The speaker I’ve been waiting for: Mike Butcher from TechCrunch! He will elaborate on the subject of PR for Start-ups.
News is a purple cow:
- as a start-up, you have to generate news
- TechCrunch is not in the business of PR, but in the business of news
- the fact that a start-up has launched a product is not unusual or interesting
- be unusual, stand out from the crowd.

Conversations usually beat press releases:
- stat generating relationships with the media
- send an announcement before you launch anything.

Negotiate before you shoot:
- think how you want to appear in the marketplace
- which channels do you want to be featured on?
- offer exclusivity to a publication.

Don’t be a leech, be part of the community:
- get to know the entrepreneurs community
- make connections
- get recommendations.

Conferences are not news. Content might be.
- the readers want to know what the story is
- don’t confuse events with news
- the venue is not important.

Be a great contact.
- bring something selfless to the relationship with the media
- be nice.

Be a cool blogger.
- know about your subject
- tweet cool stuff
- give cool links
- write interesting stuff on your blog
- get quoted
- if you’re good, you can get into the stories of your competitors.

Should you hire a PR firm? Maybe.
- when you get 20 journalists calling you a day, it’s time to get a PR firm
- in start-ups, the CEO should be the contact person

Want to join in? Network!

Please pitch like a human.
- just be polite
- be reasonable.

Understand who you’re talking to.
– talk about your start-up to the right specialists in the publications you want to be featured in.

The media likes CEOs.

One company in a space is not really a story.
- understand your marketplace
- position yourself really well in the market context.

What is a story?
- competitive drama
- gossip: rumors about the CEO or company (good journalists are good at keeping sources safe)
- insight: “Trend X will change the world.” (become part of a trend)
- evolution: “Start-up Y is like X for Z.”
- Success: “Awesome Y created!”
- Failure
- you are the story: “Kid creates FB.”

Q&A: Ramu Yalamanchi inquires about publishing rumors. Mike Butcher emphasizes credibility, sources and verification

The last panel of the day: Tech hubs around the world with Vladimir Oane (moderator), Bostjan Spetici, Ramu Yalamanchi, Tony Kypreos, Vlad Stan, Radu Ticiu. Mike Butcher joins the conversation.
- Ramu Yalamanchibelieves one can be successful without being in Silicone Valley. Capital will follow great products and great people. You have to figure out the right business structure for you. The first step is believing that it can be done. There is no shortage of people who you can build a product with. You don’t have to look up to the Valley as a myth, because it’s not.
- Vlad Stan: the Valley is not a place, it’s a concept. We have to bring this concept to Romania and build bridges over to other hubs. We can create new kind of teams who can approach the international market. There is a demand for technical people in the Valley, and a lot of businessmen. I believe we can innovate in Romania. It’s easier to approach the English market, because there are a lot of early adopters there.
- Radu Ticiu: we are trying to build connections by creating events and hosting discussions.
- Mike Butcher: it’s hard to get traction on a continent that hosts so many different markets in terms of currency, language, geography, mentalities, etc. There is no big, massive consumer market in Europe. The biggest markets you can acquire are language bound. If you go to small to medium sized businesses you might get traction. They are Europe’s consumer market. The reason for which a lot of start-ups move to the Valley is that they get attracted by VCs.
- Tony Kypreos: we have to separate a tech hub from a commercial hub. It’s fully feasible to create a strong business not being in the Valley. If you have a good product, you can attack the US market from outside the US.

This was the groundbreaking How to Web 2010! Many thanks to Bogdan Iordache and his diligent team for a great event and we hope to see you here next year!

Giles Hawkins from Orrick is here to teach us a little bit about Getting your ducks in a row: how to ensure your technology business is ready for investment.
Legal structure:
What? What type of entity would investors put their money in?
Where? Where will the company be incorporated?
Who? Who are the shareholders?
Investors are very used to saying no.
Employment:
- employees (contracts, NDAs)
- contractors
- interns (NDAs)
- directors
Intellectual property:
- ownership
- assign/transfer? – employees vs. contractors
- register? Register patents and/or trademarks?
- it’s important that the company owns everything.

