Think global. First.

Firestart Chat with Vladimir Oane on growth and startups

People growing up with a lot of books around are more likely to grow into a writer rather than an entrepreneur.

Well, Vladimir Oane, one of the creators of uberVU and Deepstash, ended up being a writer, only a different kind: the one that writes code.

Perhaps more importantly, one that writes his own story.

Growing a passion for breaking things up

Growing up he loved to break things and put them back together.

According to Vladimir, he was pretty good at it.

His dad is a history teacher so their house was always full of books which he would read.

With a library to scour through, he read all the books that he could find. He was extremely curious and eager to learn.

A tinkerer of words, if you will.

Growing out of your old passions and embracing new ones

In the 4th grade, he got a computer.

And that changed everything.

His passion for breaking things up turned into a passion for breaking software and getting immersed in the world of coding.

Vladimir named it a mind-blowing experience, given that it was his first access to a PC, so that meant a whole new world at this bare hands.

He discovered programming and taught himself all that he needed to know.

He would continue on this path in college in Bucharest where he studied computer science.

But during his teenage years he had a bunch of different hobbies: math competitions and computer sciences, Olympic Competitions in history and a short stint with a techno band.

He was quirky and interesting.

But he didn’t like things shallow.

His passion for breaking things up turned into a passion for knowledge.

He wasn’t content with surface-level information.

He wanted to understand as much as he wanted to know.

A system that didn’t grow on him anymore

If the majority has a point of view, I go for the opposite view; it’s stimulating. If we are all the same and think the same, that’s pretty boring. — Vladimir Oane

But studying computer science in Bucharest proved to be very disappointing for Vladimir.

He expected applicability, instead he only got complex algorithms that were mandatory to pass the exams.

Thinking about it now, he still doesn’t see the use of those.

In an ever changing industry, who cares about some algorithms that can be found with a single click?

Breaking your own rules

His dream was to work at Microsoft if the college thing wouldn’t work out.

In his opinion, Microsoft the pinnacle of software and a paragon of the industry. But he had no idea how to catch their attention.

It wasn’t until he heard Radu Georgescu speaking at his university.

Radu was the founder of a successful company that was ultimately bought by Microsoft so he got to hang out with Bill Gates and work together on different products.

The speech was eye opening for Vladimir who, until then, never thought that he could start a company of his own.

If that is what he’d need to do to get Microsoft’s attention, well then he was set on doing it.

Becoming an entrepreneur

I had no idea what an entrepreneur is. I had no idea that it was something you could do. — Vladimir Oane

It was a “who do I need to ask for approval?” kind of thing, Vladimir remembers.

That event was so meaningful to him, he immediately lost interest in college, only thinking about how to start a company.

He still graduated in the end.

But the driving force to start his own thing never went away

The only logical answer was to work on different apps and software and he did just that.

Along with two other colleagues and friends, he started to develop a bunch of stuff.

They created uberVU, a complex workflow management tool with applications in HR.

Interestingly enough, this shiny castle of functionality, as Vladimir called it, was never going to take off because no one was interested in the private sector.

Intent on creating a better infrastructure to manage unemployment, the government wasn’t interested either, so they were extremely disappointed.

Looking back at it, Vladimir thinks they were extremely naïve at the time and blames this for their failure.

But they also found out that what they were building with that software was huge.

Getting into the global market

What we discovered is that we can really build something that is world class. — Vladimir Oane

They started to work on a CMS (content management system) and they won some awards for it.

Meanwhile they had an online movie reviews magazine, Vladimir was also part of the first affiliated network from Romania and he worked for a tourism related Internet company.

After getting awarded for their CMS, they founded and created uberVU, a kind of version 2.0 of the award winning system, where the content was distributed among different platforms such as WordPress, Blogger, and MySpace.

He was a big believer in the distribution of content so he presented his creation at a lot of tech conferences. Here they got in touch with Microsoft, and the big giant finally paid attention to Vladimir.

uberVU meant a lot for them.

It was trivial in getting the content distributed as that was the only way to really get traffic for any products or businesses.

It was soon big enough to become an international start up. Vladimir didn’t have any plan B for it, now sees the action as a total stupidity in the case that uberVU would have not gotten successful.

But it did.

They had a lot of international users.

Burning your own bridges

We had the wisdom to burn our bridges. — Vladimir Oane

How did it uberVU work?

Vladimir says that it was all about the international market. They didn’t focus on Romania at all.

Even though they could have done it much better, the company became a hub for international content creators to use.

They only had three or four customers from Romania, the rest of them were from the US or UK.

The local market was so different.

