Tag: work

Quick Summary of 2023

Now that most of the Christmas and New Year celebrations are behind us, I think it’s a good moment to recap the year 2023 (in my yet another attempt to get back to writing here).

Reflecting on the year past, it seems that I was mostly consumed by two things: work and sailing.

In terms of work, the year started off with rather pessimistic forecasts for AlleoTech Ltd.  We were still wrapping our heads around the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, crypto-winter, and the Russian-Ukrainian war.  But, after all, we did a lot better than expected.  Mostly, this was due to the retention and growth of the old clients, as well as some expansion into Germany and Israel.  And yes, the Israel situation affected us as well, but it looks like everything is getting under control.

In terms of industries, maritime / shipping was the largest one for us this year, with fintech, marketing, and technology following closely behind.

Apart from work, I’ve done quite a bit of sailing this year.  I have finally created the logbook, where I keep track of the sailing trips, miles traveled, night shift hours, and other useful tidbits.  Here are some statistics from the logbook for the year 2023:

  • Number of sailing trips: 12
  • Nautical miles traveled: 1,290
  • Days at sea: 39 (spread across 10 month, with September and December being the only exceptions)
  • Night shift hours: 18
  • Boats sailed: 8
  • Countries sailed: 4 (Cyprus, Greece, Croatia, UK)

Just to put the above into a bit of context, I’ve started logging my trips from May 2021 (covering 2.5 years until now).  Since that starting point, I’ve had 32 sailing trips, traveling a total of 4,048 nautical miles (80 miles a skipper, the rest as crew).  I spent 91 days at sea 7 countries (adding Turkey, Spain, and Italy to the above), with 96 hours of night shifts.  That’s been quite fun and I hope this continues this year and on.

The rest of my time on shore, was spent with friends and family, enjoying food and drinks.

Overall, 2023 was quite a challenging year, but it was good.  Hopefully, 2024 will be even better!

2019 – what a year!

Today is the last day of 2019, and what a year it has been! It feels like it packed enough for a decade.

In January, there was an internal company announcement of me resigning from CTO position in Qobo Ltd, a job I had for 4.5 years (which is my second longest run in one place). In February, this became public and I wrote this blog post.

Most of February and March, I’ve spent recharging my batteries, exploring my options, going to interviews and solving technical tests. While there is a huge market in Cyprus for an experienced IT professional, I didn’t feel like getting yet another job. I needed something new.

So from March or April I’ve started putting a few things together. Running a business is not my native habitat, but it felt like the right thing to do at the time. I’ve started putting a few ideas, people, and first clients together, and, slowly at first, the wheels started turning.

AlleoTech Ltd was incorporated in July, and by then everything was in motion. A startup is like a newborn child, it takes all the time and effort, and then some more. But I’m proud to say that next Wednesday we’ll celebrate a 6 month birthday.

It’s been a wild ride so far, but everything seems to be working out just fine. Even better than expected in all of ways.

With all that going on, I’ve learned a tonne of new technology and how people use it. I’ve also met more people this year than probably in the last ten years. I’ve also got schooled in a number of non-technical areas, such as accounting, legal, marketing and PR, sales, and finance.

I’d like to thank each and everyone of you, without who none of this would be possible. You are all great!

Next year looks to be very promising and exciting. There are quite a few things in the making and it looks like I’ll be quite busy for a long time to come.

Once again, thanks, and have a very Happy New Year!

AlleoTech Ltd comes alive!

Since I left my previous CTO position at Qobo Ltd back in February, a lot of you were asking me what’s next and what am I up to. And I was mostly dodging the question. Not because the answer was a great secret, but because I didn’t want to jinx it – there were still too many variables, unknowns, and moving parts.

The time has come where I can talk openly about it. I have been working with a few people to setup a new company. While the process is far from complete, the first milestone has been achieved this week. AlleoTech Ltd is now incorporated as a Limited Liability Company in Cyprus.

We are still working on the corporate structure, roles, and on bringing in the team, but from now on we are open for business.

Let me shed some light on what that business is. The primary and strategic goal of the company is to build a product. This part, I’m still not at liberty to discuss in much detail. But what I can say is this: the product is blockchain based and is aimed at businesses who work with blockchain. For the rest, you’ll have to wait, or, if you are rich and impatient – invest.

In the meantime though, while we are sorting out the funding, we sell our time and expertise in other technologies that we know. These are mainly cloud infrastructure on Amazon AWS and web development. So if you have any needs in that area, hire us.

Needless to say that the last few months were quite busy. We had to figure out and work with a million things from a variety of disciplines – corporate law, accounting, marketing, and so on and so forth.

We did manage to bring up a rather basic website for now, which is still work in progress. You can follow our blog for company updates and some technical posts from the areas that we deal with. Today we have even setup some of the social media accounts at LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

So, now that you know, wish me luck and send some business our way. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for all of your support!

OPP – Other People’s Problem

I really liked “OPP (Other People’s Problems)” article which talks about handling of responsibility for things that other people should be responsible for.

If you’re reading this looking for advice, you’re probably a go-getter. You consider yourself a responsible person, who cares deeply about doing things right. Your care may be focused on software and systems, or on people and organizations, or on processes and policies, or all of the above.


This attitude has probably served you well in your career, especially those of you who have been working for a number of years. You’ve been described as having a “strong sense of ownership,” and people admire your ability to think broadly about problems. You try to think about the whole system around a problem, and that helps you come up with robust solutions that address the real challenges and not just the symptoms.


And yet, despite these strengths, you’re often frustrated. You see so many problems, and when you identify those problems, people sometimes get mad. They don’t take your feedback well. They don’t want to let you help fix the situation. Your peers rebuff you, your manager doesn’t listen to you, your manager’s manager nods sympathetically and then proceeds to do nothing about it.


That kind of grinding frustration can wear you down over time. I know, because I’ve been there. 

Not only the article describes the problem, but it provides a practical approach to dealing with it.

In the last few years, I was going through a very similar thinking process in my head, but I’m nowhere near the well-defined suggested approach. I wish I read this much earlier in my career. Much much earlier.