My success and failures in 2017

Each year I post an annual update for my professional network, in which I include my stories of success and failure from the past year. I’d love to read an update about you as well, Linkedin friends, so feel free to reply to this post. 

BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTS 

· By far the biggest accomplishment of 2017 was the launch of our public beta a few month ago. Lifograph - the Wiki of People ( https://www.lifograph.com/ ) includes now approximately 500K profiles and 1.2M connections. It’s been a long and arduous journey for me and my team, but we never gave up.

· We received pre-seed investment from Lamarka and Turquaz Angels.

· We added several amazing people to our Board of Advisors including Rajani Ramanathan (former COO at Salesforce), John Rampton and Murray Newlands (contributors to Forbes, Entrepreneur, Venture Beat, Huffington Post, etc.) and Jonathan Krim (previously at The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Dow Jones, MarketWatch, San Jose Mercury News, etc.)

· We were mentioned, featured or interviewed in several publications including Entrepreneur, TheNextWeb, Startup Grind, Soy Emprendedor, Social Geek, 150sec, Sociable, Doble Clic, Startups.co, ProTV, National TV, etc.

· Lifograph has been featured as a NewCo innovative organization, a great honor considering that other NewCo companies included Dropbox, Adobe, Linkedin, Paypal, Pandora, Reddit, Slack, etc.

· We moved our office and events from San Jose to Santa Clara at a new location – Mindrome, a great co-working space in Silicon Valley.

· We’ve been able to bootstrap to 12+ full-time and part-time team members.

· We were media sponsors for a 430 Ferrari Challenge car that ended up winning the Ferrari Forza Tifosi Challenge Championship. A fun ride...

· We’ve also been media sponsors for Startup Grind, Publicize, Microsoft’s show ”Decoded”, DeveloperWeek, AI Conference, etc.

· I took 20+ top Romanian business leaders on a tour of Silicon Valley. Besides attending startup events and conferences, we also went on visits to Facebook, Google, Apple, NASA, etc. It was quite a marathon.

· I’ve been invited as a mentor at the Pioneer Accelerator (GSV Labs) in partnership with Google Launchpad. I always find that I learn as much from my mentees as they learn from me.

· I was a guest speaker at conferences and events organized by Startup Grind, Repatriot, and other organizations. 

· I was also speaker and moderator at over 50 Lifograph events. Our guest speakers were mostly investors from Flight.VC, GrowthX Ventures, Garage Technology Ventures, Rubicon Venture Capital, Band of Angels, Dolby Ventures, Nexstar Partners, Gelt Ventures, Cota Capital, Stanford, Y Combinator, TechCode Accelerator, SF Angels, Wharton Alumni Angels, Blumberg Capital, Harvard Angels, Golden Seeds, Life Science Ventures, Keiretsu Forum, Hax Accelerator, Canvas Ventures, Voyager Capital, Bridge Bank, Deutsche Telekom Capital, Grishin Robotics, Benhamou Global Ventures, 500Startups, SAIC Capital, GWC Innovator Fund, Ignition Partners, Sand Hill Angels, Global Tech Ventures, and many more.

· I visited Cluj, the “Silicon Valley of Romania”, and strengthened my relationships with the local accelerators and startups. It was great to discover Romania as an important tech center in Europe with a buzzing startup ecosystem. 

BUSINESS FAILURES 

· We lost our CTO last year. As a bootstrapped startup we have very little money and we just could not pay a reasonable salary for the Bay Area. Fortunately, another team member took the lead and we were able to launch the public beta. However, it is has become very apparent that in 2018 we need to start fundraising for our seed round.

· We lost valuable time having to completely refactor the frontend of our Lifograph platform to make if faster. We learned a lot of lessons along the way…

· Like many startup founders with limited resources I tend to hire faster than I should. However, I seem to take longer to address issues that inevitably arise. I always like to give people chances, but I’ve learned that sometimes the sooner you cut the cord, the better for everyone. 

PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS 

· I’ve been elected to the Board of Directors of the Ferrari Club of America, Pacific Region, one of the largest and most active Ferrari Clubs in the United States.

· I visited Catalina Island for the first time. I was surprised to find out that there was a 20 year waitlist to buy a car and everybody was driving golf carts instead.

· I ziplined in the dark over hills and forests, guided only by a tiny light at the end of the rope. Quite a surreal experience. It reminded me of startup life. :-)

· Last summer I visited friends in Rome, then went to Southern Italy to the beautiful Amalfi Coast, Positano, Capri, Pompei, Napoli, etc. Bucket list – check.

· I went sailing a few times in the San Francisco Bay. I’m getting better at steering the sailboat. There is something magical about catching the wind to gain momentum and speed. It reminded me of startup life again. :-)

· I was lucky to be invited to attend ABC’s live show “Dancing with the Stars” and go behind the scenes with pro dancer Cheryl Burke, football player Terrell Owen, violinist Lindsey Sterling and Hamilton performer Jordan Fisher, among other celebrities.

· Another memorable event was meeting famous jazz musician Herb Alpert (9-time Grammy Award winner) during a private concert for charity. What a thrill…

· I attended or been involved in several charity events including Meals on Wheels, CancerCare Point, Notable Music and Arts Organization, Los Gatos Music and Arts Foundation, Hospices of Hope, etc. I am really lucky to have so many philanthropic friends. They inspire me every day.

· I attended a private reception at the residence of the UK Consul General in San Francisco, celebrating the “Campaign for Copaceni” fundraiser and the new Tech House for children and people with incurable diseases. A worthy cause I was very happy to be a part of. 

PERSONAL FAILURES 

· This year (again) I declined many event and party invitations from friends and family. By now they all probably think I’ve become an incurable workaholic. Sometimes I think they might be right... The sad thing is that I don’t think this year I'll change much in this respect. :-(

· My younger sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. Due to work commitments I was not able to travel to Europe and be by her side. Thankfully she is doing well after the surgery, but this just reinforced to me the importance of telling every day to your friends and family how much you love them. Life is so unpredictable…

· I redesigned / landscaped my Mediterranean garden and pushed myself too much. I had to give up weight lifting training for the rest of the year. Sitting in my office chair for 10+ hours a day did not help my back either. :-( 

PLANS FOR 2018 

Businesswise, I have only two goals for this year: raising a seed round for Lifograph and focusing on user growth. Everything else will have to take a back seat.

On the personal side, the goal for this year is to become a pescatarian. Two years ago I failed to become a vegetarian after trying for 7 months. :-( This time around I hope to have more willpower. I’ll report back next year in my annual update if I succeeded or not. :-) 

Thank you for reading this update and for being my Linkedin friends. ??