For almost a year now I’m trying to pull myself together and write (more) on the blog. It’s hard to do and I always find myself quitting. So, I’ve decided to analyze what exactly is stopping me and came up with 5 reasons:

1st  Anything worth reading takes at least a day to write (including the time needed to come up with the idea, refining it, documenting and so on). Given a busy schedule, it’s hard to find the necessary time and easy to postpone.

2nd Everything I say publicly can be interpreted by some as part of a covered agenda. It sounds a bit crazy, but I was under a lot of scrutiny from close people quite a few times. Obviously, my life experiences influence my writings. Still, the writings are not complex allegories, no matter what people may think.

3rd Stating my views can be bad for business, since they may be opposing those of prospects or people that I engage with in various deals. This adds a lot of internal censorship, which, in turn, ruins my appetite for writing.

4th I love writing about business and I have high expectations from myself. The more I learn about business, the more I feel like a fraud when tackling some complex subjects. It may just be a manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

5th The shallowness of some reactions make me really doubt the fact there are enough readers for which I should bother writing. It’s like talking about Machiavelli, Nietzsche or Clausewitz. Everyone has an opinion about them, but few actually read more than famous quotes.  I’m not a scholar, but just entering in some conversations (eg. answering comments) can prove to be painful and completely useless.

So here you have it, 5 top notch excuses ;-) But…

My 2012 New Year’s resolution: “Stay gold!” pushes me back into writing. Hence, I’m preparing my agenda for the blog and some other personal projects that involve writing. If you have been a long time reader, thank you and stay tuned!

Dear friends, I have a huge surprise!

Today is the most important day of my life! I’m marrying my beloved fiancee, Ioana. 

I know this is unexpected. It is a bit of a surprise even for us, but we feel this is the perfect moment and we have decided not to waste any time ;-) Our love story has a large dose of beautiful madness and to us the decision to get married obvious. We are happy to tie the knot today.

I wanted to have a big wedding and have all my friends invited. Ioana wanted a family wedding ceremony. We decided to have a small civil marriage ceremony and to gather all our friends for the religious ceremony.

So, we invite you to our wedding! The grand event will take place on the 28th of July 2012 at the Snagov Palace (Bucharest, Romania). Don’t make any plans! We will send everyone formal invitations before the event. If you are reading these lines it means you are already invited and we are waiting for your confirmation.

A warm Thank You to all those that stood and stand by us. We want everyone to experience the wonderful emotions we now feel.

Lots of love,

]]> http://www.manac.biz/2011/05/how-to-spot-the-alec-baldwins-of-bad-sales/feed/ 2 http://www.manac.biz/2011/05/on-losing-weight-and-gaining-respect/ http://www.manac.biz/2011/05/on-losing-weight-and-gaining-respect/#comments Mon, 16 May 2011 16:29:32 +0000 Dragos MANAC http://www.manac.biz/?p=151 “If you think you can do it, or you think you can’t do it, You are right.”

One of my favorite theories is called Cognitive Dissonance. It basically explains the process that helps humans effectively lie to themselves. When explaining it to various people I always used a simple example: You are fat because you like to pig out. It’s not because of genetics, work hours, environment or anything else – although they can all be used as excellent excuses in effectively coping with the shameful reality. It sound harsh, but it is a good example, as I was never the thin type.

I consistently try to avoid the natural impulse of lying to myself. It’s hard to accept your weaknesses or shortcomings, but you must do this in order to overcome them at some point. When my weight got completely out of control it became obvious that I had to do something, because being fat equals being very weak (and it’s quite easy to spot).

As most people, I tried various diets with various results. The worse thing about them were not the restrictions themselves, but the close friends who always monitor you and can’t refrain from asking “Is that good for your diet?” exactly as I am ordering or while eating. But, as the song has it, I needed to lose some weight and gain some respect (at least self respect ;-).

I was determined to do something, so I quietly picked up Tim Ferris‘ hyped book – The 4 Hour Body. I like his no B.S. / hustler approach to business, so I was sure it won’t hurt to try his recommendations in terms of weight loss as well. I went on diet in March. 2.5 months later, I’m 20% thinner and everyone is wondering about the miraculous diet I have been on. My biggest problem at the moment lies in adjusting the wardrobe, which seems to belong to someone else. So, if you want advice on how to lose weight, read the book. As a sidenote, I only went for the diet, no drugs and no exercise – since I am lazy enough not to have bought the necessary gear.

It’s not only being overweight. Smoking cigarettes is another example. I am a regular cigar smoker and I hate bullying people into not smoking. But, with cigarettes, you get the addiction. And then the cigarette controls you, just as food can control you – which means you are the weak slave of a bad habit. You need to go out every hour to smoke. You’re pissing people off and waisting your time just because you cannot control yourself. And I really don’t like this. I agree to any vice as long as you can manage it.

