Gradually, we’re wrapping up this summer’s work on 2Parale. We started from scratch with the aim of enhancing the Romanian online environment by fostering the emergence of a new generation of entrepreneurs.

More on this later. As this is my first post, I’ll explain how I chose 2Parale as the project I’m most committed to and believe in the strongest.

Two years ago, I was working on an e-commerce service called MyPadz. It was a very optimistic project, and you can learn more about it here. At one point, I realized that I couldn’t compete with medium/large and well-established names on the market, and that I had to look for alternative methods to make the project profitable.

That’s when I discovered Commission Junction, the largest affiliate network in the United States. I registered MyPadz and was accepted into three stores: Newegg.com, Buy.com, and AppleStore USA & Canada.

My goal was to integrate MP with CJ, to automate as much as I could, and to only have to deal with selecting Google AdWords keywords.

What I found instead was complete chaos. I couldn’t export tools, categorize them, or see which ones performed best. When I contacted them to ask if there was a way to automatically extract the tools from the platform, they told me it would cost 400 euros and they would give me access via ftp.

Eventually, I gave up on them. I was left with the taste of a good idea that lives in an implementation made eight years ago.

A few months later, I had the unique opportunity to go to Cheia with names like Vladimir Oane, Lavinius Marcu, Dragoș Manac, and Daniel Țigănilă.

It was just before lunch and we were discussing CaptainGo, promotional plans, banners, and other tactics used abroad. That’s when the idea of an affiliate network dedicated to the Romanian market re-emerged.

Foreign services similar to CaptainGo use local affiliate networks. It’s the preferred version for integrating and promoting complementary products/services.

After my experience with Commission Junction, I understood what the opportunity could be for CaptainGo as well as services like Unseen Romania and Hoteluri.org.

I knew how it should be, what to avoid, and what its purpose would be in a world that no longer reacts to randomly placed banners.