Gabriel Lupu is one of those prodigies in coding and thinking ahead of his time. Both passionate about technology and entrepreneurship, he combined these 2 and launched himselef in various adventures from a very early age. Recently he broke ground for 2 start-ups Homi and Aqulytics.
We are glad and proud that he has also chosen to share his knowledge with the community by creating some of our JavaScript quizzes. Thank you Gabi 🙂
But let’s give him the floor:
Coding since when?
It’s been a very long journey! Since I was 8 years old – that makes it 18 years ago.
How did you start?
Well, I was very interested in solving math problems. It was the first step towards realizing how many more complex aspects can be solved by / through coding.
What programming languages do you know?
In the order I learned them: Pascal, PHP, C, C++, JavaScript, CSS/HTML, Java, Python, Ruby. Knowing them means I had at least a couple of assignements on them, but I am the most efficient in PHP / JavaScript / CSS3 / HTML5 and related libaries and frameworks like Node.js, Typescript, Angular, React, ReactNative, Backbone.js, jQuery, etc. etc. etc.
Your biggest challenge as a coder so far?
Accepting the fact that one life is not enough to solve all the challenges. I consider the biggest challenge finding the perfect architecture for a full-stack solution. Technologies and programming languages are so dynamic that you always discover more about them, making it almost impossible to compare them all.
Which was the first start-up you’ve launched?
Homi – ready to find your roommates? 🙂
I co-founded it with a great real-estate expert and friend – Ben. On short-term, we only focus on the Boston market.
What was the most difficult part in launching it?
The lack of experience in early stages makes it very difficult to stay focused on a minimum stack of features / MVP. The enthusiasm makes the backlog so full that it’s difficult to get to the market ASAP.
Did you have any help?
We haven’t raised any money yet, we only used our knowledge and connections. Depending on how we will move from this step, we will very likely look for help from accelerators / investors.
How did being a software developer help you in your entrepreneurial work?
As a software developer you always have to keep things clear, executed with a very precise logic and order. As a an entrepreneur you need to constantly adapt and learn, so having a developer mindset might be a double-edge sword in some cases, but I consider that in most cases it helped me, especially when it came to organizing the work and getting things done.
What are the start-ups you are working on at the moment?
Homi and Aqulytics. They are both awesome projects! You can check them out here:
Homi
Aqulytics
What’s next for Homi and Aqulytics?
First of all, I want to say that I am very proud of where we are with both projects. Our next goal would be to turn our startups from validated-ideas into actual companies, going trough accelerators / funding.
Any advice for a software developer that plans to become an entrepreneur?
- Read good stuff about this space (entrepreneurship / finance), starting with „The Lean Startup”.
- Spend as much time as neccessary to find the right co-founder/s – Meetup.com is the right online platform to find out where solid knowledge people hang out offline.
- Find a non-technical co-founder that is an expert in a field you are passionate about (real-estate / environment in my case).
- Take advantage of the fact that you are an expensive asset in a startup so, use your brain 🙂
This article is part of a new series called “From Programmer to Entrepreneur”. If you want to find out more about Gabriel Lupu, his LinkedIn profile might be a good start.
