Sometimes, the perfect plan finds *you*

Tudor Matei didn’t grow up planning to be a founder.

He grew up thinking you were supposed to find a good job, stick with it, and keep your head down.

“I was brought up under the assumption that you have a well-paying job and you have a stable job,” he says. “Entrepreneurship wasn’t really in the books for me.”

In fact, his first exposure to business wasn’t glamorous at all. It was fixing computers at a tiny local shop—three employees total—getting his first real glimpse at how small businesses actually run.

At the time, he didn’t think much about it. He was focused on getting his degree in computer science, following the path he thought he was supposed to follow.

But over the years, that tiny spark—that sense that maybe there was another way—never totally went away.

After college, finding a job wasn’t easy. The market was tight. So Tudor kept pushing forward—taking a master’s degree, picking up early roles in software engineering, getting a first look at how bigger businesses operate.

He worked at a debt resolution company. A DNA fitness startup. A tiny background check site where he was employee number six and the company didn’t even have health insurance yet. He learned what it felt like to move fast and survive on instinct.

Later, he worked at Care2, a nonprofit-focused platform, and Course Hero, climbing into management roles, leading engineering teams, and getting further and further away from the work he actually loved.

“I was in meetings 80% of my day,” he says. “It really kind of got to me.”

When he got laid off during the second round of cuts at Course Hero, it shook him. But it also cracked something open.

“There was a part of me that was freaked out because of the job market,” Tudor says. “But there was also a part that felt liberated.”

For the first time, he could ask himself what he actually wanted—not what he thought he was supposed to want.

At first, he tried coaching engineering managers—something he had loved in his leadership roles. He gave it eight solid months, coaching a few clients, trying to make it work.

But something was missing.

“I missed the execution side,” he says. “I missed building.”

He realized he didn’t just want to advise. He wanted to solve real problems. He wanted to build things that mattered.

Through coaching groups and conversations, he started noticing a huge pattern: small businesses were overwhelmed by inefficient operations, buried under manual tasks, and getting stuck when they tried to scale.

And he realized he could help.

Today, Tudor builds custom automation tools for small businesses—taking lessons from his time in startups and helping owners move faster, automate smarter, and stay focused on growth instead of getting buried in busywork.

It wasn’t a clean pivot. It wasn’t a five-year plan.

It was a slow realization, built step by step by trying things that didn’t fit until he found something that did.

“I realized most of what I didn’t want was in a corporate job,” Tudor says. “And if the job I wanted didn’t exist, I had to create it.”

Now, he’s taking lessons from the startup world—small MVPs, quick iterations, fast feedback—and applying them to businesses that otherwise would be stuck waiting months for solutions they can’t afford.

“A lot of software companies build things for three to six months at a time with no results,” he says. “I want to get something going quickly, test it, and keep improving.”

That mindset is what’s driving his early wins—helping small businesses stay agile instead of overwhelmed, helping owners get out of reactive mode and back to building.

It’s not about chasing venture capital or scaling as fast as possible.

It’s about building useful things for real people.

And along the way, Tudor’s learned a lesson that would have surprised the version of himself who once thought success was just about how many hours you could work:

“Productivity doesn’t come from working more,” he says. “It comes from doing the right work, and giving yourself space to recharge and think clearly.”

He’s not trying to become the next unicorn.

He’s trying to build a business that solves real problems, respects the craft, and gives him the space to do the work he actually cares about.

The perfect plan didn’t come first.

It came from building.

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