Why Feedback and Mindset are More Important Than Pulling an All-nighter

Why Feedback and Mindset are More Important Than Pulling an All-nighter

Did you ever feel… stuck?

Like you were striving for more like you knew you deserved more but didn’t quite manage to push the extra mile?

Valentin Maior knows a lot about overcoming challenges. Growth can’t come any other way.

He’s the CEO of Techmatch and the Co-Founder of Romanian IT, a community for Romanian Tech Professionals and Enthusiasts.

And here’s his take on how to get unstuck.

Early years

In the beginning, Valentin wanted to be a dentist.

Fortunately, that was a short-lived dream, just because he loved math too much. That’s a rare trait, but he thinks it’s because his brain is analytical.

He just gets math.

And that helped him a lot throughout his life.

After he graduated high school, he went on to study at the Technical University of Cluj Napoca.

Funny enough, that’s where he started to hate math because he had a lot of distractions.

University can be filled with ways to waste your time…

Luckily, he was able to push through the call of procrastination.

And he went on to work as a software developer.

In The Beginning There Was… Web Development

Valentin’s first-ever client was a company from Cluj that does stadium management. It wasn’t anything fancy, he just had to build a website.

But he gave everything he had in him, working late and pushing hard.

In the end, he finished the big project in just two weeks.

And he realized that he quite liked the industry.

So he went on to get a summer job at a small company, doing SQL and barely getting paid enough money to afford rent.

But the bare minimum was enough for him. He just didn’t want to go back to his hometown.

He then went on to work at a mid-sized IT company for almost three years.

The Switch

Back in 2011, Valentin started reading a lot of books on entrepreneurship, which broadened his horizon.

One stood out: Delivering Happiness, by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.

He realized that having a business…

…Was a distinct possibility. On top, it was something he wanted to do.

So he struck a good deal with a former colleague, which hired him to do some software development, and some business development on the side too.

That was tough.

He had no experience in developing a business. He was scared.

But he knew everything he had to do in theory.

He had read the books.

It was just a matter of applying what he learned.

And that’s what he did.

When he came on board, the company had 5 employees, working from yet another small apartment. Fast forward one year and a half later, there were 21 people working towards the same goal.

But that was short-lived too.

He had vision incompatibilities with the CEO, so that collaboration ended abruptly.

But he learned an important thing: he wanted to do management because he loves working with people.

And that’s how Valentin’s next venture came to be.

Romanian IT

After he moved to Paris on a whim, he finally learned enough French to get around and he worked as a software developer for a year.

But slowly, he started to feel depressed.

“People tend to forget all about you after you move to another country.” — Valentin Maior

It’s just hard to be in a foreign land, with little human connection.

So he realized he wanted a community with other people like him — Romanian developers that left their homeland in search of a better life.

He started browsing, researching and asking around.

But he came up empty.

“When I realized there isn’t a community, I decided I’ll build one.” — Valentin Maior

So he started grinding.

And the first meeting they ever had was awkward. There were 15 people, and for a while, they just drank and talked about tech.

But slowly, Romanian IT started to get some traction.

And they realized people needed a community.

So they created a website and started promoting the platform all around the diaspora and back home in Cluj.

When they launched everything, 800 people registered in just 6 months. 1 year after launch, they had over 1300 people in the network.

“Everybody wanted to get connected. Our network practically exploded.” — Valentin Maior

And that’s when he set his sights on building something for this network.

Techmatch

Valentin’s now focused on his startup, Techmatch, which connects companies that need development partners in Romania.

The first thing he realized is that you don’t have to worry about the usual stuff you’d expect to be in short demand when running a startup.

“The projects themselves are not hard to do. The clients are not hard to handle. The team is what challenges you a lot.” — Valentin Maior

And that’s especially true when you talk about your co-founders.

Choosing the right co-founders is what gets you through. It teaches you how to apply the leadership lessons you read all about.

Really, the company counts on the co-founders, and Techmatch is on its way to becoming a mature business because the co-founders learned how to take responsibility.

But for Valentin, Techmatch is more than just a playground for leadership principles.

It taught him a lot about doing business in Romania.

Romanians Doing Business

The first thing you’ll notice about Romanians is that they associate selling with something wrong.

It’s a historical thing: the Turks used to sell, so we associate it with something bad.

“There’s this perception that if you sell, you’re trying to trick someone.” — Valentin Maior

On top, Romania used to be a “production line country”. The communist heritage is something we’re still trying to grow from.

We’re averse to sales. We think it’s shady.

But that’s really not what sales are all about.

And part of Techmatch’s mission is to educate people on doing sales the right way.

“Selling is just adding value for the fair price.” — Valentin Maior

And this ties back into Valentin’s values.

If Techmatch wasn’t a reality, he’d do financial consulting, because Romanians don’t have a financial education.

“We don’t know how to make money, we don’t know how to spend money, we don’t know how to save our money.” — Valentin Maior

But for true innovation, we need more than just skills and knowledge.

If you want to be successful, you need the right mindset.

And that’s the first tip Valentin would give to anyone.

Hacks For The Smart Entrepreneur

To expand on the mindset point: If you want to succeed, you need to accept to be mentored.

Valentin goes through hard feedback sessions every week. This helps him connect with his business partners, which helps them grow together.

But there’s a caveat here.

Before you seek a mentor, you need to learn how to take feedback.

It should never be personal. You should be able to dissociate your value from your tasks and accept feedback to fix everything going forward.

So don’t take it personally. Just listen to it, sleep on it, see if it makes sense for you.

That’s just business. If you truly want to grow, you need to develop into a real human being, not just a work machine.

That’s why Valentin thinks everyone should consider seeing a therapist/coach. Even if you don’t, you should still learn how to accept feedback in your personal life too.

And that’s important because you may not be looking for lessons…

…but life’s going to serve them anyway.

At least that happened with Valentin’s biggest failure. He learned that it’s always important to do contracts and be covered legally.

Yeah, friendship is good, trust is good.

But there’s no beating a fair deal you sign on. With the right contract, he could’ve avoided losing a lot of money.

It’s not all tears.

Success will also teach you valuable lessons.

For example, Valentin’s very proud of the team he built with Techmatch. Not just because they do a great job, but because they’re like a family to him. They’re always there, and not just to praise him.

If he makes a mistake, they’ll point it out.

If he’s slacking, they’ll be sharp about it.

And that makes all the difference.

It’s one of the reasons he can maintain a healthy daily schedule.

Valentin wakes up at 6 am, goes to the gym, then comes to his office, has a meeting with his team, work, client meetings, administrative work and in the afternoon he spends as much time as he can with friends (or himself).

This taught him how to delegate. He does his best to apply the 20–80 rule and focus on what’s important to grow his company, technically, emotionally and at a human level.

To Wrap It Up

Looking back, Valentin changed a lot in the past ten years. And it’s all thanks to the personal and professional feedback he was willing to accept.

The mindset changed. And will shift continually if growth is in your values.

Understanding this, accepting it and going with its flow is the best you can do.

When you put it all on paper, there’s one thing you can walk away with from this entire piece:

“If you want to help people grow, you’ll have to grow first.” — Valentin Maior

Do that, and you’re one step closer to achieving your dream.

This is a retelling of the Startup Grind fireside chat in Cluj-Napoca with Valentin Maior.

If you liked this article, you’ll like the full chat we had with Valentin and you can now watch it on Youtube.