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I’ve first heard of Fab about a year and a half ago (or something like this). They were one of the poster child companies for the word “pivot”: they changed from a social network to an online store and grew phenomenally. They are the best example for social commerce that you can get.

YOu can read their story here, a new part of the story here (even great startups need to lay off people from time to time, even when they raised $150 million).

Finally, because this is Sunday Videos, you can see Jason Goldberg (Fab’s CEO) presenting his company in the video below, on the stage of HackFwd: From zero to hero in 9 months (via Cofounder.tv)

While reading some stuff recently I’ve found an article by Steve Blank (the author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany), a huge list of tools that are helpful for any entrepreneur. Obviously, not all of them, but you will surely find out one tool that is interesting for you.

The categories are: Startup Tools, Founding/Running a Startup Advice, Market Research, China Market. Or, subcategories: Getting Started, Tools from Others, Groups, Find a Co-Founder, Business Model Canvas/Customer Development Tools, Business Models, Customer Development, Customer Discovery Checklist, Founder Stories, Website Domain Names… and about 30 more.

Finally, here is the link, stop complaining :) It’s one big list, just know this. And, more important, it’s written in 2009 (base on the comments), so if some tools are not available, do not kill the messenger.

Photo from Shutterstock

I am pretty good at focusing on the job at hand, most of the time. Unfortunately, though, I still have websites that I shouldn’t visit that I do visit (some of them way too often, and they are almost imprinted in the muscle memory).

In order to solve this issue I use on all my computers StayFocusd (on Chrome). It is an extension that allows you to block specific websites for a while (or even forever) and it syncs between multiple Chrome installs on different computers. I actually have some sites that I will be able to read in 13241. Soon…

The extension is pretty simple to use: you have a list of blocked sites, of allowed sites and you can use either to block all but the allowed ones, to allow all but the blocked ones or to block all :D I actually did this by mistake and I had to uninstall the extension, since Chrome considers the extension options as being another website – albeit local, not world wide web (this is the way Chrome is built).

If you have bad self-control with the websites that you read, I think StayFocusd is a good option for you to try.

I usually like working during bad weather (as long as I don’t have to go somewhere or anything similar). In my experience, I am among few that are not affected by bad weather.

If I think about it, a lot has changed in that aspect in my 3 months in Dublin. I mean, I’ve been there since January till June. If you do not work in bad weather, you will not work in Dublin. Or anywhere in Ireland for that matter. Or, closer to the truth, you will only work about 5 minutes per day, in the summer, in between clouds :D

OK, I love Ireland, so don’t be too upset if you are Irish and you think it’s the sunniest place in the world.

Here are some tips to start your day when it’s raining outside (or it’s just a dark fall day).

Take a cold shower in the morning

I know, it’s awful. Trust me, I know. On the other hand, though, if you can make this (or, at least, change the water to cold in the last 30 seconds at the end of your shower), you will feel a surge of energy in about 10 minutes, after you stop shaking. That surge of energy is present in your body for the rest of the day.

Try to work on more tedious tasks

While I don’t have a problem with working during bad weather days, I find it really difficult to focus on creative tasks. So I try to do the least amount possible of creative work, while grinding away on the tasks I avoid normally. This way, even if my productivity is not the best, I still do some work.

Dress appropriately

This goes without saying, but if you are not dressed well, the cold will get in your bones and it will stay there. And it will be really difficult to shake the feeling of coldness.

Walk for several minutes outside

OK, if it pours, try not to. But if it’s not the worst rain ever and I walk for several minutes (even by parking the car a little bit further from the office) I feel a lot better once I get inside where, usually, it is warmer.

Some of the tips above might seem suicidal (really, cold showers??), but they work for me. If you have more suggestions, fire away in the comments section.

Rain from Shutterstock

I’ve attended tonight the Mobile User Acquisition meetup at TechHub Bucharest. I am very interested in mobile right now, so I took some notes I think you might find interesting. Actually, that’s me, in red, in the picture above.

Here are my notes, exactly as I wrote them on my phone, with some explanations next to them (though you can watch the entire meetup here)

— idevice.ro (Andrei marinescu recommended it as a good blog to get a review from if you have an app targeted for the Romanian market)
— admob (good platform to do paid user acquisition)
— flurry (good platform to do paid user acquisition)
— FB ads per install – great tool to drive paid acquisition if you know how to use it
— jump start on Appscend apps – guys at Appscend use their existing apps to promote the new ones, thus getting some jump start for them
— don’t buy reviews? Andrei Marinescu said you shouldn’t buy reviews on blogs that do reviews since you will not get good results
— iOS users use zonga for more time than the Android users (Sergiu Biris said this)
— you can reply to user comments in Google Play (Sergiu Biris)
— android users more critical, iOS offers better monetization
— more Android users from South Korea (I think Andrei Blaj said this)
— more translations (Andrei Blaj)
— Don’t Panic Mobile Developer’s Guide to the Galaxy (free PDF mentioned by Andrei Marinescu – Thanks!)

