Dream team or how bad experiences inspire

Elena Livadaru
Jul 27, 2017 · 5 min read

Anglo-American University is one of the few institutions that combine the theory with practice. So, every semester students have real projects from companies. Last semester, our team have come up with the best project, and this is not our words. Our professors have selected our team as the best.

So, how has everything started? It was the second class of Strategic Marketing and Planning. Professor announced that for next class we need to have our team formed. When the phrase was said, I looked naturally at Roman and Anastasiya (Stasya) and did the same thing. From previous classes I knew that working in a team with Roman is very difficult, not only because Roman has different vision, but due to the fact that any time we meet and start talking, Roman deviates from the subject. So every time we were meeting for the project discussion we ended up talking about random stuff. If you want to picture our meetings, imagine a nice business conversation where all members talk about accepting the budget and one of them suddenly starts talking about the new application that he downloaded and how amazing it is, or just imagine the same person leaving the room and starting talking about the budget with the receptionist next door. Yes, that is how our meetings were. Anastasia knew the same thing about Roman, but we both chose him as a team member because on another side we knew that this type of behavior describes creative people and that he is going to make our team more productive.

Here was our team formed: two ambitious, well-organised ladies with storytelling Roman ready to create a cryptocurrency that will change the world, or at least will win the award for best project.

For the three weeks, we were meeting regularly, we were talking about ideas but nothing seemed so good. After skipping one week of meetings, due to my small trip to London, we met in the cafe of the cryptocurrency institute were anyone who would want to have a cup of coffee should pay it with bitcoins. “The place will inspire us”, we thought. But that was not the case.

We were pissed off because in order to pay for our bill we needed to have the e-wallet and in order to put money on your e-wallet you need to have it in cash which means we needed to withdraw cash and come back to cafe to insert the cash in the big orange machine and all the process took us about 15 min. Plus, me and Roman, already were waiting for Anastasia for quite a while because she was having her lunch earlier and it took her too long to wait for the waiter to give her the bill and after to wait for him to come back with the card portal so she could make the payment; she explained us that there were a lot of customers and the whole process took her about 15 min. While Anastasia was still waiting for her bill in another place, I was telling Roman about my trip to London, how nice it was, and how amazing this trip could be if I had the opportunity to buy the ticket for the bus from the airport to the city center online without going to their office point in the airport in order to show the voucher and then print the tickets. As there was a huge line I wasted about 40 min while waiting to be served. Due to this, I arrived at the hotel very late and was tired and needed another 20 min to check-in and pay. Due to the fact that I had to pay in other currency I exchanged my czech crowns in the machine at the entrance and lost about 300 czk/10 euro, not very nice for a student who is working part-time.

Now, back to the caffee. The two hours spent there did not help us at all. Only when we left the place, we realized that we needed to create something that is going to solve all the issues mentioned above.

So, here we are, motivated to create something amazing for us and for people like us, the currency for millennials – travelers who want to spend their time having fun and not waiting hours in quest or wasting their money on the bad exchange rates.

Every week we were meeting and developing JourneyCoin’s concept. Roman was reading articles about how to make this solution possible and me and Anastasia were searching which other problems people have while travelling. In a meanwhile we were receiving the directions from the Company Silicon Wharf who initiated the project and was our client. Anna, our project mentor, was ensuring that all teams, including us, are on the right track. So, finally, in the end of the semester we designed JourneyCoin, not as the product that we want to sell but as the product that we want to use.

Our Roman
Anastasia’s meal that day
Picture from my trip to London
Our JourneyCoin instagram account

P.S Follow us for more details!

Elena Livadaru

Written by

Just another ambitious lady striving to add value to this world.

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