One could say they are three best friends meeting in the small apartment located in a Bucharest district just to chat about one thing or another or to play PC games.
It is an apparently common scene, performed by thousands of other Bucharest youngsters. The only difference is that these three young men rushing to the door to let me in are playing with moneymaking ideas.
RoGenerator was established last year, when Calin Fusu, now 27, was in Targu Mures, trying to do a lot of things. Born in Kishinev, Calin came to Romania for his studies, when he was 16 years old. He graduated the Economic Academy in Bucharest and attended Law School for three years.
Then he established a brokerage company in his native city and became manager of two companies bought by Broadhurst in Targu-Mures.
“One was the city’s restaurants network, called Unic, the other was the grocery network,” Calin recollects. “Each of them had about 100 employees and had just been bought by Broadhurst.”
As he was fascinated by his readings and was certain he had enough experience, Calin last year decided to leave the grocery and restaurant networks for PC networks.
“I read the ads looking for someone willing to work with me to design a web site and, fortunately, I found three guys,” he said. “We only had to meet for a football game to realise we could work together.”
Even so, Calin says the initial idea was not very clear, but all of them wanted the same thing: to make money. The four youngsters rented an apartment in Targu-Mures and invested 7,000 dollars to start the business.
“The first result and the most difficult to reach, as this industry is still in an incipient stage, was e.Casa.ro, launched last September,” the young manager says. This site is an online real estate agency and offers the users the possibility to find a dwelling space in Bucharest.
Unfortunately, Calin Rusu specifies, this is not bringing in the big bucks. “Real estate agencies hardly have Internet access, they do not know what’s the use of it and, besides, this activity implies some “offline” work, namely going to see the place with your own eyes.”
The money generally comes from online advertisement and subscriptions. “Traffic is the most important,” he says, adding that e.Casa.ro is competing with Imobiliare.ro for the first position.
The second project of RoGenerator is linked with BestJobs.ro, established last October and about which Calin says it is superior to the first product.
“Financially speaking, it covers all the expenses and, besides, it works on a better market because, at least theoretically, everybody changes jobs and, consequently, the traffic is much higher.”
The expenses needed to make a good web site may reach even 50,000 dollars, as Calin says. These expenses mean payments for the employees, for buying a domain, for the hosting, marketing and subsequent improvement activities.