Dan Popescu was featured in Careers Magazine. Below, he provides a summary of the main ideas.
Fondatori din viitor (Founders from the Future) is flipping the script on when entrepreneurship should actually begin. Forget waiting until after university or grinding through years of corporate life first – Dan Popescu and his team believe high school is where it all starts.
That’s when curiosity runs wild, people still have the guts to take risks, and learning feels exciting rather than obligatory. Instead of drowning students in theory, the program throws them straight into the deep end: real projects, actual mentorship, and hands-on guidance to transform rough ideas into something tangible.
The whole thing started because Dan kept seeing the same pattern: teenagers bursting with ideas but completely stuck when it came to context, confidence, or even knowing where to begin. Getting kids actually to stick with it was tricky at first.
So the team tightened things up: clearer expectations, real deliverables, and a symbolic “skin in the game” agreement that makes students feel genuinely invested in showing up and following through.
But the real transformation? It’s in how these kids see themselves. Many arrive terrified of speaking in front of others. Fast forward to Pitch & Impact Day, and they’re standing there pitching to actual local entrepreneurs who grill them with feedback on the spot.
Some teams keep building their startups afterward; others jump into competitions like Idea Jam.
The program also plugs students directly into the real world through partnerships with places like FabLab Iasi, so they’re not learning entrepreneurship from a textbook – they’re breathing it.
Launched in 2024, the ambition is massive: scale this nationally and help birth 1,000 startups over the next two decades.
For the full article, click here.
