Talking last week to friends who are far more clued up in the world of technology than we are, Romania was spoken of very highly as a source of both programmers and ideas. The former we knew, the latter… hmmm. Not so sure.
There are successful Romanian start-ups all over the place (Trilulilu, Best Jobs etc.) but these are little more than local versions of somebody else’s idea.
Does anyone know of any genuinely original and financially successful Romanian start-ups? We heard something called UberVu mentioned, but that sounds more like a name somebody thought clever than something that will conquer the world. Taking a look at ubervu.com, besides the fact that we haven’t a clue what it is meant to actually do, it seems the project is still in ‘Private Beta’ (why can’t they just say it is being tested? Why the need for such bullshit language?) so can hardly be labelled a success yet.
Anyone know any others?
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Hi, I know of a Romanian software firm called GeCAD that developed a very innovative antivirus package. They quite good and as a consequence were bought by Microsoft some years ago in preference to other larger and better known software developers.
I think that they are the real McCoy you were looking for (look on their website too for confirmation)
Valentin
People hearing what I say are probably making the cross sign (“se inchina” in Romanian) but I never pretended that I’m 100% sound.
Actually in the world of financial investments people usually agree that forex traders are somewhat Tom o’Bedlam
And you know, a few months ago I made an experiment: the theme of the experiment was “can I live for a month without getting out of my home?” and the result was positive
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When I ordered food and the boy from the restaurant arrived I used to lay down a basked tied with a rope from my balcony and I used to ask the boy to take the money from the basket and place the food inside so I can draw it up
All payments were carried over the internet and used my fitness bike and an Ab Rocket device to keep myself in shape.
I even called a whore to my home, which I never do but for the sake of the experiment I did.
Unfortunately I had to get out of home after about 2 weeks because a t-shirt arrived from the U.S. and I had to go to the post office to receive it
But hey, it worked, I proved that I’m a 99% closed habitat like they used to live in feudalism
About Honduras: I’m gonna get myself a portion of beach so big that no matter what direction I look to – I’m gonna see no people.
And everyday I’m gonna wake up, watch the ocean, lay down under some palm trees and eat exotic fruits directly from the trees.
And I hope there will be entire years passing without seeing any people; that’s the ideal world – me and God only and the rest of the people making sure that I have everything that I need so I can concentrate on following God’s words.
I’m a succesful startup: low costs, borrowed money, no connections, only my “either we do it right or we don’t do it at all” attitude.
When I make 1 million $ I’m gonna write a book about me to show people that some crazy guy from the East kicked the asses of 1000 big Wall Street boys and took their money.
Unfortunately my recipe is impossible to be followed by normal people because I’m crazy, I have a gun, I had it when I started and I was so determined to shoot a bullet through my head if I lost everything – that I kept the gun under my pillow for months. Now the pressure is slightly off and the gun is locked in a drawer.
Also I have no real friends, I don’t want any (I had one but he died) and – if there is anything in my soul (because in my mind the only thing that exists is how to make even more money without moving a finger) – that would be the will to do things as God says that we should do them. And I hope that He forgave me for my suicidal thoughts, He is good and He can forgive a lot; my duty is to be a better person with each day that passes.
So the success of my startup is not necessarily the amount of money that I make (which is huge compared to the initial investment and the time that passed since then but it’s little compared to the rest of the world) but rather the manner through which I earn money without doing anything.
There are moments when I think about people playing 2-3 million $ at a backgammon game (“table” in Romanian) and I realize how far I am from them but then I realize that I have something that they wish they had: freedom. All my assets are in my mind and if I leave tomorrow on foot with a laptop and a ATM card I can live the same life here, in Paris, in New York, in Honduras (my final destination) or anywhere else.
Crazy people -> crazy results.
Thinking of it, Best Jobs is part of a bigger project called Neogen. Without following a Romanian recipe (but in some directions, they developed the import nicely), the BestJobs slice itself has spread to Serbia, Moldova and Bulgaria. Of course there is still a lot of place to improve things (they still have some road to tread to get to MonsterDotCom), but they are kicking.
As for 100% Romanian ideas that applied successfully (not talking of imported ideas or good ideas that went adrift), dunno of any, maybe other than RAV (bought by MS) or others such, but then these are products with a certain degree of innovation, not successful brand new ideas from scratch.