My point is that people need to constantly improve themselves. It’s difficult, it takes time, but the results are amazing and long lasting.

How to become better at anything in 7 easy steps:

1. Avoid lying to yourself – remember the Cognitive Dissonance theory.
2. Define and accept the problem.
3. Start working on it – even if it seems to be a nightmare.
4. Do it quietly – so the others won’t put pressure on you.
5. Set some goals, milestones and a timeframe.
6. Hang in there until you see the results – it usually takes months. Instant gratification is for babies and teenagers.
7. Enjoy your upgraded self and don’t lose the good habits you have acquired.

My personal objective is not to let a single thing or person impose on me a different lifestyle than I choose and like. Even if I don’t have the necessary qualities, I work hard to acquire them. Yes, it’s hard and it seems pretty lame, especially when you set off on a new endeavor. But it works, even for people like me, who totally suck at picking up new information or skills fast.

Pump yourself up by watching the movie Limitless - if you haven’t done so this far. Meanwhile I’ll go back at developing some new skills: being sociable and dancing  - a tough, but necessary move for an introvert.

Did I mention that I went through the same process with writing? It took me a few years to master it – in Romanian at least. Now I have to step up my game for the English version of the blog as well, since I already started getting complaints from my readers.

Be strong!

I will start my Fussy Traveler series with a description of New Zealand – just before I leave this beautiful place. Mind my fussy comments – they were added for enhanced dramatic effect!

New Zealand – The basics

New Zealand is an island in the Pacific Ocean, between Australia and Antarctica, in the Southern hemisphere, which makes it painfully far away from the rest of the world. It’s the size of England and inhabited by 4 million people, called Kiwis, just as their national birds. Similar to the birds, the Kiwis are fun, short, round and unable to fly by themselves.

The Dutch first discovered and named the island, but the Brits finished the job in the early 1800. Maori, the local population, beat everyone by at least 500 years in occupying the land. Then they sold it for some guns and candy to the Brits, notorious for their negotiation skills.

Nowadays, New Zealand is part of the Commonwealth, ruled in theory by the Queen and in practice by their prime minister – a guy who appears weekly at the morning TV show to keep the Kiwis informed. Everyone lives a quiet and peaceful life and people seem very happy – mostly because they are so remote from the rest of the world and there is not much for them to do all day. I saw a region in which voters had to choose among candidates from the Legalize Marijuana Party, from the Pirate Party and a homeless guy. You can imagine the level of political wrestling that goes on.

For the impatient traveler, the very short version: New Zealand is just like the Unites States of America, but it totally lacks the drama, which makes it the nicest or most boring place to live in.

Kiwis drive on the wrong left side of the road. They chose to use the metric system, which is both smart and useful. The local currency is the New Zealand Dollar, or NZD, one of which can buy you half a Euro or 3/4 US Dollars, or an Australian dollar – this is an exchange rate rule-of-thumb, it might actually vary quite a lot by the time you read this article.

For New Zealanders, the Australians, or Aussies (read: Ozzies) are the main competitors. As a bus driver sung: Kiwis do everything better than Aussies – and Kiwis play better rugby too. Rugby, in various incarnations, is the most popular sport. The national rugby team is known as the All Blacks – a bunch of well-fed guys you would go to great lengths not to offend.

Australians and New Zealanders have they own power socket in a smart move to keep things complicated for travelers. All the power sockets have an on/off switch. You can see the same level of ingenuity and care for resources applied in numerous areas.

The time zone is UTC+12. The day starts here for the whole world, so you will be living in the future. Jet lag is a buzz kill if not addressed properly and fast – sleep all day until you are in sync with the local time.

Wellington is the administrative capital, but Auckland is the biggest city, counting for a third of the whole population – 4 million people living in a territory larger than England. Other important cities are Christchurch, Hamilton, Nelson and some others spread over two main islands intuitively named the North and the South Island.

Kiwis speak what you could call a very special dialect of the English language, with an accent worse than you would hear in the farthest regions of England itself. Still, it never ceases to sound funny or friendly. When it comes to accents, Australians aren’t better either. Maori is the second official language and it sounds cool (and meaningful if you can actually understand it). The French speaking population has been almost extinguished about 150 years ago.

Prices, cost of visiting New Zealand

New Zealand is a pretty expensive place to visit. It might be a direct cause of it’s remoteness or perhaps its small size. Expect to pay:

• 15-25 NZD for breakfast
• 75-150 NZD for a decent hotel room
• 30-50 NZD for lunch or dinner
• 3-5 NZD per local bus trip, 15-25 NZD for a one way shuttle
• 40+ NZD for renting a small car per day
• 100 NZD+ for a decent tourist tour

Aside from accommodation, you need about 100 NZD per day as a minimum budget – with 70 NZD being an absolute minimum.

