We armed ourselves with umbrellas and patience in traffic, some of us stoically accepted the Uber surge, and once we arrived on Dorobanți, we rang the intercom at SkyBar to ascend to the first edition of Business League Residence. And we’re glad to report that it was worth it.

Like any day in Bucharest, Tuesday, April 30th, needed coffee. Lots of coffee. Varied coffee. Only then did people start doing what was on the event agenda: networking, discussions, and reminiscing about past meetings.

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For months now, we knew that we wanted to have guests and speakers like no other at the first Meetup. To kickstart the dialogue and the day, we chose and invited Radu Păltineanu, who joined us online, all the way from Australia, to talk to us and answer questions he’s probably answered dozens of times before. For example, why? Why traverse continents through freezing cold and scorching heat? Because some people want to and can. They find themselves, connect with peace, with nature, find meaning in dry stones and the coldest rains. These accomplishments feed their future performances.

Radu was the first Romanian to cross the American continents by bicycle, a feat that earned him the title of “European Adventurer of the Year” in 2018. And because one madness always follows another for these brave people, he then crossed the New Zealand archipelago on foot and by bike. And then he found a tricycle and pedaled through the wildest corners of Australia. He talked to us about all of this, about dangerous spiders, snakes who don’t appreciate having their nests disturbed, cold, heat, sickness, motivation, and life, to the point where everyone present concluded that maybe online marketing isn’t quite the hardest job in the world.

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After Radu’s fiery stories, we had Tibi’s games, who’s a showman like few others. Tibi talks so much that even Florin Piersic rolls his eyes when he hears about him. Tibi talks so much that his pair of home parrots conspire to teach him to be silent. Anyway, Tibi talks so much because he’s really good at it. And he’s certainly the most suitable person to be the MC of these events.

Then followed an hour of emails, sending invoices and paying bills, that is, sitting at the laptop and working. Because as it is known, work is the golden bracelet, deadlines are the silver bracelet, and postponing tasks until after the weekend is the bronze.

After work and reward – we had a good lunch, while raindrops hit the large windows of the establishment.

The workshop held by Cristi Ignat and Ovidiu Golea consisted of forming several teams of three people, in which Merchants and Marketers had to develop an affiliate project within a two-hour timeframe. Good ideas came out, which representatives of each team exposed and left open for discussion. An interesting exercise that we will improve in the next editions. As well as the whole new concept of Meetups, which we hope will become more and more successful and useful.

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And then, the presentations of the two speakers, who tackled the topic they know best: online marketing, with its layers, stories, and associated advice, from the experience of two important players in the digital and e-commerce industry.

Then we moved on to:

Debate Game. Where we asked and received the opinions of those present on how to fight against e-commerce players who (seem to) have nothing to lose, with aggressive market entry strategies, about POAS instead of ROAS, about the ideal marketing mix in 2024. And we had the pertinent and welcome interventions of Alin Vlad (CMO Otter & Tezyo) and Mihai Broască (Tampo21 Big Advertising). A Merchant with a history in Business League and a Marketer – Mentor whose perspective could have filled 2-3 conferences today.

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Most promising Awards. We kept the tradition from the Business League Awards Gala of rewarding the visible development efforts in numbers of the most promising players in Stage 1 of Season 3 of Business League. And on this occasion, we cheered and praised:

Most promising marketer Start-Up – Expandeo

Most promising marketer Freelancer – SMPRocketTech

Most promising merchant Freelancer – DualStore.ro

Most promising merchant Start-Up – Picadili.ro. A player who was awarded on January 29 as Most promising Freelancer. He remains promising, but at the next level.

We ended the day as we always do at these offline meetings: talking loudly, with a glass in hand. We’re not sure if 2Performant parties are the best in town, but we like them. Maybe we would do even better if someone organized a Party League, where publicly listed companies compete in parties, cocktail recipes, and interesting guests. And prizes could be awarded for challenges won, like if you brought Păltineanu or Halep to speak to people, you’d get a super bonus in that round, or the more beautiful the location of your party, the bigger the prize… well, you get the idea. But until this innovative competition appears, we learn from each meeting with you and thank you for your presence.

This refresh of offline meetings involves a collective effort that we enjoy. So if you have feedback or advice regarding the next editions, please let us know. The command board of these meetings is open to ideas.

Have a great mini-vacation, with good sleep, healthy food, and family time!

Sincerely, 2P team.