask them two questions: what should I do to improve my pitch & who do you know that you think would be interested in what I do?
– Create a monthly newsletter where you add (ask them before!!) all the potential investors and mentors that you talk to. Just to keep them updated, even if they are not interested in your company or domain. I’ve never heard of an investor saying “no, don’t send me information about your company”. We’ve done it pretty successfully at MavenHut.

That’s it for today :) A good, complementary reading might be the story of the first year of MavenHut.

By the way, I’m sending a weekly newsletter with great things to read (mostly business, but not only). You can subscribe here.

RebelBio mentoring in Cork, Ireland

April 9, 2017 By Bobby Voicu

For the next 3-4 months I’ll mostly be in Cork, Ireland, where I’m mentoring the teams for RebelBio, a BioTech accelerator that SOSV has created here about 4 years ago. SOSV is, as some of you may know, the investor in MavenHut and our partner there since 2012.

I will actually act as an “entrepreneur in residence”/”I understand what you’re going through” person here for the newly minted entrepreneurs, while I’m also trying to understand BioTech and what it means in terms of investment and entrepreneurship.

Of course, BioTech means life changing things, as well: solving humanity’s problems like cancer, food shortages, food poisoning, just to give you an idea of some of the things these teams are working on. The thing is, though, I will never be a scientist, but I can be an investor, a mentor, an adviser or, why not, at some point in time, a co-founder of a BioTech company. And I want to understand what it means. This is why I’m not necessarily focusing my attention on the science part. It’s highly unlikely I’ll be ever in a position to do something directly in this area :)

The teams are now in the pre-accelerator period (when they learn more about the business side of things), before going to the product creation side of things (R&D, lab time, basically). I’ll update you on what they as time goes by and I get a grip of what the hell they’re creating :D

So, for the next several months, I’ll also write about Cork a little bit. A small city compared to Bucharest and a completely different lifestyle for me. I mean, in 10 minutes I’m out of the city, while in Bucharest, some days, I’d still be trying to get out of the side street I’m coming from, trying to get to my destination. Actually, for the first time in the last 20 years, I will not have a car at hand (mine or somebody else’s). Which is really weird :)

Sun and rain in Cork City, Ireland

A post shared by Bobby Voicu (@bobbyvoicu) on Mar 18, 2017 at 6:42am PDT

Update: Because I was asked: Cristi is now managing MavenHut. I’m still part of the board of the company, but since I’m more and more interested in investing, I’ve cut my time operationally as much as possible.

Entrepreneurial Europe vs. Asia and US

March 18, 2017 By Bobby Voicu

Asia’s response to Uber’s global ambitions—unlike Europe’s—was primarily entrepreneurial.

from The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World

I think this is the difference between Europe and Asia (in this case) and USA: we, Europeans, put much more focus on help from legislation and institutions, instead of being more entrepreneurial. Also, because of the legislation, the bureaucracy and the friction they generate in Europe, we are more likely not to try to solve something the entrepreneurial way.

Combine this with a culture that sees failure as a black mark etched forever on somebody’s reputation and you have a perfect storm: less risks, less entrepreneurs.

But, I have to agree, at least you get a perception of a better work/life balance in Europe than in the US or Asia. Which feels true to me :)

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