BobbyVoicu.com

I'm curious about stuff

Entrepreneurship

Thumb Title

I don’t like living in big cities anymore. I like visiting and spending some time there, but I love living in a 100k+ population city. And while I moved here before the pandemic, I was so happy I made the move when it started. And I’m not the only one. There’s now a name for […]

Seeing the flurry of IPOs and acquisitions in the tech space I didn’t somehow expected StackOverflow to be sold to Naspers/Prosus. I actually think it’s the best outcome, since the buyers will probably want to increase the value of the asset and Naspers has a history of doing this successfully and not selling assets after […]

I genuinely don’t know if this interview with Marc Andreessen is a parody or the real thing (apparently it is the real thing), but you should read it nevertheless. Henrich describes in his book how some people (us) are culturally WEIRD — Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic — but most people in the world […]

When friends ask me about raising money, this is one of the first articles I ask them to read. It’s a sales deck, but a lot of that transfers into raising money, so it’s worth going through it and understand the fundamentals. A few months ago, my friend Tim took a new sales job at […]

Dragos Novac, at Sunday CET, wrote an interesting piece on the new wave of European VCs. I’m raising money right now for a new project and I can see the difference in people I’m talking to comparing to 2012-2013, when I raised money for MavenHut. The people I talk to now in Europe are a […]

In the last email from IndieHackers I found the story of Carrd, the one-page site builder. The company just hit $1M ARR and the founder talked about his early experience building the product here. Apparently doing the same two things over and over seriously impacted my ability to come up with “outside the box” ideas, […]

Basecamp changed some rules about workplace politics discussions, forbidding specific subjects in their main channel in the company. Here’s a quote from Jason Fried’s blog post: 1. No more societal and political discussions on our company Basecamp account. Today’s social and political waters are especially choppy. Sensitivities are at 11, and every discussion remotely related […]
BobbyVoicu.com default featured image
Sunday. London. Rain. Bar on the street level. Sitting at a table next to the window, with hot tea in front of me. Looking outside to people walking. Next to me, Cambridge Theater, with a big billboard presenting Chicago – The Musical. Music in the bar: John Lennon – Imagine. I feel like I am […]

The best way to build wealth from scratch right now is building a company. So what are you waiting for? In 1982 the most common source of wealth was inheritance. Of the 100 richest people, 60 inherited from an ancestor. There were 10 du Pont heirs alone. By 2020 the number of heirs had been […]

This is a good Twitter thread to remind you what the first stage of your startup is about. The full thread is here, on Twitter, from @Suhail. I’ve also saved it completely below, so I can go back to it when I forget. 1/ The first 18 months of a startup: After starting my 2nd […]

Freelancers (and creators, as a subset) will become the main part of the global workforce by 2030. Or even earlier.

The Marketplace 100 report from a16z is what you need to read as a founder or investor.

I was 14 or 15 when, finally, a martial arts club opened in the city I lived in. All of a sudden, we could go and become Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan or Jean Claude Van Damme. Of course, it didn’t work like this, but something stayed with me since then: the belt system. A […]

I’ve found yesterday a great Twitter feed on the reasons a VC might pass on investing in your company. I publish the entire thread below, but go to Twitter to see the comments, as well. Why VC investors pass on startups: a thread. Alternative title: don’t take it personally. You’re solving a problem that doesn’t […]

I’ve seen this on TechCrunch today: Bryter raises $16M for a no-code platform for non-technical people to build enterprise automation apps 2 ideas: 1. I might’ve started too late in life to learn Python to add automations to things in my work life. Well, what the heck, it’s not like I’ll stop, but it’s good […]

What is the most important advice I would give to first time entrepreneurs? Answer: Well, do things! Build stuff I got a question today: what is the number one piece of advice you would give to first-time entrepreneurs? I think that the best thing that you can do as a first-time entrepreneur is… “Don’t stop!” […]

I’ve detailed the process a lot more in this article: How to Validate a Software/App Idea with Less than $200: A Case Study of MavenHut’s Solitaire Arena Now, to the video and the transcript: How did you validate your startup idea? When we started MavenHut, we knew that people love to play Solitaire, right? We […]

Contrary to what some people may think, I actually recommend not having a team before testing the MVP. And I’ve got a solid argument to explain myself. If you wonder what’s an MVP, I have you covered. And this is why it’s important to use one to validate your idea. If you want to watch […]

What’s an MVP? In a Startup? The MVP is one of the best ways to validate the existence of your market. Here’s a link to the startup “Bible” and the book that truly pushed the concept to the startup world: The Lean Startup. You need to read this if you want to have more than […]

Do you really need a product to show when you start a new business? The truth is you can actually start a business without a product. You need to know if there is a market for your idea, though. How do you do this? Asking friends and family is a dumb idea, in my opinion, […]

How do you validate the startup idea? The common-sense approach to validating your startup idea is to to ask friends, to ask the family: what do they think? I don’t agree with that. Your friends and family will lie to you Most of the time, since your friends and family are good people, they don’t […]

You’re raising seed funding for your startup. How Much Seed Funding Do You Ask For Your Startup? [toc] We raised approx. $700,000 (€550,000) in seed money for MavenHut in 2012. Was that enough? Well, if the same company would’ve raised funding for a similar runway in Silicon Valley, the amount would’ve been closer to $2,000,000. […]

Well, if I tell you the first name of the entrepreneur, it might not ring a bell: Ferruccio. If I tell you it’s a car company, you might think: “Hmmm, italian name… Ferrari! Ah, no, that’s Enzo! Alfa Romeo! Maserati!”. Or you might say the right name: Lamborghini. Which entrepreneur made tractors before entering the […]