Panel: Financing your company with Cristina Alexandru (moderator), Ondrej Bartos (Credo Ventures), Katy Turner (Eden Ventures), Marius Ghenea, Alexandre Almajeanu.
- the team is the most important thing when looking to invest (Katy Turner). They must have expertize and experience in the area. Then we look at the global market possibility and a strong IP and technology.
- Alexandre Almajeanu: when looking to invest, the team is very important, a good business model with money coming in and out.
- entering start-up competitions is a very important thing. The same happens with trying to get into Seedcamp, even if you don’t win.
- if you want to create a global business, you can maintain a part of the business in the home country, but, in order to scale, you need to go to the Valley
- Marius Ghenea: if you want to be really international, you have to be close to a big hug, such as the Valley. Pitch as much as you can, to whomever you can. Pitching will help you get exercise and conceive a consistent story.
- Ondrej Bartos believes that there is a lack of ambition in the area and he emphasizes the importance of added value for the customer in the case of a start-up. Angels and VCs are minor investors. They don’t take the majority in a company.
Main mistakes when trying to get funding:
- bad timing (too early or too late)
- entrepreneurs telling the investors that they’ll make a lot of money from the project
- unrealistic expectations reflect badly on your start-up
- pushing too much on technology
- not thinking enough about customers
- the wrong level of ambition
- a wrong revenue plan.
The entrepreneur should do everything he can before going to an investor.

Raluca Georgescu from Wembrio is here to present the Startup competition results and we can’t wait to see the results. And the winner is… (drums):
3rd place: Spikepress
2nd place: FlairBuilber
1st place: Squeekly!

An amazing specialist, Mark Randall from Adobe, is on stage to teach us Three Clever Tricks to Triple Your Startup’s Chance of Success.
- everything changes as soon as you start a business
- nothing goes according to plan
The definition of an entrepreneur might be obvious. Except it’s not.
Being an entrepreneur is hanging on the edge of a cliff, gripping with your fingernails, with tigers biting your feet.
As an entrepreneur you can set your own hours. All 24 that is.
As a CEO of your own start-up, you work for anyone else. You’re not at the top of a latter.
You can do it all perfectly and still walk away with nothing.
Is it about the money or is it about the work? What is it about?
Reasons to become an entrepreneur:
Entrepreneurship is the engine that drives the world.
The power to shape your own destiny.
Create something out of nothing.
The feeling of being unconquerable. (Invictus)
Bad news:
- most start ups fail
- cratering sucks (painful, excruciating, expensive).
How to increase your chances of success?
- a better definition of the word start-up: a flexible organization designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.
- a start-up is an experiment
- right now is the best time in history to become an entrepreneur
- the world is smaller, faster and chaos reigns (entrepreneur thrive in chaos)
- angels, super angels, investment funds, seed funds, etc.
- smaller rounds, executed faster
- smaller, faster and more profitable exits
- most start-ups fail for lack of customers, not products
- crossing the chasm – between the innovators and the early adopters (jumps over the chasm and get customers)
- the new way: Customer Discovery – Customer Validation validate sales and distribution models) – Customer Creation – Company Building
- first 2 phases: search for a business and the last 2 phases are about execution and growth.
- embrace change when you get to the pivot
- always question your assumptions.
Find out:
What we do well
What we want to do.
What we can be paid to do.
3 wrong ideas that screw-up start-ups:
- keep your ideas secret
- pour your passion and soul into it
- design a business that a company will want to acquire.
You can learn about selling your start-up to a big company by working in a big company.
You are not your start-up! Keep a balance.

What an incredible presentation!

Next up is our own Vladimir Oane, from Ubervu, who is here to share his knowledge about How to get real: applying customer development in real life.
The big idea and vision – make sure you’re not deluding yourself
Phase 1: delusions
- take a good look at the market and at the needs
Phase 2: Reality check
- ask the right questions (What do you think about it? is not the right question)
- purpose driven product development
- the cool factor
- introducing bug/complaint driven development
Phase 3: Communicating
- customers
- channels
- experiment
- understand your funnel
- test your acquisition channels.