Multiply that by 0.5 to get the price in EUR or 0.75 for the price in USD.

New Zealand Accessibility

Air New Zealand is the local airline. Their services are one of the best in the world. They are part of the Star Alliance, which means the best prices you will get from Europe are for Lufthansa flights. Lufthansa is a great airline if you grew up in an army camp. Otherwise, it is kind of horrible if you are the fussy type.

Jet Star is a low cost company great for internal flights. The services are excellent and normal people can actually fit in their chairs.

Buses are always a good option, offering civilized travel conditions and pricing, but I would only recommend them for short distances; Otherwise, it just takes too much time and air travel is more effective.

Renting a car or a van is always a good, affordable option, unless you have no experience in driving on the wrong left side, in which case you may end up thrilling or killing yourself.

The infrastructure overall is very well developed, but because of the scarce population not all the places are easily connected through roads or rail tracks.

Weather in New Zealand

The weather is pretty nice, similar to the Mediterranean climate. August is in the middle of the winter, which means that there is lots of rain and rare frosting. January to March is, obviously, summer – and then you get temperatures in the 20-30 Celsius degrees area, about 75-90 Fahrenheit degrees (due to the simple and logical way of translating C to F). Hence New Zealand is a great place in which to spend your Northern winter time. Ideally, go to New Zealand between January and April.

Earthquakes are common in the South Island, since it is the battle ground of two tectonic plaques. I luckily missed the latest Christchurch quake by two days.

Also in the unexpected department: New Zealand is one a the few places where you can surf and board the same day.  Choosing your clothes can be a bit tricky as well, since they sometimes have all the seasons jammed up into one day.

Kiwi Friendliness

Kiwis are very friendly people, open and chatty. Nothing is usually very formal and everyone seems to have a good time. It’s pretty usual to have people cracking jokes at you.

In Auckland you can find a very mixed population – many Asians, Indians and Europeans, but not so much in the rest of the country.

Women are not stunners, but not ogress either. If you like the practical/hiker type of woman, this might be the place to go. Many of them are quite well-fed (I hope that did not sound offensive to anyone :)

New Zealand’s Entertainment

People seem to be hard 9-5-ers and then be completely off. Outdoor activities are very very popular (biking, hiking, swimming, gliding etc). Sailing is especially popular since boat ownership is also very common.

The club/party scene is probably at the opposite corner from Ibiza. On weekends people tend to go out a lot more. Some have bad public reactions to alcohol, so at times it gets creepy and/or funny. The police has very mild interventions, relying on good advice more than fines or weapons. Overall all New Zealand is very safe for visitors.

There is a ton of things to do, even for the fussiest of us. Boat trips to islands close-by, wine tastings, helicopter tours, thermal baths, themed tours are all activities that fill you with excitement and put you in a good mood. Prepare to shell out some serious money for some of them. You will constantly get good quality services, excellent bank for your buck. I have never walked into tourist traps, which is unusual.

Food in New Zealand

A huge selection of international restaurants is available. Asian restaurants are very popular and, as usual, quite cheap. There is no local cuisine, but there are some popular local types of food, like the Pavlova. Lots of fish and sea food for which you don’t pay a premium. You should try the traditional Maori food, prepared the Hangi way: cooked on steaming rocks in a pit oven. Also, you can try a ton of exotic fruits, most of which I cannot even name.

Cigar availability in New Zealand

This is one field in which New Zealand lacks a lot. Tobacco is expensive, 15 NZD for a pack of cigarettes. Cigars are extremely tough to come across. To put it mildly, it is way easier to buy weed and, by the smell of it, a lot more popular. The regular cheap cigars can be found anywhere, but are overpriced. Cuban cigars are 2-3 times more expensive than in most of the fancy shops in the world. Due to the weather and humidity conditions here, they are reasonably well kept. When it comes to cigars in New Zealand there is only one thing to remember: Bring your own!

Internet and telecommunications in New Zealand

There are a few standard GSM operators, Vodafone being the biggest of them. The international prefix is +64. Lose the first 0 in local numbers when dialing from abroad. Remote locations usually don’t have network coverage.

Internet connections are slow and expensive. Only a few coffee shops offer free wireless. Hotels usually charge for Internet, from 10 to 25 NZD per day. Traffic is usually capped and you pay for time, transfer or both. Internet cafes are popular. You can buy an unlocked 3G stick for 80-100 NZD with 2GB of data included. For 80 NZD you can get a crappy unlocked phone and 20 NZD prepay credit. Calls are quite expensive, close to 1 NZD per minute.

New Zealand’s Business Climate

With less people than Miami, New Zealand is a small market in itself. A per capita GDP of about $30,000, qualifies Kiwis as well-off customers. The economy relies a lot on international trade. Business conditions are excellent: Along with Singapore, New Zealand constantly rates as the best country to do business in. The authorities make it very easy to incorporate and run your business. All the systems are online, perfectly built and easy to use – a real example of what can be done when the state truly wants to help businesses. Taxation is simple and gradual. Double taxation treaties are in place, but just with 35 countries.

