Arhiva: 2013

Up until two years ago my job meant, among other things, participating in a lot of events, meeting lots of people, talking to lots of people and, generally, consuming lots of energy by entertaining people around me. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it, but the thing is, from time to time, I would get completely burnt out.

So I needed to accept, at some point, that you can’t do everything, all the time, at the highest energy level. That you would need, from time to time, to recharge.

This is how I came over the “me” time. “Me time” is defined as a specific period of time (it can be from an hour to several days) when I am being as selfish as I can be, when I don’t care what happens in the outside world. Business or personal (family, friends, whatever). Unless something REALLY, REALLY bad happens, I will not be available for anything besides what I REALLY want to do.

And what is that, you might ask? Well, mostly playing computer games, go to movies, go on short trips (I’m more interested in the driving, not the destination). I also read books I postponed reading – SF books, mostly (btw, did you read The City and the city? great, entertaining book). Or I just walk around, thinking of stuff.

Up until two years ago (before MavenHut), I would have those moments whenever I felt like it, now I try to “schedule” them every other weekend, at least. And the thing is, my productivity goes through the roof after these “me moments”. Moreover, the best ideas I’ve had (business or otherwise) come as a result of these reflection times.

So, what’s the conclusion to an otherwise incoherent Saturday blog post?

Take some “me time”. You’ll love it :)

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In the recent years I’ve found myself pitching a lot of times: many different projects to a lot of different people. Some pitches worked, most of them didn’t (which is not bad, it’s just the way it is, not everyone is interested in your project at the specific moment).

Some time ago, a good friend suggested I read Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal, by Oren Klaff. Thanks to a short, but long overdue and needed vacation, I started to read it. Some of the quotes I found interesting in the first 50 pages are below. They explain some of those moments when I felt I lost the control of discussion while I was pitching. Basically, my frame lost the collision :)

“A frame is the instrument you use to package your power, authority, strength, information and status.”

“When you are responding ineffectively to things the other person is saying and doing, that person owns the frame, and you are being frame controlled.”

“Every social interaction is a collision of frames, and the stronger frame always wins. Frame collisions are primal.”

If you have a chance to read the book, do it (You can find it on Amazon here, for Kindle or hardcover). After all, you’re always pitching, right? :)

Also, below there’s a video of the author talking about his method (it’s an hour and 30 minutes video, just so you know):

Several years ago I was talking to a friend and he said that he is more interested in a lifestyle business than in “high risk, high reward” type of business. I was interested in the second one (which is, usually, about the VC backed startups – like MavenHut), while he was interested in the first type, which means growing slow, bootstrapping and taking a longer time to see either success or failure.

Most of the time, you don’t really hear too much about the lifestyle business. The most obvious that I know of is Evernote (which is more of a hybrid), but today I’ve found an interesting article on Hacker News about a lifestyle business that generates revenues of about $15 million per year from Malaysia.

I like the article, I think it underlines the most important thing about a lifestyle business: being really passionate and enjoying what you are building. Otherwise, how will you be there for the next 10-15 years?

This is important to me. I’m a lifestyle entrepreneur. Mindvalley was built around my passions – meditation, personal growth, play, culture, travel and epic interior design (our offices are magical). Having total ownership means I’m not pressured by partners, boards or investors to deliver something that I’m not passionate about.

Link to 7 Lessons from Building a Lifestyle Business

If you could choose, would you choose a lifestyle business that generates steady income, grows slow and takes a longer time to reach the valuation you want (but it might be less risky), or the VC backed business?

The panic was creeping on me little by little. I was breathing through my mouth, as told, but the water was going from above my eyes back to under my neck and back again and I would feel compelled to breathe through my nose every time my head was above the water.

This is how my first ever scuba dive experience began. Sheer panic, no matter how much I tried to control it: WHY CAN’T I BREATHE THROUGH MY NOSE? After all, in my 15 years of competitive sports (handball), all I was told and forced into was to breathe-in through my nose and breathe-out through my mouth.

Looking back to that first day of diving I can compare the feeling to that of building a startup. Its life is like a sinusoid, with ups and downs and feelings of drowning and terrifying panic for the person crazy enough to try and start one.

Fortunately, though, 10 minutes later you control your the breath, even if you swallow some Mediterranean salty water from time to time. And 25 minutes later you are really surprised that you need to go back to the boat, because the lesson it’s over (Oh, so soooooon???). Of course, this is just the beginning, because dangers are close by, you are just blissfully unaware of them.

And that’s how you feel for exactly 5 minutes in startups: you have everything under control. Yeah, right!

Still, I wouldn’t trade that panic for anything else. Or, frankly, I could live with less of it…

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We’ve been the subject of two articles in the business press in Romania in the last 2 weeks (Biz and Business Magazin). Below are the photos that illustrated both articles (the press links are here, unfortunately Romanian only).