First up is Reshma Sohoni, Seedcamp CEO, who is here to give a presentation about the European Entrepreneurs – the recipe for success.
- Seedcamp focuses on start-ups that are capital efficient businesses
- Seedcamp is trying to build an European tech ecosystem and it’s been doing it for 3 years now
- Seedcamp is micro-seed fund that enables talent across every part of Europe
- Seedcamp is a year-long program: Mini Seedcamp, Investment decisions, Seedcamp Week, 3 months mentoring.
- Seecamps invested in 33 companies across 17 geographical areas
- there are no excuses for not starting a global business from Europe
- there is no shortage of technical talent
- the costs of starting a business are 10 times less than they were 5 years ago
- platforms change costs, infrastructure, revenue and distribution
- we have strong local networks (Open Cofee, Founders Weekend, etc.)
- there’s no excuse not to get educated
- Europe is connected to a federated ecosystem (Seedcamp, TechCunch, Barcamp)
DOs:
- be commercial, no just techie
- be assertive, positive, optimistic about your product
- be awesome at helping start-ups as you are
- be open to going where the opportunities are
Dont’s:
- be afraid to think big
- be apologetic for being from Eastern Europe
- be secretive about your idea
- talk to good people
- use smaller markets as excuse.
Three very important elements: Passion, Customer Thinking, Execution
- execute exceptionally well because it is harder in Europe than in the US to get funding
- infect passion about your product in everyone you meet
- when statistics are against you, passion is crucial
- build a product with the users’ stories
- launch and iterate fast and pragmatically
- measure well
- execution is the most difficult and crucial part
- “processize” the hell out of your company to scale
- talk to and listen to experienced founders.
Q&A:
You have to be close to the Valley and to be able to organize your business from Europe to the US in order to be able to scale . (answer to a question from Ramu Yalamanchi, Hi5 Founder)
It’s harder to build consumer brands in Europe and it’s harder to get them funded. (answer to question from the public)
If we can attract 15-16 great mentors, we might think of doing a Seedcamp in Bucharest. (answer to question from the public)
It doesn’t matter which sector businesses come from. The main thing is to be able to help them become big businesses. (answer to question from the public)

Emi Gal from Brainient is here to showcase his ideas about Back to the future of TV.
Predictions about the future of TV:
- the next 10 years will define the “new TV”, which is about “what I want to see”, not what is broadcasted
- Apple TV, Google TV and such are the future of TV
- content production and distribution will get even more fragmented
- video will become increasingly interactive
- linear TV is dead.
If you manage to make a cool product, it’ll be easy to market it, because the distribution channels and platforms are already here.
It’s all about timing, so go for it.

Kris Hiiemaa from ERPLY is here to address a problem that bothers us all: How to scale your start-up internationally.
Reasons to scale:
- make money
- rule the world
- a better tomorrow
- your ultimate goal?
- how big do you want to make your business?
Are you ready to scale?
- are your systems ready to go?
- do you have a back office that works 24/7?
- can you give up on your personal life?
You are most likely on you way to becoming a sales guy if you want to scale.
- don’t go for the whole US market. Start with a specific location: NYC, San Francisco, etc .
- get your pricing right
- be ready for high expenses
VC money:
- don’t raise too early
- the founder should be the CEO
- raise seed money; series A is not easy
- don’t raise too much
- have focus before raising money
- keep in mind the costs (legal fees, etc.)
- try to raise from many investors, because you need their connections
Company culture:
- promote your team before hiring outsiders
- if you hire an outside CEO, make sure that you’re ready for it
- the top player costs 10% equity and 150-200l+ EUR/year.
How you can fail in scaling:
- no customers
- too many customers
- if you don’t have a working back office.
Localization:
- it’s not just translations and time zones
- follow local rules and traditions
- follow local laws and regulations
- the business process had to be adjusted
- marketing can be very expensive if you don’t have contact points in foreign markets
Protect your IP:
- source code
- correct IP transfer agreements
- register your TM in the US.
Focus:
- learn to say no
- not all deals are god
- remove function per week
- be prepared for trouble
- prioritize.
WORK or go home!
Team:
- subcontract, use part-time guys, set quotas
- don’t hire too many people at once
- keep your team small
- start new groups with different managers
- set focused targets for them.
- keep them motivated
The competition:
- use smart tools to monitor it
- don’t obsess over it.
Winners have:
- a process
- focus
- organization
- ability to handle failures
- persistence.
Funnel:
- lead generation
- lead qualification
- follow up team
- closing ratio
- SEM, SEO, AD’s, etc.
Choose only the best guys, who deliver fast.
- don’t waste leads
- understand your growth (build a dashboard and have your numbers ready)
Conclusions:
- sales (customer acquisition) driven product development
- build your KPI’s and metrics
- focus on SALES
- iterate (fire fast).

