Before Contra, I built GitSpo — a platform that aggregated posts and comments across GitHub, npm, PyPI, and other developer platforms, notifying project contributors whenever their projects were mentioned.
As an open-source engineer myself, it was one of my favorite projects. Through it, I discovered that my libraries were being used by Fortune 500 companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM.
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When I was just starting out, I worked as a contractor for various agencies (Havas, LBi, Ogilvy, etc.). It was a great way to quickly build a portfolio of major brands I got to work with, including Coca-Cola, Domino’s, HP, and Nurofen.
I very intentionally moved from one agency to another to maximize my exposure to different projects and clients, and to build as many friendships in the industry as possible. That experience ultimately allowed me to start my own agency – and it’s the same idea behind Contra: giving you the freedom to choose the best companies and projects to work on.
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Holy mother of archives. Didn't expect to find this, but I just dug up screenshots of my very first business! This was in 2008.
I launched a platform called Hotel Publisher. It was a system for managing hotel bookings and handling online payments.
I then took a phone book, and starting with letter A, approached every hotel in Lithuania. For every hotel, I designed and built their website, handled support, etc. At the peak, I was managing systems for 20+ hotels. Not bad for a first gig!
The craziest part? 17 years later, some hotels are still using it today!
http://www.florensboutique.com/
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Here is something not many will know: I've created the first online Lithuanian language synonym dictionary.
It was in 2010. I was still a student, and I hated using the paper version. So I took a paper copy of A. Lyberis' dictionary, and using OCR and custom scripts, digitized the whole dictionary. Then, with the help of my grandma (who was a Lithuanian language teacher), we went through thousands of entries in the dictionary and extended them with additional synonyms, antonyms, illustrations, etc.
It's a fond memory for several reasons:
* Everyone used it (students, teachers, etc.)
* The Commission of the Lithuanian Language recognized it as an official resource
* It became the first commercial project that I have ever sold
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GO2CINEMA was my first consumer product in the cinema space.
At the time (still?), there was no Fandango in Europe. European market was incredibly fragmented – you'd need to know the individual cinema websites and go check showtimes and buy tickets on those websites.
There is a reason for that – cinemas don't want Fandango to exist in Europe. Fandango takes a cut from sales, controls customer data, marketing, etc.
With GO2CINEMA, I built a system that collected showtime, seating, and ticket price data from cinemas, and then displayed it in a way that allowed to quickly find not only the best seat, best screen, best audio, but also the best ticket price.
Still wish this product existed today.
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Back in 2011-2013 I used to run a digital agency specializing in micro sites for movie releases. We did campaigns for over 200 movie releases across US, UK, Germany, France, and many other territories.
Die Hard was my by far the most favorite campaign. We created a puzzle game that replicated events from prior Die Hard movies.
This became the foundation for many of my future ventures in the entertainment and film distribution business.
Needless to say, if Contra existed back then, it would have made it a lot easier to scale this business!