I was born in a small village in southern Serbia, with no more than 5,000 people. My parents were very young. My mum was 21.
We moved to Italy when I was two, and I started kindergarten there. On my first day, my dad taught me how to say “water.” That was where it started.
Growing up in Italy was a privilege. But for my parents, building a life there was difficult from day one.
I grew up being taught not to trust anyone. My mum was always afraid: afraid of what people thought, afraid of making the wrong decision, afraid of not being enough. And she passed those fears on to me.
As a kid, I carried them everywhere. I struggled to form strong opinions of my own. I felt disconnected from my feelings, and I assumed everyone wanted to scam me. It was horrible.
Luckily, I started working when I was 16. I worked as a waiter and a bartender, and I organised events in the nightlife scene of my town in Italy. I met so many people and started learning so much. I also started drinking a lot and getting into mixology. The world began to open up: girls, money, travelling, and more new experiences than I knew what to do with.
But I still wasn’t happy.
Leaving the path I was on
I started studying business at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo because I didn’t have the guts to drop everything and move to Australia, which was what I really wanted to do.
At the time, I needed a business plan to apply for a grant to open a cocktail bar in my city. I asked my economics teacher for help, but she didn’t know how to help me. That was when I realised I wasn’t finding the value I needed there.
I wasn’t excited. My classmates seemed to be thinking about partying and smoking cigarettes, and that wasn’t what I had in mind. So I quit and started building my first company, Hiwork: a Tinder for jobs in hospitality.
I got a 5k cheque from a local entrepreneur, put together a team, and launched. In the first two weeks, we reached 1,000 users and 90 companies in a city of 60,000 people. It was incredible.
Before long, though, I realised my teammates didn’t have the same ambitions. So I flew to Berlin to work at a food delivery company.
Starting again in Berlin
I arrived without being able to speak English. In my first meetings, I stayed quiet and listened to my colleagues. But I was working in sales. I couldn’t stay quiet forever, so I had to throw myself into it and learn.
I had just turned 20, and I was closing clients like WeWork, GetYourGuide, TomTom, and King.com.
Even then, I was building things on weekends whenever I could. I wanted more.
So I went to San Francisco for two weeks over Christmas. I booked a shitty hostel and didn’t know anyone. Somehow, I came back with one thought in my head: I need to be there. I want to build cool things like the people I met.
A one-way ticket
I quit my job, booked a one-way flight, and went back with 5k in my pocket. I spent my time building things and meeting people, and eventually joined 8x, the fastest-growing company in Entrepreneur First.
We grew the business to 3M in annual recurring revenue in a couple of months. After we raised a 7M seed round, I left to build something more ambitious: something in consumer, something involving hardware, something I would use every day.
That became Draki (opens in a new tab).
I’m still not satisfied. I always want to do more. But I’m proud of myself and the decisions I’ve made. They weren’t the usual choices for a guy in his early twenties.
If you make the same decisions as everyone else, you’ll probably get the same outcomes, or worse. And I knew I didn’t want that.
So, what is the right decision? For me, it’s choosing to do what I love and to be free. It’s taking a chance on something different, something incredible, something that excites me, even when it’s risky and there are no guarantees.
Those are the decisions that brought me to where I am today.
The most important thing is to choose. In my experience, the braver decisions have usually been the better ones. Sometimes you won’t feel sure you’re making the right choice. That’s normal.
You’re the person with the most context about your own life, what you want, and why it matters to you. Not your professor, not your mum, not your friend. You.
So make a decision quickly, then iterate. Learn from what happens and adjust as you go. That’s what counts.