I am part of a really great team :D

Everytime we talk about the reason we want to be in a startup we talk about freedom, about doing the things we want to do and so on. But lately I found out that there is another reason I like being in a startup: I get to meet people I normally wouldn’t meet, people I enjoy a lot talking to.

Just let me give you two examples (and a bonus):

1. Last week MavenHut, the startup I am a co-founder of, launched Mahjong Arena, our second game. For this, we went to The Next Web at the end of April, took a booth and launched there. And we had one surprise guest: the future (then) King of the Kingdom of The Netherlands (yeah, the king of Holland). We shook hands, we talked about the kind of games we’re building and he surprised us with some really well put questions.

It is the first time I am meeting royalty and chances are, if I wasn’t in a startup, I would’ve had no chance of meeting a Dutch King (especially coming from Romania). It didn’t change my life, but certainly made it fun to talk to my parents about it :D

Oh, and I asked him to help us make Solitaire Arena an Olympic sport. It can’t be done apparently, since this it is a mind game, not a physical one. Well, at least I got irefutable proof that Solitaire Arena is a mind game, in case anybody thought different.

2. About a month ago, I visited Bay Area for business. And, at one of the events, a friend told me: look, that is the CEO of Virgin Galactic. He was talking about George Whitesides and not Richard Branson, who is the founder. And, like a groupie that I am (I just read the article on Wired about them), I went to him to congratulate them for what they are doing, reinventing the flight on this planet. And, of course, he was great, he actually talked to me for several minutes and seemed to enjoy the talk.

And, since he was such a great guy, I did the unthinkable: I told him that, in a way, we’re doing to Solitaire what they are doing to flight: bringing it to the new century. I can’t really tell you how baffled he looked when I told him this: after all, I seemed a perfectly normal, even if a little too enthusiastic, person, not the lunatic I proved to be by telling him the following statement:

“MavenHut is reinventing Solitaire, a hundred year old or more game, with Solitaire Arena, while you are reinventing flight, that’s been done the same way in the last 100 years”, I said. He laughed, kinda approved, smiled, and changed the subject.

3. Finally, I am a big fan of Seinfeld (the TV series, in particular). And, since Jerry decided several years ago that he wouldn’t to tours anymore, I missed that boat (seeing him on stage). Until I went to Dublin last year, for Startup Bootcamp. And, in the last weekend there, I got to see Jerry Seinfeld on stage. I didn’t talk to him or anything, but it is a nice thing to be able to see the legend on stage.

Obviously, each of us has different “bonuses” or “perks” that we get from our own startup experience. You just need to look around you and remember that you are the sum of your experiences and hobbies, not just the business you are building :)

A weird question to ask a guy who looks anything but (as in me): pale (really pale) skin, blue eyes, blonde hair, reddish beard. But this is what a waitress at Piraat pizzeria in San Francisco asked me the other day.

Fact is, about a week ago, a waiter asked me and some friends if we were Brazilians, since the language we spoke – Romanian – sounded a lot like Brazilian Portuguese.

Even with this, the initial question still was surprising, because I was alone, reading on my Kindle app on the iPhone (The Long Walk by Stephen King, great book) and I am quite sure I wasn’t reading out loud. In Romanian, which would’ve meant translating as I read from English.

Seeing my confused look, the girl said to me: “Well, the only ones that I saw eating so much ketchup with their pizzas are the Brazilians…”.

I say: “Well, I am from Romania so…”.

And, smiling, the waitress says: “You are right, we had two Romanian girls here some time ago and they ate a lot of ketchup, too…”.

We talked a little bit more, but I understood, then, how many countries send their representatives to San Francisco. Or the nice lady just wanted me to stop eating a bottle of ketchup with every small pizza I ordered… who knows?

P.S.: I like the Piraat Pizzeria. Both the place and the pizza. It feels intimate and friendly. So, in the 3 weeks I stayed in SF, I probably ate there 10 times. And that meeans a lot of ketchup :)

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I’m sure you know someone that is “doing it for the rush of it”. Where “it” can be anything from speeding to bunjee jumping and sky-diving.

Well, it hit me recently, while talking to my wonderful girlfriend (I just realized how patient and understanding she usually is): I get my “adrenaline rush” by pushing myself constantly outside of my comfort zone.

Starting with speaking in public, years and years ago, to smaller things, like telling people at Mavenhut that I have no idea what they are talking about and asking for explanations. And if you think admitting that you have no idea what someone is saying and asking for details is not “getting put of the comfort zone”, then you’re not asking too many things in your life. And this is a big mistake.

“My comfort zone is being out of my comfort zone”

Now, joking aside, I really feel good pushing myself to my limits. That’s when I feel that I grow and learn.

Obviously, I do not push all my limits. I admit, I can’t seem to be able to quit on Diet Coke no matter what I do. Or is it just me testing my limit there? :)

So, how are you getting out of your comfort zone today? :)

P.S.: I wrote this post on an iPad Mini using just the virtual keyboard. Talking about comfort zones…

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