What’s the best way to convince someone to join you as a co-founder of your startup? Maybe the better question is: is there a best way to find a startup cofounder? If you want to see the video, jump at the end of the article. If you prefer to read, there’s an improved transcript of […]

Once you find a cofounder, you will probably try to find some employees. And you need to find ways to motivate the early employees. Truth is, it’s quite easy to motivate them, but you need to be careful with what you promise because it’s also really easy to overpromise things. For more similar videos, subscribe […]

The question I answered in this video is “Should I start a side business while working a 9 to 5 job?” To start with the conclusion: if you want to really succeed, I don’t think it’s recommended to start a side business while holding a full time job. A business you can’t focus on most […]

Is it possible to have a work-life balance as an entrepreneur at the early stage of your startup? The answer: NO! And an emphatic NO at that. I really don’t think that if you want, if you really want, to start a business, if you’re consummate about what you want to start, you’ll be able […]

How do I approach an angel investor by e-mail? Sometime ago, in a previous life, I recorded almost 90 videos about startups, business, getting investment, stuff like this. I was looking yesterday through them and this video about How to approach an angel investor by email is the most viewed video I’ve made. It has […]

Sending an email follow-up after meeting someone for business might be the best advice I can ever give you. For more similar videos, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Transcript: You go to a meeting, you leave the meeting pumped up to do things, you’ve established some things with the meeting partners and two days later, […]

The CEO. And there’s no room for negotiation here. The video at the end of this post explains why. For more similar videos, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Transcript: At an investor pitch, who should be the main person to pitch? First of all, let’s put in the context: I’m talking here about early stage […]

“I just started a gaming company and we make Solitaire games!” “Well, that’s stupid!” That was me in 2012, telling a friend about the new project I just started. He still is my friend (I know!) and he is a smart guy. And he genuinely thought it was a stupid idea. And I still remind […]

I have a good friend that wants to start up a blog. And he has so many interesting things to say, I would read his blog. Well, this brilliant guy started his blog about a year ago. In his head. He knows what kind of articles he’ll write, how long they will be, how great […]

This article was sent as a newsletter to our subscribers. If you like what you read, you can subscribe as well, for a weekly dose of reading. Here’s the link. Asking questions is probably one of the most underrated skills in the world. I mean, everybody can ask questions, right? A toddler asks questions. And, […]

Last week I sent an email to the email list (you should subscribe, by the way). I was talking about Basic advice and how important it is that, from time to time, someone reminds you how important it is to focus on the basics. My definition of basic advice is this: advice that’s really easy […]
Buy website
TL;DR: I want to buy some websites. See below for more info. Years ago, before I started MavenHut, I was building content websites. Mostly blogs about different things. One about cars, another one about motorcycles. I sold all of them to support MavenHut in the early stages. At the beginning of this year, though, I […]

You’re raising seed funding for your startup. How much do you need? We raised approx. $700,000 (€550,000) for MavenHut. Was that enough? Well, if the same company would’ve raised funding for a similar runway in Silicon Valley, the similar amount would’ve been $2,000,000. Nobody can tell you the exact number without taking a really good […]
What's your company hour on Sillicon valley clock
A company’s narrative moves like a clock: it starts at midnight, ticking off the hours. The tone and sentiment about how a business is doing move from positive (sunrise, midday) to negative (dusk, darkness). And often the story returns to midnight, rebirth and a new day. Aaron Zamost, What’s your hour on ‘Silicon Valley time’? […]

If you’re ever in the position to raise money, the first thing you’ll probably do will be to look for examples of pitch decks to use with your potential investors. In 2012, when I was raising money in earnest for MavenHut, finding this kind of examples was difficult. I needed to access my own network […]

I was thinking of ways to generate revenues for content sites the other day. My focus is on interview based sites (for obvious reasons) and I remembered Indie Hackers doing a really good job about it. I thought I read a sort of income report on their site, but I couldn’t find them anymore, since […]

I was reading recently some article or book about getting off your ass and doing shit. And I remember thinking this: Reward each action you take. Or, better said, reward behaviour. It basically means that whenever you choose a target or a goal, you define the actions you need to take to get you there […]

Scott Adams once wrote: “One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard goes something like this: If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it. It sounds trivial and obvious, but if you unpack the idea it has extraordinary power.” Good quote. From The Psychology of Money.

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 […]
subscription-boxes-business-model
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

This post was originally published on Medium Context: I’m in Cork now, mentoring the teams at RebelBio, the BioTech accelerator that SOSV created. And I just talked to the cohort of 2017 about how difficult it is to start and grow a business. And I remembered wanting to quit 6 months after starting MavenHut, the gaming […]

"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 Last week I’ve talked to the entrepreneurs from the 2017 cohort of RebelBio, in Cork, Ireland. I’m hopeful I’ll […]

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 […]

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, […]

I’ve read several business books in 2016 and some of them were worth the time spent :)) Here are the two that I would read if I only had time for just two books. 1. The Hard Thing about Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are no Easy Answers It took me a little […]

“I will never be able to sell something. I am the artist, I create things, I don’t sell them to the buyers at a fair. Sales people should sell, not me!”. This is what my fiance was telling me the other day, when she came back from a fair where she sold some of the art she […]

I’ve always read a lot since I was about 5 and I learned how to read. The thing is, building MavenHut took a lot of time and I’ve stopped reading as much as I used to. So I decided recently to read more. Reading books gives me a lot of ideas. And the worst thing […]

“The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day […]

Due to MavenHut’s success, there are people that think I know stuff and they want to meet me to talk about their business. And, time permitting, since I travel a lot these days, I actually love to meet the entrepreneurs. And why shouldn’t I? I love talking to smart people (who doesn’t?), I am interested […]