All the other companies were not seeing the bigger picture, were not thinking global.

Vladimir had to do it if he was going to do something.

The Romanian startup scene was so different than that of the US, he knew he had no chance if he were to act local.

Trusting your instincts

We raised money from the US to London and we incorporated the startup as a London company, we raised VC money — it has all started from this idea that we should not care about the Romanian market. — Vladimir Oane

He agrees that today the situation in Romania is far better than how it was just ten years ago.

Everything regarding the startup scene has improved over the years and the process flows so smoothly in comparison to how things were back in the day.

And it was really tough back in the day.

But Vladimir never gave up.

He trusted his instinct, he got some advisers and managed to propel his product in the global market.

He opened a US office and hired people from there to take care of his company thus becoming one of the first startups to prove that it can be done globally if you have the guts and the right thinking.

The process would later go on to operate within a snowball effect, but several other startups following the same mindset focused on getting customers from abroad.

Playing your way around the ever persistent issues

The message that we sent to the community was more important than the value that we created with our software. — Vladimir Oane

There are still a lot of gaps in the Romanian fundraising process, but it has greatly improved in the past ten years.

But it’s not all peachy.

Most of the growth in Romania is fueled by public money, which Vladimir doesn’t think is the healthiest option.

It creates an imbalance; government money spent on startups that would not take off.

The Romanian people lack the discipline, the business plan, the marketing people, the content creators, the sales people, the formula and ultimately, the convenient market for developing an idea.

There are so many gaps that it’s hard to hope you’ll succeed.

But Romanian people hustle.

And they do it quite a lot.

And they don’t follow the rules, so that is why they manage to come ahead.

Keeping your curiosity open

Curiosity is important; be curious about how things work and ask questions like a broken record. — Vladimir Oane

Perhaps motivation is what kept him going in 2008.

Even though they were trying times and it was very hard to do build a successful business in Romania, Vladimir pushed onwards

He was lucky, the financial crisis hasn’t taken a toll on him.

But the acquisition did.

When they decided to sell the company to Hootsuite, the process would happen over many months. It was exhausting and psychologically demanding.

Vladimir could barely sleep before it happened and he was always stressed out about meeting and managing the expectations of the employers, on the one hand, and the advisers and investors, on the other hand.

He learned it the hard way.

But that hard way would also teach him certain tricks.

It is very important to grow a tolerance to pain and stress.

It is not an easy thing to manage a company or build a startup and even the meetings can be extremely exhausting on your body and mind, so you have to be careful not to let them overwhelm you.

It is also extremely important to be emotionally stable.

Being the founder of a company and managing it is a rollercoaster of decisions and consequences of these decisions: be prepared for the bad news for they will be far more numerous than the good ones.

The good ones almost always never last too long, so enjoy them and focus on solving the issues that come with the bad news.

The process will always be demanding, there is no way around it.

Managing a business is hard.

It can limit your free time and it can harm your relationships.

But if you stay the course, you’ll succeed.

People are so infected by a certain narrative; they will reproduce it even if it doesn’t make sense. — Vladimir Oane

You should not aim for an exit if you are thinking of starting a company.

When you are bought you are not on your terms anymore, so any magic that was there before integrating into another bigger company, will eventually disappear.

Think twice before taking the step because sometimes the decisions will slowly destroy that idea that made it all possible.

Vladimir jokingly argues that his concept of success would have been possible if he were the one who bought Hootsuite instead of them buying his company.

So don’t be blinded by an unrealistic exit strategy.

Build something good, something that you can be invested in.

Take it to market.

If it works, you’ll have finally reaped the benefits of your hard work.

If not, it’s back to the drawing board.

We did say perseverance was key.

Summary

• Vladimir Oane, one of the creators of uberVU and Deepstash, discovered programming and taught himself all that he needed to know after receiving a computer in the 4th grade.
• He continued on this field at the college in Bucharest where he studied computer science.
• Studying computer science in Bucharest proved to be very disappointing for Vladimir. He expected applicability, instead he only got complex algorithms that were mandatory to pass the exams.
• It wasn’t until he heard Radu Georgescu at a speaking conference within his university. The speech was eye opening for Vladimir who until then it had never crossed his mind that he could found a company on his own.
• He and two friends started to work on a CMS (content management system) and they won some awards for it. They founded and created uberVU, a kind of version 2.0 of the award winning system.
• It was all about the international market. They didn’t focus on Romania at all.
• He opened a US office and hired people from there to take care of his company thus becoming one of the first Romanian startups to prove that it can be done globally.

Written by Flavius Floare and Theodor Porutiu