Next up, Luka Abrus from Shoutem, here to speak about Building a successful local mobile app.
- Shoutem – a platform to build apps
Problems with the project:
- 90% of the products created on Shoutem lived less than 2 weeks
- only the persistent community managers built vibrant communities
Key factors for building a successful communities:
1. Local content
- news and real time local updates raise stickiness
- information sharing, access from anywhere
2. Service information
3. Community background
- checking in is still an emergent behavior
- the question you need to ask: which community would benefit from your app?
- competing with local media websites, Facebook Groups, Twitter hashtags, etc.
Location as a platform:
- use maps
- use places (APIs, W3C Geolocation)
- events (reuse your website’s content, integrate with an “event provider”)
Augmented reality:
- additional value easy to achieve
- finding information in space
- locations.
How you can use local mobile apps:
- additional service to your portfolio
- new communication channel with customers
- raise brand awareness.
What to do with customers using the app?
- offer them special deals
- reward them
- show them the nearest location for your store, etc.
- make them think about you again and again and again.
Competition:
- Facebook, Yelp, Groupon, Foursquare, Gowalla, etc.
Use existing assets and learn from others!
Make local deals with local owners.
- integrate with others through apps
- use existing social graph
- reuse existing locations
- connect to your website
- use the user’s location for added value
- add your specific content
- connect your userbase
- be prepared for feedback
- create and manage your community
- location-based content as secondary, but crucial.

Panel: Big exits, great stories with Victor Kapra(moderator), Alexandru Costin, Alexandre Amajeanu, Alexis Bonte and Mark Randall.
- Mike Randall: “Don’t bet on what people would like.”; “Build something you like.”; “The next big thing is always unknown.”; “If you do something you like and the public hates, at least one of you will be happy.”; “When you get an offer to make an exit, you have to start calling all the other companies and tell them you got an offer”; “You have to start thinking about an exit from day one. Start making connections and get to know people.”; “If you have designed a company that gives you a hard time trying to exit, you’ll have difficulties.”; “The investment bankers will decide when it’s time for your company to go public.”
- Alexis Bonte: “There are 3 types of companies and 3 strategies: the flip out (hit and miss kind of thing), a home run company(turning down the chance to become a millionaire because you think you can make it bigger) and the companies in the middle.”; “When you’re still a start-up and you’re an IPO it sucks. You lose a lot of decision power and a lot of control.”; “Unless you have no other choice, leave it to the last moment to become an IPO”.

Alex Hoye from Latitude gives advice about the 5 steps for building an investible startup:
1. Change a world
- the business idea has to be worth the money and the hassle
- talent is very rare
- can the need you’re trying to cover be addressed capital-efficiently enough to ever get your money back?
2. Build capability
- now you need to have specific skills (show how you can make money: team, technology, online marketing, sales, industry contacts and knowledge, charisma)
- any business worth funding will have competition
- prove that you can run harder and smarter
3. Generate traction
- define it
- measure
- fix
- pivot/change direction
demonstrate it
- get clients to pay money
- the press isn’t traction, because you can’t rely on it long term.
4. Communicate well
- pre-game (don’t go stealth)
- teaser – concise and irresistible (1-2 pages)
- presentation (5-10 pages + apendix)
- financials (where does the money go?; how do we know if we won?)
- you have 1 minute to get attention and 30 minutes to hook them.
- investors bet money on people, so get trusted.
5. Dedicate
- entrepreneurship is a severe roller-coaster
- against odds and totally irrational
- it’s a marathon and a sprint
- things are never as good or as bad as it seems.

This is as far as we go today. We’ll be back tomorrow, on the second day of How to Web 2010. Keep posted!

The next speaker is Yves Tyrode, Orange VP, here to discuss Think global, act local: why ‘one size fits all’ won’t work in the apps market.
- growing the value of the application network market
- Orange Technocenter: design and product factory (created in 2006, 3 sites: Paris, London, Amman )
- customization is he key and the only way to do it is to work closely with the developers
- Orange wants to leverage the customer base and have a specific local approach
- this approach involves customer relationships, local marketing and partner services
- 20 millions Java downloads per year on Orange World
- Orange App Shop launched for Java and Android
- partnerships with: OVI Store and Windows Phone Market
-open source Orange widget platform for Java feature phones
- Orange is developing branded apps that already generate traffic and revenues
- services & apps: mobile TV, premium sports events, connectivity, e-care, internet radio, location services.
The Orange App Shop launches today in Romania. It will be showcased on Android HTC Hero.

