Reviewing 2009 and setting 2010 goals!

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

This deserves a blog post, yes it does! I’ve been busy before 15 december and after that I was pretty much into parties after parties, but right now let’s jump in and review 2009.

What did I propose myself in 2009?

- Buy a car

- New startup

- Personal branding

Buy a car: this one had a fantastic result, I have finally managed to raise the money and buy the Audi A6 (C6) 3.0 Tdi Tiptronic Quattro, full leather and everything I could of ever wishes for in it. I’m still thrilled about the thought that I get to drive my favorite car each day, anytime. It’s just that great feeling of power which I never sensed because all the savings (or at least most) were going towards buying it but finally I made a fantastic deal for it and I’m enjoying each day.

Success!

Here’s a photo:

New startup: Uhh.. this one is tricky. After I have sold mylol.net I was looking to start something new, so what I have done was join in DNForum platinum membership and also stick a lot more on namepros.com. Basically, the best ideas I get are from seeing the domain name. This way I ended up in buying and selling domain names for speculation, and I’m not regretting at all, I totaled $895 USD profit just by flipping (max 3 week held). I ended up with frenzyrss.com, to be developed into a desktop rss adobe air application which – because of the lack of interest my friend niflostancu showed – I abandoned. I then got re-thrilled about embedchat.com, making it a combination of a web directory of chat rooms – again I was shut down by the lack of financing to start it up with a proper backend.
I ended up with a lot of domains I never developed: embedchat.com,frenzyrss.com,airscripts.com,falconety.com and the list goes on.

Failure!

Personal branding: I’d say it’s a success right away and let me tell you why. In the spring of 2009 I joined Precision Media, a local youth marketing company. This was a major step for me, I was used with solo-ing on my laptop and skype any conference but now I really had to work with a lot of people daily face to face. Truly amazing experience hanging out with the CEO in the office, a really great guy who yelled “Business” all over himself, which could easily turn 180 degrees almost every guy who walked in there. Made a lot of connections in the Romanian online industry and a couple of great friends.
I left in the summer period due to the fact that I was going to enjoy the vacation more than stick with the job and get called anytime from any department demanding anything from a one-man-army-on-IT.

Just after a few days of quitting this job, Matthew poke me on MSN about “how cool BuySellAds is doing for him” and “why not join them? I got what it takes, should be easy and won’t kill my time over the summer”.

I have accepted this new challenge and I met one of the most exceptional guys I might ever get to meet, Todd Garland. I’m saying this because  he’s an absolutely great motivator, he keeps the spirit high inside the team and has the right answer at all times if help is needed. Truly a leader who can be your friend, and Todd Garland has earned my loyalty 100% – and I still have a ton to learn from him.
As a joke with my best friend, which I met in highschool, he asked me “How cool is BuySellAds, what would you do if they will not be doing so great financially as they do right now, in the upcoming 2010?” and my reply was “It’s so cool, I’d work without the need of an income for at least half a year because of the stuff I get to learn and the incredible respect I built for Todd”. I rarely have this drama in my voice, but I really meant it. The second best thing that happened to my 2009 was BuySellAds, no doubts!

I started building my personal branding, start to get in contact with the guys over Envato, BuildInternet, local market, and it’s going so well for me, I’m in need of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.

Success!

My goals for 2010:

- Spend, spend, spend: I plan on spending a lot on fun, gadgets and trips.

- Get fit, build muscle: I plan on joining a health club and start swimming, just to get toned up.

- Start a division of BuySellAds locally or a parallel new startup: biggest goal so far.