This summer I turned 49. I was born in Bucharest in 1976 and started my first company at 18. I have never been anyone’s employee since. That adds up to more than three decades of entrepreneurship, with highs, lows and a few decisions I would make differently if I could turn back the clock.
More and more often I get the same question, sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes with a hint of reproach: “Aren’t you tired of it? Why don’t you stop?” It is a fair question. I tried to answer it honestly, more for myself than for anyone else.
A long road, in short
I started with Bucharest Popcorn, a small factory making pre-packaged popcorn for shops. Then came production, distribution, transport and insurance, before I fell in love with the internet. In 2005 I launched MarketOnline, an online store; in 2008 I bought Mediadot and Azerty; and in 2009, in the middle of the financial crisis, I started Floria, an online flower shop. That same year I launched Stiri de Bine (“Good News”), a positive news site I ran until 2016. I wrote about those first two decades in more detail in what I learned from 20 years of doing business in Romania.
From 2013 I built Retargeting, a marketing automation platform for online stores. In March 2018 I moved to Limassol, Cyprus, and started working differently: I advise startups and join founders for equity rather than fees. I was a strategic advisor to Crypto Expo Europe, founded AI Expo Europe in 2024, built Slide, a dating app with verified profiles, then Desirex, an AI companion, and this year Joylo, an app for fast gift delivery. From the outside it looks chaotic. From the inside it has always been the same thing: I build.
Curiosity doesn’t retire
The first reason I keep going is simple: I am still curious. I saw the birth of commercial internet in Romania, the e-commerce boom, the rise of social media and mobile. All of them were big shifts. But artificial intelligence is the most interesting transformation I have ever witnessed. For the first time, a technology does not just speed up what we were already doing. It changes how we think, write, sell and decide.
Stepping back right now would feel like walking out of a film just as it gets good.
Building is how I learn
I don’t learn well from books or courses. I learn by building. Every project forced me to understand a new market, new customers, new mistakes. Popcorn taught me cash flow, online retail taught me marketing, Retargeting taught me what a software product really is, and the apps of the last few years made me understand AI not from articles but from code and user feedback.
If I stopped building, I would effectively stop learning. And I am not ready for that.
Equity, young founders and their energy
When you work for equity, you only win if the company wins. That keeps you sharp. You cannot hand out generic advice and go home, because your success depends on their results. To me it is the most honest way to work with a startup, and, funnily enough, the one that keeps me young.
I work a lot with founders half my age. They have energy, courage, and they ask questions I no longer ask. I bring the mistakes I have already made, so they don’t have to pay for them again. The greatest joy is not an exit or a funding round. It is the moment you watch a founder who couldn’t read a balance sheet two years ago make a good call on their own. I touched on this role when I tried to explain what makes a good mentor.
I want to leave something useful
At 20 I wanted to make money. At 30 I wanted to build big companies. At 49 I think more and more about what stays behind. I have always believed in a fair society, where the rules are the same for everyone and anyone who works honestly can live decently. Every healthy startup, every founder who learns to build well and every event that brings people to the same table is a small step in that direction.
There is one more reason, maybe the most personal one: my children. I have a daughter and a son, and they don’t learn from what I tell them but from what they see. I want them to see a father who enjoys his work, who gets things wrong, gets back up and starts again. Not as a model to follow at any cost, but as proof that you can spend your whole life doing something you love.
What has changed with age
I am not stopping, but I am not running the same way either. A few things have clearly changed:
- I choose partners far more carefully. A good project with the wrong people is a bad project.
- I say no much more often. Most opportunities are really distractions.
- I protect my health, my family and my time. I no longer sacrifice them for a deadline.
- I do sport regularly: diving, skiing, tennis. Not for performance, but for my head.
- I travel a lot. I have been to five of the six continents, and every trip shifts my perspective a little.
Moving to Cyprus mattered too. The weather, the sea, the clean air and a state that treats entrepreneurs fairly have helped me work more calmly. I described what that looks like in life in Cyprus after six years.
What I would tell my 18-year-old self
If I could meet myself at 18, I would tell him three things. One: be patient with yourself, not with others; most mistakes come from rushing. Two: don’t sell under pressure if you can avoid it, and if you can’t, don’t spend years beating yourself up about it. Three: choose your people carefully, because they matter more than the idea. I collected more of this advice in what I tell young people who want to start a business.
And to someone starting at 49
It is not too late. You have something an 18-year-old doesn’t: experience, a network, patience and usually a clearer idea of what you don’t want. Start small, test fast and don’t risk everything you have built so far. Use AI like a colleague who never gets tired; today you can do on your own what took a whole team ten years ago. And find a younger partner. Their energy plus your experience is a very good combination.
I’m not stopping, I’m choosing differently
I don’t believe there is an age at which an entrepreneur is “done”. There is only the moment you lose the appetite. I still have it. The difference is that now I know better what and who I am building for.
What would make you stop? And what keeps you going? I would love to hear.