The NZD is closely related to the USD and one of the top 10 traded currencies on the Forex. Hence, it is quite volatile and may be considered a bit risky. Plus, you always have to exchange it to more popular currencies – at a cost. Opening a bank account is easy, but you should be aware of the quite steep fees for all the transactions.

The local card is called EFTPOS and doesn’t work online or internationally. Credit or debit cards work everywhere, but all have a fee of at least 2% for transactions. Accounts in international currencies require a deposit of at least 10,000 NZD with any of the local banks. You need to be present in person to be able to open an account. Overall, banking services are a bit of a headache.

My top 7 New Zealand experiences

1. Tour of the Auckland Tower, 326m/1000ft in height. The highest deck is 220m above ground level. You can walk around it, outside, in the air, or bungee jump. My life insurance doesn’t cover this, so I passed the opportunity.
2. Helicopter tour. Around the town, to the volcanoes or the glaciers. I had a city tour just to check my level of comfort. It started at terror and worked its way up to fun.
3. Maori village tour. Obviously staged, but still scary. I got to see a traditional village, a show, a haka (traditional war dance) and taste some good food. Funny and entertaining.
4. Christchurch’s botanical gardens. One of the green houses hosted hundreds of petunias. The most beautiful flowers I have ever seen.
5. Bathing in one of the Pacific bays. Hundreds of beaches await you and at 21 Celsius degrees the water is warm enough.
6. Free falling, which is just like sky diving. You fly, except you don’t fall, but get blown up by a huge air stream. Physically demanding and it ruins your face and hair.
7. Waiheke island tour which included visiting the open air art and then wine tasting at one of the local vineyards. Amazingly pleasant.

Total cost: < 350 NZD for all of the above, transportation to the site, tickets and drinks included. Multiply that by 0.5 to get the price in EUR or 0.75 for the price in USD.

Wrapping up

You should visit New Zealand at least once. You will definitely love it! The 20 hours+ flight is an absolute killer. There is plenty to do in the kiwi land, as long as you budget it right and prepare in advance.

Kia Ora! The Maori expression for We will eat you for dinner! or Good day! – I always mix them up.

February 22 2011, Auckland NEW ZEALAND

I love traveling!

The only problem is: I am a fussy traveler! Backpacking, shared rooms, low-budget everything and such are not things I’m very keen on. They must be great for students and hippies, but not for people who pack matching clothes, abhor long walks or hiking and consider hot showers, clean linen and air conditioning as basic a need as water. And there’s a huge dichotomy that just rips me apart: being the penny pincher that I am, there is no way to stop my desire for the finest experiences, which usually just happen to also be the most expensive. So, I have developed a personal strategy to ensure my usual level of comfort and to allow me to live the good life, without spending a fortune (or at least not a large one :).

Dragos Roua, a good friend, advised me that people are interested in reading travel logs. It seems a good enough excuse for me to brag whenever possible, so I decided to write about it regularly when traveling to new destinations. Plus, it might be helpful for the other fussy travelers. They are people that I hope really exist and share my pain when it comes to travel advice, which seems to be either for hikers or sheiks, not for real, lazy, fussy people.

Mixing pleasure with business is a must. There is so much business to be done all around the world. It has to be mixed with something, otherwise it gets boring and depressing. That’s why I will always cover the fun part, but throw in some business related info.

Rating places is also very important, so I’ll start working on a complex system to paint a clear image of the possible destinations. I’ll also drop some budgeting hints from time to time, so you can make sure you have enough cash to keep you from walking back home barefoot and from washing dishes in a Mexican restaurant for the next 5 years to buy a plane ticket.

One common thing for people all around the world: they want to travel and they think life is better somewhere else. As we all know, the grass is always greener on the other side, because it’s fertilized with bullshit. So I’ll keep the fertilizer at a minimum. Coming from an average country I’ll be a pretty good judge of what’s OK and what’s not.

Oh, and one last thing: Cigar friendliness and availability will always be a criterion. It’s a pity to visit a great place and not be able to buy and smoke a good cigar.

I strongly believe that people should buy experiences, not things. Traveling allows you to meet different cultures, to learn and understand the world surrounding you. It might appear expensive or hard to do, but it usually is cheaper than you think and makes for a much better investment than a car, a large house or some other useless things we are forced to buy as status symbols or just to keep up with the Joneses. So, as Puff Daddy said, F the Joneses, try to keep up with the Combses – and adopt an international lifestyle :)

February 18 2011, Christchurch NEW ZEALAND

My pet project got to be on Slashdot for violating GPL. Definitely a bad case of the Mondays in my career as a Appnor’s CEO.

