Far-off (or not to date , relying on the place you reside) in Transylvania, within the picturesque city of Alba Iulia, Radu Oprea joined forces with Marius Padureanu, began tagDiv, and started to stroll the highway much less travelled.
It might not have been simple, however having ascended to the superior ranks of the Energy Elite, their story has fairly just a few pearls of knowledge for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Humble beginnings
Marius and Radu and each hail from Alba Iulia, a small, but very historic metropolis within the Transylvania area. Their metropolis is a zone administrative and training centre. It has a number of universities, a theatre, two cathedrals, dozens of previous buildings with stunning structure together with the biggest citadel in Jap Europe.
“It’s a spot the place it’s simple to be impressed by the nice constructions constructed to final, and the place every of those constructions was crafted with exact consideration to the smallest of particulars.” – Radu mentioned.
Earlier than tagDiv, Radu ran an uptime monitoring service and his co-founder Marius was working away in design and 3d modelling. When the 2 joined forces in 2012 it was removed from clean monetary crusing. Radu and Marius struggled for nearly a 12 months till they managed to construct the enterprise to the purpose the place it might feasibly maintain them.
A lot of the problem stemmed from indisputable fact that the companions opted to construct nearly every thing from scratch by themselves, a highway considerably much less travelled by groups who produce themes. It took an ideal deal of time till their framework was prepared, however the independence of the method afforded them an infinite quantity of freedom and suppleness with the form of their initiatives.
It’s this impartial method that, while difficult, has in the end turn out to be a cornerstone of tagDiv’s work. Radu and Marius’ partnership is constructed upon a fusion of complimentary abilities and experiences and the precept has served them properly in rising the staff. Self-sufficiency is the secret.
“Now we have a multidisciplinary staff and all work underneath the identical roof. This implies the programmers, designers and assist staff are all working collectively.” Radu mentioned.
Consumer-centric product improvement
Maybe tagDiv’s biggest achievement is their Newspaper WordPress theme. It’s a extremely regarded product with over 13,000 gross sales on . Like most of the greatest merchandise, the theme was developed by first figuring out a robust market want.
Each Radu and Marius had beforehand owned and maintained numerous information websites and had skilled first-hand the big problem find a theme to suite their wants. Seeing this as the chance it was, the 2 shortly set about making a theme that might turn out to be a common answer. The consequence was an infinite success.
In line with Radu, “(the) focus was by no means on making gross sales, it was all the time on creating the most effective merchandise, merchandise that (they) would use.”
While the times of sustaining and constructing their very own websites are behind them, there’s a way of possession and satisfaction when the tagDiv staff are lucky sufficient to come upon their theme, trying stunning on a third occasion website.
The user-focus has continued and grown into yet one more cornerstone of the corporate. Very like Purchasewp, tagDiv cultivates it’s personal neighborhood of customers, the suggestions of which consistently work to tell improvement course. Nonetheless as Radu notes, it’s an method equally ripe with challenges and advantages.
“Now we have lots of good concepts and a whole bunch of characteristic requests however we all the time must take into consideration that every characteristic provides complexity to the system. We wish the themes to be versatile and as consumer pleasant as attainable, with out compromising on efficiency.”
One of many main benefits nonetheless is the suggestions and help that the neighborhood gives for it’s members. So far, Radu was fast to incorporate a shoutout to certainly one of his favorite neighborhood members, Christopher.
“He replies every day to lots of questions making an attempt to assist our neighborhood members as a lot as attainable. Over the time he wrote greater than 5000 posts and plenty of new prospects suppose he’s a part of our staff. He’s actually nice!”
The inspiration
Radu cites two superb figures as having impressed his work. He additionally famous the Purchasewp neighborhood and one creator specifically.
“Paul Graham, Y combinator co founder impressed me to seek for a co founder. His essays about startups and founders are the rationale we find yourself forming tagDiv as companions as a substitute of happening our separate roads. Steve Jobs, Cofounder, Chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. was a outstanding character for the visionary option to construct a enterprise and create a model, to encourage others and even change the world.” He mentioned.
“On this market we discovered many gifted and sensible authors. We observe their work and evolution with respect. One among them is the ‘wpbakery’ staff, the makers of Visible Composer. We really feel now we have a particular reference to them as a result of we began to make use of Visible Composer in our merchandise earlier than it was highly regarded. We discovered that the plugin was written superb and the creator was very useful to us.”
Radu’s recommendation to others?
Don't take the straightforward highway, the straightforward highway is all the time overcrowded! Make certain that in your journey you will see out that the small river that you just noticed on the map is definitely one kilometer broad however should you handle to cross it you can be one of many few who has performed it.
A giant due to Radu for sharing his story with us, you should definitely congratulate them subsequent time you see them on the boards!