The last speaker of the second session is Christian Heilmann, from the Yahoo Developer Network, who is here to present his ideas about An open web for all.
- having a creative idea is a subjective issue. Tricks: take an old issue and use new technology to solve it.
- in you want to start a project, you need to find good developers and work with them
- you also have to be found by people who need your product
- if you build for the web, use the web to build it
- be technology agnostic; don’t cling to a single platform or technology set
- you can’t do it all by yourself
- your product should not rely on a single tech person
- you should not tell your techies what to do. Trust your tech guys to do what you want them to do.
- ask your tech guys to document what they do
- data and interface are not the same thing. The interface has to change in order to keep up with the market.
- go and build an API. You can have data to build upon. You can change the backend or the frontend when you need to. You can build them in parallel. You can five third parties access to your data, but not your system.
Success stories: Flickr’s API, Twitter.
- providing an API should not be taking lightly. Instead of building your own infrastructure, build on an already existing one.
Example: YQL can store information for you and it allows you to write your own API.
- all you need is a developer who knows how to access data on the web.
- it saves you time
- data filtering
- fast pipes
- caching and converting
- YQL can be your “try before you buy” offer
- you can get known in the developers circle by putting out free stuff. You can also get recommended for this.
- your biggest fear is to be insignificant. If people copy you, then you are doing something right.
Free books about developer relationships: http://developer-evangelism.com/

Questions from the public:
- What about the competition with Facebook?
Hi5 is trying to move from a social platform to a gaming platform. This game specific platform is designed to meet the users’ wishes.
- What were the strategic mistakes that Hi5 has made the past few years?
A few mistakes: Hi5 should’ve raised money a little earlier and that would’ve helped growing the team earlier. This also would’ve benefited into building a virtual good models earlier.

Next up is Bostjan Spetici from Zemanta who is here to talk about How big is blogging really?.
- if you want to find out the competition’s numbers, there’s no way of doing that
- Google and experts are trying to figure out how big the blogosphere is
- out of 12 blogging platforms, only 5 publish their data
- the official published data says that there are around 300 million blogs
- eMarketer – 30 million blogs in USA (study published a month ago)
- there are a lot blog catalogs (Alltop, Technorati, Blog Catalog, Federate Media)
Can we estimate from traffic? (Alexa, Compete, ComScore)
- hosted platforms are centralized
- 8.2 million visitors on Blogger.com
- the best estimate for active, monthly, English blogosphere: 10 million.
Bostjan: “If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist.” and “Don’t trust anyone when they tell you about their numbers. People usually lie about their traffic.”. Also, “if you want to build a successful business, you have to know your numbers”.

The first woman on stage, Raluca Georgescu from Wembrio, is here to host the Startup corner presentations.
The 6 finalist of the Startup Challenge competition are on stage to make their presentations.
1. Axiologic represented by Sinica Alboaie – Quark, a programming platform (SensERP). http://www.axiologic.ro/
2. eDiplomas represented by Eduard Tric – goal: federate all directories of alumni in the education world and connect them to the enterprise world. There is a need of electronic verifications, transcripts and diplomas to reduce fraud and allow reliable verifications. The core strategy is the database. Strong partnerships, great business model.
3. FlairBuilder represented by Cristian Pascu – a desktop application that runs on Adobe Air that allows users to conceive software prototypes, along with design components and customization options. It already has more than 700 clients. The project made money from the first month. An average of 40-50 new costumers a month. http://www.flairbuilder.com/
4. QRKY represented by Nicholas Holzherr and Simon McCann – QR codes (business card and event badges so far). Create a connection between digital and printed content. Very good business model and a very good product. http://www.qrky.co.uk/
5. Spike Press represented by Calin Don – hosting solution for high traffic WordPress platforms. http://spikepress.net/
6.Squeeqly represented by Alexandru Rada – connect retailers to the public and turn the members of the public intro brand promoters. You can ask for recommendations, you can buy products and get discounts for sharing purchases with your friends. The last stage is about products reviews. http://new.squeeqly.com/

Anyway, I really wasn’t able to achieve passive income. Even worse, I almost got caught in the rat race. Fortunately, I am still my own boss, I have my own business, but it really takes all the time I have.