Last time my company got Slashdotted was 6 years ago when we developed an updated installer for Debian Woody, Hilux.

Over the last 8 years I have been very involved in the Open Source community, promoting OSS, publishing a book, writing articles in the local press and online media and pushing Open Source as the ultimate revolution in IT. Again, that’s me.

A few months ago, I spoke to a good friend of mine, Vasile Stanimir, who developed WinMTR back in 2000. WinMTR is the Windows equivalent of MTR, a network testing tool. Since the project was no longer being developed, I offered to buy the rights and offer it for free, on behalf of Appnor. So I bought the rights.

WinMTR became my pet project. I hired a programmer, compiled a bug and request list, and pushed hard to have a new version by the end of 2010. There were a few big things that needed fixing: working as a regular user on newer Windows releases and having a 64-bit version.

After spending Christmas Eve at work, I managed to have everything ready on December 24 – a new version of WinMTR after almost 10 years of inactivity!

One big issue was the licensing. It was my idea to go from GPL to copyrighted freeware. After 3 days (actually nights) of reflecting on it, I decided to revoke the GPL since we had full rights. There was only one external contribution, a broken patch from 2001 that got removed. Nobody went through the trouble of adding new features in a decade, but there were many feature requests. It seemed clear that people cared more about having something that works for free, rather than having it Open and maintained by the community. So, I decided to update it and make it available for free, but not under GPL.

I strongly believe that we are entitled to change the license. But to what effect?

• An angry mob. The comments on Slashdot prove that.
• A good story for our competition.
• A very long list of debates and arguments in which we have to prove that we are not creeps.

Instead of dealing with this, I decided to take the blame and do the mature thing: revert to GPL v2. By the end of the week (January 16 2011) the updated sources (stating the new license) will be on Sourceforge for all to download and further enhance.

And what does that bring us?

• A “proof” for those stating we violated GPL. Easily verifiable from the new source code.
• Fewer headaches for a tool that just had a huge increase in TCO

Hence, the lesser evil is preferred.

I have to admit that I never imagined this issue could get that blown out of proportions. If I were to lament, I’d say that we could have had a civilized discussion, instead of a one-sided story filled with incorrect “remarks and assumptions”. But I won’t lament.

Hopefully, this will make Open Source communities commit more and comment less. Maybe free software is like the ones we love: we realise how much they meant to us when we lose them or the license gets changed.

Please accept my apologies – this is not at all what I expected for the project. This goes to everyone, but especially to you, Vasile.

And thus my story ends.

Thank you,

You can spit on my Facebook Page, call me a Class A Moron but, hopefully, we can still be friends, as long as we are reasonable people.

Dragos MANAC
Alleged Wrong-Doer

This year, every other month I got a phone call from a friend informing me about a tragedy. Friends, our ages, dying, mostly of heart attacks and brain aneurysms. This should not be common for people in their mid-twenties up to late-thirties. After getting such news, I always end up spending a few hours contemplating the very finite character of life and the major actions we need to take.

The funnel of despair: losing your hope, losing your mind and losing your life. It may sound dramatic, but it’s commonly seen during tough times. Romania, the place where I sadly spent half of 2010, offers the perfect illustration. The political chaos, manifested in unbearable taxation, corruption and lack of planning and foresight, produced one great fatality: people’s hope for a better future.

Lack of hope instills uncertainty and ever increasing pressure. Very few of us are strong enough to keep a clear mind in a personal universe where all hope is lost. The next step is always: losing your mind. Most become frozen and bitter, some get severely depressed and some others attempt suicide. A good example is that of the sound technician from the Romanian National Television who jumped off the Parliament balcony early this month, protesting against those that “stole our future”. Not surprisingly, when it comes to mental disorders, Romanians are Europe’s “champions”.

Losing your life is the hardest part. I am not speaking of dying, because that is (cynically) the easy way out. By losing life I mean unused potential, wasted years, lack of accomplishments and happiness – the lengthy and painful process at the end of which you come to grasp your own insignificance.

For a modern man, total success is equal to being a self-made man, rising from rags to riches, pushed by personal will and power. The scaled down version of this is being able to have a family, a decent lifestyle in which you can afford a house, a car, good education for your children and occasional vacations. Since some of us still live in patriarchal societies, especially in poorer countries, not being able to provide for your family equals complete and utter failure – more so when being a man. Hence, it’s obvious how for many men life is lost when you have no hope, no control, no plans and no accomplishments.

One of the most interesting books I ever read was Flow, by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. I highly recommend it, since it is the best happiness manual/treaty (far from your average useless self-help book). Mr. Csíkszentmihályi, a psychiatrist, studied people for more than 20 years and found out what produces the feeling of happiness. It all boils down to the fact that having purpose in life is the purpose of life. You will understand the concept better after reading the book.