—- not to do
— app must work from day 1 (so do not go on the store with an app that doesn’t work)
— get good ratings from the start (better not to have ratings rather than have bad ones)
— don’t overuse push notifications (or you might get abysmal usage)
— simplify app as much as possible (do not overcomplicate things)

Photo from TechHub Bucharest

We all have blind spots. Things that we think we know and we actually don’t, moments when we just miss some opportunities.

As an entrepreneur, you are really prone to blind spots. You need to move fast, juggle a lot of balls, you have an attention span of a pup. So what should you do about it?

Well, get a co-founder and use him/her. Send them the emails for investors that you are working on, the blog posts you are writing or the interviews you are answering to. Ask them for help when you get stuck, even if they have completely different skills. A fresh pair of eyes is always great.

We do this at MavenHut. And it works. So get a co-founder :) Or more.

Photo from Forbes.ro, by Mihai Barbu/Photoliu

Gravitarium is not, actually, a game: it’s a design challenge and a challenge to your sanity. I feel like a crazy person trying to put order into chaos.

So, how do you play it? You start with chaos. A lot of things, small things, wandering around the screen. And once you touch the screen, the little creatures (I know, I know, but you really feel they are alive) come to your touch. And if you add another finger to the screen, the start moving around from touch to touch. You can use up to 4 fingers (didn’t really make anything with 5, though you might be able to).

Now, start moving your fingers across the screen and you will create stunning graphics, stunning moving pictures. I remembered I once saw a documentary on the luminous little beings in the see and it’s the same feeling you have when you see people swimming through them (I don’t know the English name of the damn sea fireflies :D

Well, I downloaded the game without expecting to much from it, but since it’s made by a Romanian guy and it was recommended by my girlfriend I thought (read had to!!!) give it a try! And 30 minutes later I was still trying it :)

The game will set you back about $2, but it’s fun and it’s worth trying. I don’t know if it’s available for Android, I played it on iOS.

Later update: more details on the game here. Even better, there’s a video below showing the gameplay :)

Airbnb is a site I used more than once. And even better than the services they provide is their entrepreneurial story.

They started in 2007-2008, they’ve been through Y Combinator, they got refused by close to 100 investors that didn’t understand their value proposition and they grew a company whose valuation is more than $1 billion.

Looking around, I’ve found 2 videos of their founder, Joe Gebbia: one in 2008, when he was just starting AirBednBreakfast.com (the initial name) and one in 2011, when he was already growing fast.

Got the videos from here. There’s also an interesting story behind the first one there to read.

Today was a full day. Both at work and in terms of events. Radu Georgescu [romanian], the first official advisor MavenHut has, just announced he sold Avangate, the biggest company he sold. The price is not public, but I bet it was good for Radu :)

I’m thrilled to announce we have just closed a very strategic transaction with Francisco Partners. With this transaction, Francisco is acquiring Avangate and investing additional capital to further accelerate our already impressive growth. Francisco Partners is one of the most respected private equity firms in the world with over $7 Billion under management and we are extremely pleased to find an investment partner who shares our vision of Customer Centric Commerce. Even more importantly, the capital investment will help us further scale up our operations, deliver expanded platform capabilities, and better serve and support you, our customers.

More information on it here.

The other thing that happened today (not as big, obviously) was that How To Web published a short interview with me, as a prequel to the talk I will be having (along with my co-founder, Cristi) at the event this year.

1. What are the main skills it takes to build an engaging game for social media nowadays?
Looking back to the last two years, the most important skill we had was understanding the metrics and acting on the lessons from them. Of course, understanding what metrics to follow and what to A/B test is another skill you should have (or, at least, cultivate).

The team at TechHub Bucharest is hosting a new gaming meetup on Thursday, October 10th: Developing games – The indie way. As I am really interested in gaming (duh!) and I have an unnatural attraction for indie gaming, the guys thought I would be the one to moderate the panel.

The panel consists of:

Robert Muresan, Owner and Founder of Exosyphen studios, Dragos Inoan, Creative Director at Dream Builder Studios (Strikewing) and Dan Dimitrescu, Game designer and co-founder at Killhouse Games (you can read more about them here, where you can also register).

It’s an interesting mix, with PC games sold through Steam and mobile games distributed through a publisher.

I have two things to say to you, the reader:

1. If you are in Bucharest and you are interested in gaming, you should be at TechHub on Thursday evening. Again, you should register here.

2. Questions! Are you interested in something in particular? Do you want to ask them something? Fire away in the comments. Otherwise, don’t complain if I ask dumb questions, ok? :)