Mum was right, restraint is the right call. But what’s even better is laughing about it. Because, if you have the power and ability to laugh about it (and it’s freaking hard at times), you won’t build up anger. And nobody wants to be angry, right? Well, nobody besides Chuck Norris.

It’s hard, it takes training and it takes time. I don’t do it very well but then again, I’m not that good at telling jokes either. So next time you see me, can you please piss me off? Kthxbye!

A couple of years ago though, as I was starting a new company and needed to bootstrap, I realised how easy it is to start spending more money and how difficult it is to start spending less. So I decided that, in order to keep my feet on the ground, I should try a little experiment: live as cheaply as possible for an entire month. And I loved it.

I actually enjoyed it so much that ever since then, twice a year (usually January and October or November), I try to live with as few pesos as possible. And it’s been very interesting to see what things I can give up and which ones I can’t.

It’s that month of the year again, so wish me luck. Oh, and if you’re thinking to invite me to breakfast, lunch, dinner or a casual drink – please prepare to pay for me as well. I promise I’ll make it back to you next month .

I think I still hold the record for the entrepreneur with the most Seedcamps under his belt, having won Mini Seedcamp Paris 2009, attended Mini Seedcamp London 2009 and won Seedcamp Week 2009, so I’d like to share some tips to the 23 entrepeneurs that will be on stage on Monday.

1. All you have to do when you’re up there is win people’s trust. That’s it. Really. You can try to explain how your product disintermediates rich-client social media APIs, but seriously: nobody cares. All they care about is YOU (and your co-founders, if there’s more than one presenting)

2. When you’re asked why you’re there, don’t say you’re there for funding. Of course you want money – everybody does. But there’s a saying in town: ‘Ask an investor for money and he’ll give you advice. Ask him for advice and he’ll give you money’.

3. Shut down your laptop and keep it shut. You are here to meet people, that’s it, full stop. Everything in this world happens because you knew the right people at the right time, so the best way to increase your chances of success is by meeting as many people as possible.

4. Follow-up heavily. If you’re very active, you will probably have around 40-50 business cards after each day. Follow-up while your memory is still fresh, ideally in the night, on the same day. Personalize each email. Because I have a terrible memory, I usually write how I met the person and what I discussed with her / him on the business card, after the discussion.

5. Most people laugh when I say this, but: wear good shoes. That’s the first thing everyone will notice about you. For example – I know everybody will notice me next week, because my going-out-to-events shoes are a very, very, very RED.

So, keep in mind: your chances to win Seedcamp Week will increase exponentially with every person you meet and “win” to your side. I hope these tips will help you. Good luck, and get some rest this weekend, you will need it.

“In the past couple of years, I’ve asked about a hundred 80-90 years old what they would do different in life if they’d have a chance to do it again. Most of them said they’d spend more time with their family, and less time <<in the factory>>. None of them said they’d focus on making more money.”

I’m gonna look for a 90 year old on my flight back to London .

A couple of years ago I got a contract with a very, very big and demanding customer for one very simple reason: I showed up more times than my competitors did. You’ve heard it before, but I can’t stress enough how true this rule is: 80% of a sales pitch is showing up.

Ever went into a store, asked for a blue shirt and heard the sales person go: “I’m sorry, we’re out of blue shirts, but would you like a pink t-shirt?”. You have, haven’t you? Everybody has, and  we all hate it. So, next time you sell something to someone, put yourself in his or her shoes. If he’s looking for a blue shirt, would he or she buy a pink t-shirt or not?

Last but definitely not least: Repeat. Repeat it until you can sell anything to anyone. Sell yourself. Sell your ideas. Your arguments. Your beliefs. Just sell. And keep in mind that becoming a great sales person, just as anything else, takes at least 10,000 hours.

There – you read it all, so it means I just sold you my post .

Until very recently I had, like most of you, about 150 feeds in Google Reader. I zapped through them throughout the day, which gave me a (fake) sense of being up-to-date with everything.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to delete 90% of my feeds, and only keep those of friends & people I’m really interested in. I ended up with exactly 20 feeds.

Without further blabbering, RescueTime says I’ve “won” back about 6 hours / week. Six hours. I finally have time to finish Crime and Punishment, and that makes me a very happy chap.

Try it out, it works. And no, you won’t miss anything. If something’s really important, it will get to you one way or another.

I’ve been a vegetarian for almost a year now, I try to go to church regularly and I read the Bible daily, so according to Dan Buettner, a writer and explorer at National Geographic, chances are I’m on the right path to be able to hold my grand, grand, grand children in my arms, one day.

Together with a few smart scientists, Buettner identified the so-called “blue zones”, areas where people live, on average, around 100 years. After analyzing all kinds of data, he discovered the four things we could do to live a better, healthier, longer life: more naturally, have faith and direction, be vegetarians and make lots of friends. Apparently, it’s that simple.

I highly recommend you watch the 20 minute video below. I don’t think it’ll make you live 100 years, but it will sure raise some questions .

While contemplating on why I’m usually this productive on airplanes, the obvious suddenly occured to me: I’m completely offline. Not just because I don’t have Skype, internet, phone, sms, but because my brain knows I don’t have them.

I believe there’s something magic about knowing that no-one, absolutely no-one can bother you. So I’ve decided to do a test, for the next two months. Every week, I’ll pick a day, and for at least 5 hours I will disconnect from any pottential interruptors: mobile, skype, email, IM, etc. I’m going to keep the internet on, though, as I find it rather difficult to work with no internet when you run an internet startup .

I’ll track and measure everything, and in March I’ll get back to you with some metrics, thoughts and conclusions.

PS: If you try to get the hang of me and I’m nowhere to be found, it means I’m in the middle of my little experiment . Wish me luck.

Nevertheless, I believe Twitter is a great tool for staying up-to-date with what my contacts are saying, but I want to have it contextualized. For example, if I email Andrei, my CTO, it’d be helpful to see his latest tweet in Gmail, when sending the email. Or, if I want to meet up with Dragos from UberVU, I want to see his latest few tweets in my BlackBerry Address Book, ’cause maybe he’s back in Romania for a few days.

You get the drill. It’s all about real-time, contextual, information flow. IMHO.

But after close to 5 years of entrepreneurship, I’ve learned that you should only hire people that you feel you can be friends with. You have to feel that you can go out for beers and spend your holidays together. If you don’t, you’ll probably find it difficult to communicate with that person and, ultimately, you’ll lose time and money.

Even more than that, I believe that a company’s team is its DNA, therefore every member of the team should feel like he can be friends with any other member of the team. That’s difficult and requires a lot of trial & error during the recruiting process, but it pays off.

And I have the best example to prove that it’s f**ing worth it. For the past couple of months, my brilliant friends in the Brainient team have been building our products all by themselves back in Romania. And they’ve been doing a fantastic job although I’m in London, focusing on biz-dev and other “boring stuff”, to quote a friend. Actually, I’m starting to think they’re better off without me .