So what’s the purpose? Dying at 30 while trying to build your business or provide for your family? While I do not advocate working yourself into the ground, still I would argue that to die trying is a very honorable position – sadly, it rarely has long-term benefits for you and the others.

First, I think you need to have purpose, a dream. It should only rely on your own actions and thoughts, since triggering actions of others is a hundred times harder. Then, you should do all in your power to pursue your dream. You will always have your family, friends and others that depend on your work and well-being. Try to keep their number to a minimum, since they all just add new layers of problems. As an entrepreneur, even without a family or other major obligations, you will quickly see that your actions can severely impact the life of tens or hundreds of people.

My example: I do business across the world, renting servers and cloud services. My dream is pretty simple: to build and grow a company that serves customers on six continents, deploys thousands of servers and makes clients happy. This gives me purpose. I have been doing this for a while. For about two years, I started to internationalize my business and the feeling is great. This move opened a world of hope and new possibilities.

The purpose will always be a journey. The destination is just a point that defines the direction and urges us to move. Hope, the belief in the dream, pushes us further. Happiness has to be integrated in the journey. By having a purpose, doing what you like and liking what you do, you will get your fair share of happiness each and every day.

Vision without execution is hallucination. Plans that do not degenerate into work are only good intentions. So, I (as many others) came to a point in life where an extra kick is needed to go in the right direction. The best thing you can do in such moments is to burn the ships: Destroy anything that can offer you a quick exit, the return to normal. Perhaps not burning the ships, but merely scuttling them will be enough. I urge anyone over-thinking or planning bold actions to start by doing this: forcing himself out of the comfort zone. Otherwise we will just stall, lose hope and waste our lives.

Takeaways:

• 3. Get a life insurance. No investment plan, the basic one. It is inexpensive and smart to have.
• 2. Read Flow by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. You will be sorry you have not read it sooner. View his Flow speech at TED.
• 1. Walk away from people and places you don’t like, that offer you no hope or joy.
• 0. Burn thy ships. Just do it, don’t over-think it.

December 31 2010, Bucharest ROMANIA

In my younger and more vulnerable years I was very patriotic. I was convinced that Romania is one of the greatest countries in the world. There is a common thing any foreigner sees when meeting Romanians: they all complain and say how much they hate Romania. This is so obvious that one of my foreign business partners thinks that he would get wealthy instantly if only he could monetize this intense feeling. For years now I’m trying to understand why this happens – and I think I finally got it. Also, it applies to many other East European countries as well.

Propaganda and the school.

Every country is good at making up for itself a great history out of any sort of past. The history offers local models, heroes, patterns we identify with. Being a part of something great makes you great. When someone tries to take that greatness away you fight back. You defend your country because it has made you great as well, by association. This is a very simple way of turning weak people into strong weapons. We all feel the need to be part of something bigger. For many it’s the preferred football team or religion – and you can see the extreme manifestations of that. We even have Jane Elliot’s Exercise to prove how simple it is to turn people against each other based on shallow beliefs of superiority.

Romanians got their part of great historical achievements from their own history books. History is written by winners to justify the past and secure the future. The last big winners in Romania were the communists, and they wrote the current version of our history.

To see the people’s superior view of their own country and how inferior neighboring countries are – please visit http://www.urbandictionary.com and search for Romania, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Poland and so on. You will see people cheering the great things making their country the best in the world – such as Ukraine’s great cossacks army, which kicked everyone’s ass in the 18^th century. No one aside from actual Ukrainians really cares about this propagandist achievements, but they serve their purpose.

The communist dream

Westerners usually think that in communist countries people were all mean, red and busy working on their plan to conquer the world. Obviously, this is not true. The communist regime sold a dream in which the fight for freedom and a better life were basic duties. Sounds familiar? You get the same thing in many other capitalist countries. They sold the utopian idea of an egalitarian system, where all the people have a job, a house and enough money to live a decent life. Take away the egalitarian part and those are all ideas you hear in each election campaign. After tens of years of communism people forgot what started the ideology, were born in the new utopian system, and along the way got intoxicated with their country’s huge role in world history.

The communist regimes proved their inefficiency – mostly because they lacked a free market, not necessarily because of the politics (China, anyone?). Still, people were born and raised in that social and political ecosystem. They were prepared to live the dream. It had a basic promise: Be a good citizen, respect your country and regime, work just like the others and you will live a good life (job, house, enough money for the family, good schools for the children etc).

The broken promise

After more than 40 years, the Russian-inspired communist regimes collapsed in the 90′s. The dream had become a nightmare in the 80′s, with people struggling to get food and praying for water and electricity. Having a planned economy, pushing controllable non-values in key positions and closing the borders proved fatal.