I am not writing this to complain, though. I live a good enough life, but I still want to make that passive income. I almost forgot about it until this summer when, roaming around online I came across Smart Passive Income, one of the most genuine and straight forwards blogs on making money online I have read in a long-long time (I think I only had this kind of sensations – “I need to do this!” – only when I read ProBlogger for the first time, in 2006). Written by Pat Flynn, it tells the story of a guy that was let go from the company he worked for just so he can discover the world of making money online, internet marketing, ebook creation and so on (he also has created a great free ebook about… ebook creation).

I actually read all the archive, from the start, in that last month or two (did I tell you that my business takes a lot of my time, right?).

What you will enjoy, if you are going to read it:

1. Every month, you will see the sources of Pat’s income, with every detail you can think of: type of resource, exact income on source aso. Read all of those, starting with the end of 2008, here

2. Pat recently entered a niche site competition (duel, as they call it) with a friend of his. The posts will be of real for anybody serious about making money online with niche sites. Read more here.

3. Read all the articles about ebooks from his website. Also, try and get the free ebook (you need to subscribe to his newsletter for that).

4. As the Romanian audience might know, I am quite fond of Facebook (started a little experiment on my radio show). Pat has an interesting article on Facebook for bloggers. I don’t like fanpages that much, but with the latest group changes, I might actually use fanpages a lot more in the next months.

5. Pat is the one that really got me interested in iPhone apps (I cracked anf finally bought an iPhone because of his articles). Actually, the first time I thought about iPhone apps was after talking to Dragos, but this is when I actually started REALLY think about it as a possible business.

6. It is interesting to follow the creation of a Smart Passive Income brand, as explained here.

7. Check Pat’s YouTube experiment here.

OK, I could really go on and on. You just need to start reading the site from the beginning. Also, while being full of great resources, it is an interesting story of a guy that managed to escape the rat race and make a full time living online.

What I liked:

- a chance to see people you generally read about;
- a chance to talk to the people above (I have had the opportunity to talk to @ChrisBrogan, whose blog I read almost everyday, because of all the ideas he shares about communication and social media);
- a great opportunity for networking
- hearing, by mistake, someone in Mike Arrington‘s entourage saying “I’m a little flower” – priceless. Because I first thought he said it
- I got to ask Tim Ferriss if the conference is part of the 4 hours he works in a week and I got put down for asking a stupid question – which it was but I had to ask – btw, great presentation
- I greatly enjoyed the speaches of Tony Hsieh of Zappos and Queen Rania of Jordan

What I didn’t like:

- too many participants (just an idea, for future editions: put the participant’s country on the badge, since you really underline being international. Also, you could add 3 tags for everyone with their area of interest: #investor, #developer aso)
- less interactivity than I would’ve expected (allegedely you could have talked to the speakers after their speaches. Yeah, right! By the time you got to the stage, you couldn’t really see most of them – I know this from the guys at Money.ro, who had a hell of a time trying to locate them)
- I don’t get who the target of the event was: mainstream, developers? For me, it was kinda light. I would have loved more case-studies from speakers, more detailed information on platforms (which is obvious, since I want to know how I can expand RevvNation‘s audience using all those)

While I still think the event is worth attending, I would try to be very prepared before coming:
- have a plan of action – since there will be around 2000 people, you need to know from the start who you want to talk to (LeWeb provided a list of participants with their twitter accounts – a good place to start)
- think really hard if you need to be there (at that moment). You might be using your time better working at your product.

Last: startup owners are the same everywhere: shy, scared, but doing their best to have as good a presentation as possible. And freemium is still a buzzword.

I’m not in a great mood, being awake way to early for me, but I expect things to improve during the day. I am not sure yet where to be in the following hours…

And Loic Le Meur just came on stage following 30 seconds of David Guetta and Akon – Sexy Bitch

First guest, after the introduction, Jack Dorsey, the inventor of Twitter. Real-time web all the way

Square is tool to pay using credit cards via a smartphone (demoed on iPhone)

Putting it on hold, follow @bobbyvoicu on Twitter