53.5° N · 108.2° E · LAKE BAIKAL, SIBERIA · 2018

A motorcycle with a sidecar.A frozen lake.

What could possibly go wrong?

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Vlad on Lake Baikal, his helmet and goggles covered in frost Scroll or wipe the frost

It sounded like a bad idea.

So I gave it a shot.

Vlad GrigoreFounder, Furniture Factory3× TEDx speakerFeatured by Red Bull · Forbes · Discovery

03 / Stories

The collection of bad ideas.

Each one sounded unreasonable at the start. Open any of them for the plan, what actually happened and what came out of it.

The team’s red Peugeot 206 driving through a river on the Mongolian steppe

Bad idea #0012013 · Mongolia

Mongol Rally

Initiative · Adaptability

A small Peugeot. A very long road.

Open the story
The plan
Quit a good job at Romania’s biggest bank to drive a Peugeot 206 from London to Mongolia. In the end I took a summer off instead, and went anyway.
What actually happened
Turkey, the Caspian Sea, the Turkmen desert, the Pamir Highway along the Afghan border, and a steppe where the roads turn into rivers.
What came out of it
The habit of starting before everything is ready, and fixing things on the way.
Starting a mototaxi at 4,000 m

Bad idea #0022014 · Peru

Three wheels in Peru

Creativity · Team

A mototaxi. An unfamiliar country.

Open the story
The plan
Ride a mototaxi across Peru, from Colán to Cusco, for Telefonul Copilului, Romania’s child helpline.
What actually happened
About 3,000 km in fourteen days through the Andes, in a mototaxi we named Machu Beast.
What came out of it
Attention for a cause that needed it, and proof that the crew matters more than the vehicle.
Vlad with the Machu Beast mototaxi on a road in Peru
A sidecar motorcycle tipped over on the ice of Lake Baikal

Bad idea #0032018 · Baikal

Sidecar on ice

Resilience

Siberia. A frozen lake. An old motorcycle.

Open the story
The plan
Cross frozen Lake Baikal on a sidecar with Alexandru Agatinei, as the first Romanian team on The Ice Run.
What actually happened
About 1,000 km in two weeks, camping on the ice at −35 °C. The bike tipped, the cold broke things. We fixed them and kept going. Then I went for a swim through a hole in the ice.
What came out of it
Money raised for Cool Earth, a swim I will never forget, and a habit of fixing things instead of turning back.

04 / Hard decisions

Some plans changed.Some roads ended early.Some decisions were harder than starting.

2016 · Atlantic4+

The crossing I didn’t row.

I went through a 72-hour selection and was picked for a crew that would row across the Atlantic. Red Bull and Forbes wrote about it.

Then I decided not to continue. Knowing when to stop is part of the job too.

Toshi, a chocolate labrador, standing in a field and turning his head to look around

Toshi · In memory

Not every story has a happy ending.

Toshi was my search and rescue partner. In May 2025, he was diagnosed with cancer. I organised a fundraising campaign and did everything I could. In October, I lost him.

Some stories do not need a lesson. They deserve to be remembered.

Toshi’s story

06 / World 01

Frozen lakes.
Dusty roads.
No instructions.

The Furniture Factory workshop in Bucharest, with a curved buffet under construction

World 02 · Furniture Factory

Real teams.
Real customers.
Real operations.

Turns out, finding your way through Siberia and running a business have something in common.

07 / Work

Plot twist.

I don’t just collect stories.
I build businesses, too.

In 2021, I decided to start a furniture manufacturing business.

There was just one problem.

I knew absolutely nothing about furniture.

Five years later, I’ve built two complementary businesses, worked with increasingly complex bespoke projects, and learned that the hardest part of building a company isn’t always what you expect.

Sometimes it’s the people.

Sometimes it’s the processes.

And sometimes, solving one problem creates an entirely new business.

Case study 012021 · Furniture Factory

Entrepreneurship / Leadership / Manufacturing

The hardest thing I built wasn’t furniture.It was a team.

I entered furniture manufacturing with no industry experience.

After an initial partnership failed, I took over the operation, learned the technical side of the business, and started building a new team.

Along the way, I learned that a company needs more than talented individuals. It needs processes, shared responsibility and the ability to keep moving when things don’t go according to plan.

Read the story →

Case study 022023 · Vopsim Orice

Business Development / Vertical Integration / B2B

We needed a paint shop.We ended up building another business.

Our bespoke furniture projects required custom components that external suppliers couldn’t consistently deliver to our specifications.

So we developed our own painting capabilities.

When our expanded facility created more capacity than Furniture Factory needed, I turned that capacity into a B2B service for other furniture manufacturers.

Read the story →
  • EUR 500KCombined annual revenue, 2025
  • 15Employees & collaborators, 2025
  • 2Complementary businesses
  • 2021The beginning

01 / Execute

Build.

Founding and operating businesses.

  • Furniture Factory & Vopsim OriceThe two case studies above.
  • TodayYouCanDoAnythingThe adventure project behind the expeditions.

02 / Partnerships

Connect.

Partnerships, communities and development.

  • WowApp, Global Charity ManagerPartnerships and product.
  • Vlad smiling under a sign that says Welcome to Airbnb, you belong hereAirbnb AmbassadorHelping new hosts get started.
  • BCR, trainer, then project managerSales training and branch network planning.
  • GE Money Romania, trainerCorporate training.

03 / Communicate

Speak.

Talks, workshops and stories worth sharing.

  • TEDxPiatraNeamt“Today You Can Do Anything” · Watch
  • TEDxConstanta“Extinderea zonei de confort” · Watch
  • TEDxBucharestSalon“How adventures can grow you” · Watch
  • Decisions under pressure · Small team, long road · 300 secondsKeynotes and workshops for companies and conferences.

In the press Red Bull · Forbes România · Ziarul Financiar · Discovery · Digi24 · Mediafax · HotNews · AGERPRES · All 31 appearances →

Vlad on his motorcycle and his son on a bicycle, riding down the same street, seen from behind

About · off the road

The longest road I’m on.

I’m married, and we have a little boy who is almost four. Of everything on this page, he is the biggest adventure and the thing I’m proudest of.

The rest of the time I’m in Bucharest, at the workshop, on a stage, or planning the next thing that sounds like a bad idea.

08 / Next chapter

The next bad idea?Might be yours.

I have spent years exploring unfamiliar places, developing businesses and figuring things out along the way. Now I am interested in the next challenge.

Let’s build something Invite me to speak Explore my work
Reasonable ideas are welcome too.