In the 90′s, intense movements occurred in ex-communist countries. Moving to a capitalist economy was a lot harder than people initially expected. The only ones prepared for the new way of doing business and making money were the few that had ties to foreign markets – the important people in communist years. The new capitalists were the former communists, not just in business, but in politics, administration and so on.

Taking advantage of turbulent times, those that had the international opening and the local connections got very rich, very fast. Regular people, who expected capitalism to treat them right, were in for a big surprise. Liberty and democracy did not translate into jobs and enough money. Huge overnight inflation and collapsing industries lead to unemployment. People had the foreign products they wanted, but no jobs and no money. Back to a new, democratic form of nightmare!

The secret key

We had learned that we are part of a great country – our history said so. People were born in the communist utopia of freedom and enough means for everyone to live a happy life – the old promise.

The communist regime did not work; it collapsed when people rose up to achieve real freedom through capitalism and democracy – the new promise.

But the new capitalists were the old communists. The money went to the old guys. Hard working people found themselves lacking jobs and basics means of life. Many started bemoaning the communist regime and the dictators – at least things got done and people had jobs and housing. Some still think that 20 years later.

The basic problem is the broken promise – Be a good, hard working citizen and get a good life! It was broken by the communists and then it was broken again by capitalists. This can be explained by the fact that there was never a new society, just the old one with a new face. People did not get “capitalism training”. They did what they were taught and got nothing in return. It was impossible for most of them to change jobs or get new skills. Work productivity and efficiency were new concepts. There was no party to push, no government to provide jobs, houses, fixed salaries. All these aspects were speculated by populist politicians and eventually made common folks even poorer.

Why Romanians hate Romania today

The general impression, based on tons of facts, is that the scum got rich, while the working man got screwed over by the new democracy. The old communist class preserved its advantages. Thieves, complete opposite of the working man, became the nouveau riche. Old principles like hard work, honesty, good education became ingredients of the recipe for a life of starving and trying to make ends meet.

You can be successful by doing the exact opposite – this seems to be the idea. Just that the opposite is against everything you have learned while growing up. This dissonance is partly the root of hate.

After gaining the liberty to travel and experience the life and culture of other countries another huge difference strikes RomaniansOurs isn’t the greatest country in the world. Nobody heard about our brave soldiers, or how we defended Europe from the Turks in the Middle Ages. Nobody calls Bucharest “the small Paris,” except Romanians. We’re under-dressed. We’re not prepared to live in civilized conditions.

There is a huge difference between Western European countries and Eastern ones. Even Hungary, Romania’s traditional source of ethnic conflict, looks and is a lot more civilized and evolved. So we’re not great, we’re a lot less than that. This builds up into extra frustration for every Romanian. You can either get deeper and deeper in the historic Romanian supremacy and get mocked or ignored or embraced by other ultra-nationalists. Or you can go the other, more common, way:  Get disappointed and lose consideration for your country because you see it all as a big fat lie.

Gypsies were the first to travel abroad. They were soon followed by many low-income people looking for jobs abroad, along with all sorts of evil doers. This created a simple association in the minds of Europeans – Romanians are gypsies, beggars, thieves, low-lives in general. Not a very good association for educated youngsters who travel to discover the world. This brings us to a third good motive to avoid any association with being Romanian and to badmouth your country.

So, there are three huge gaps:

1. The difference between what Romanians thought of themselves and the current state of things
2. The difference between the values that they grew up with and those that seem to actually produce results
3. The difference between what they aspire to be and what they are seen as

These are the reasons for which Romanians hate Romania. Just ignoring the fact that we are Romanians would be enough if it wasn’t for the 3^rd reason, the frequent association between low-lives, criminals, and Romanians. This makes most of the people speak badly about Romania constantly – at home and abroad.

What’s the solution? Well: fixing history, waiting for millions of people to evolve, waiting for social justice, rearing new generations of people without our historical baggage – impossible things in general. In the end, you are left with a sad reality and a lot of explaining to do in the face of biased foreigners.

Still, preconceived opinions about Romania and Romanians are common just in Europe. In the US (due to visa regulations and general remoteness) or in other countries (due to distance) we have not exported enough bad elements to create generalized prejudice. So, as a rule, there’s no need to complain too much about Romania, even if you don’t like it, because people have no idea whether things are good or bad.

In the end, there isn’t a simple solution to cure the hate against your country. I’d say that badmouthing anything is bad for you. Inflated compliments are equally bad on the long term. I try to be as balanced as possible and keep unpleasant feelings at bay. At least I’m happy that I came up with this very lengthy explanation on why Romanians hate Romania ;-)

July 7 2010, Bucharest ROMANIA

The first 2 weeks of March have been a bit extreme for me. The first good news is that back home, in Romania, Forbes ran a two page story about my work. The second one is that I went to South by Southwest 2010 and it turned out to be an incredible experience – and I will go into further detail.

A bit of background, South by Southwest (short SXSW) is a a set of interactive, music and film festivals held each year since ’87 in Austin, Texas. I went to the interactive sessions with low expectations, based on the experiences I had with most of the “offline” IT conferences. My good friends from UberVU convinced me that it pays off to fly a few good thousands miles for SXSW, and it did.

SXSW has two big  components:

1. The conferences – panels, presentations and keynotes on various interactive subjects.
2. The parties - public or private events where you get to have a good time and meet all sorts of people.

As you can see in the online schedule, there are hundreds of events crammed in 4-5 days. So much to do, so little time – that will definitely make you a bit nervous. Hence, some filtering is needed. My tips:

• Avoid going to newbie sessions, stick with those that feature really interesting people or subjects.
• The titles of the sessions are usually a lot better than the sessions themselves, so don’t fall for that.
• Move from session to session. My overall impression is 1.5 of 5 stars for the sessions, so move fast to find the really good ones.
• Panels are usually mediocre, some presentations can be really good, keynotes are boring.
• Keep a smartphone or a laptop around, half the info is found out by following the specific twitter hashtag.
• Have a backup internet connection, the free wireless is barely coping with the amount of users (since everyone has a wireless device).
• Skip some sessions, but go to all the important parties!

The parties are by far the most important part of the event, because there you get to meet the real people in an informal manner, and that makes things really simple.

Partying tips:

• Make sure you RSVP for all the parties or get tickets/invitations (usually given away from the booths of the companies in the exhibition hall). Otherwise it’s pretty hard to sweet talk your way in, although it can be done. In the infinite amount of time you spend standing in line it’s easy to make friends that can get you in, but not always accepted by the “entrance militia”.
• Arrive very early or very late to skip the waiting in line part – which otherwise is great for networking.
• Try to have some meaningful conversations, without coming across as weird or pushy, instead of speed dating.
• Don’t get wasted on the free booze. For you it will be hard to remember the people you have met and for them it will be hard to forget you.
• Be relaxed and open, don’t try too hard. It’s hard to believe the amount of interesting people you will meet. Eg: my friend met Robert Scoble and his wife and had no idea who they were, apart from the fact that they seemed to be nice folks.

Getting to talk to la creme de la creme of the online world, this is the best part of SXSW. My personal highlights were the fact that I had a nice conversation with Paul Graham, partied with the people from Seedcamp London, got to see Brad Fitzpatrick, met a lot of VCs (by accident), talked to people from Google, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal and so on. Also, very important, I got to talk to many professionals or entrepreneurs with excellent projects (heck, I already  signed up as a customer for a few!). Note that these were all the people I was interested in meeting. Lots of easily accessible online celebrities were there. Even Quentin Tarantino showed up at the Rackspace party. In the last day I even got to see Lemmy from Motorhead being interviewed in a bar.

I will spare you the talk about the film and music conferences, the incredible Austin night life, the live music and the non-stop partying. You have to be there to get the feel of it.

Fun, friends and business – the perfect mix. Cy’all at SXSW 2011, in about a year now!

March 18 2010, Sunnyvale CA

First iteration: 7 years ago I started my own IT company in Romania. Back then, there wasn’t a market for our services, I had no business experience and the growth was painful, but that is the part young entrepreneurs do not really come to know until they actually start-up. Time got by and the market appeared, the business expanded, my presence on the local scene got noticed. It was all small, but cozy enough so it got comfortable.

New iteration: One month and 11 days ago, having acquired enough experience, I chose to do the most difficult thing: Step out of my comfort zone and start off internationally – start from scratch on the big IT scene.

What I used to do in Romania before my leaving was advise technology startups on business matters. While I found that to be very interesting and exciting work, it soon became crystal clear that no significant opportunity would come by if I limited myself to a small, local consumer base with low purchasing power. The only way to make numbers add up, I realised, was to develop products for an international market. Sounds simple, but like all simple things, this is seldom obvious to people based in small countries, where focusing on local projects seems the most sensible approach.

Familiar surroundings, business and personal connections, the absence of cultural and language barriers are precisely the roadblocks distancing the huge international market from local startups in all those little countries no one can identify on a map. This being said, there is no excuse for entrepreneurs in any scalable business not to try to evolve and expand internationally.

Re-starting from scratch has major disadvantages. The main one is that … you are starting from scratch (i.e. you have nothing). Thus, this is not a step many would take, especially when they have acquired a top-tier position, even in a minor market. Actually, the most difficult thing to swallow since crossing the ocean was the feeling of being no one, just another face in the crowd – a feeling I had long forgotten.

There is a new start to everything, so here I am, at Step 1. I will use this blog to document the entire process of building an international business … and who knows what from there on!

PS: To my Romanian audience, I will continue to write on manac.ro with the same low frequence ;-)