Welcome

This is the personal blog of Boris Hageney. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr (not updated), Youtube (not updated) and Twitter (barely used).

I have a passion for traveling and music, as well as business.

Traveling has been a great passion of mine ever since my parents took our family for  month-long trips to different parts of Europe in our summer holidays: England-Scotland (1990), Scandinavia (1991), Czechoslovakia-Hungary-Poland (1992), France (1993). We traveled with a VW Bus, slept in B&Bs or tents, and saw a lot of places I found terribly adventurous at the time. These trips infected me with a frenetic curiosity to discover lands I hadn’t seen, and to hit the road.

I signed up for driving school a few weeks before my 18th birthday and as soon as I passed my last exam went on a trip around Southern Italy in an old VW Golf. Since then I toured pretty much all of Central, Western and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Greece, but also Morocco (2005-2006) and South Africa (2011-2012). In 2012-2013 I blogged for the first time on a trip through Thailand. I began to write to keep friends and family posted, then started to actually like it. I usually write at the end of a day on the road, when the posts are still fresh from the impressions of the day. Sometimes orthography and style are imperfect. I write in simple english, so that everybody can more or less understand me, although it’s not my native language.

Then came 2013, the year of Eurasia2013. This journey from Madrid to Vladivostok and back, with an encore to Cabo da Roca in Portugal. Life has not been the same since that trip.

The desire to get back to the road has stayed strong ever since I came back. During Easter 2014 I did a quick raid to Morocco again. Oman was another beautiful discovery in 2014-15. And a trip to Dakar was in preparation for some time, but ultimately didn’t happen. Same for a few other destinations. More recently I spent time in Indonesia, not on 4 wheels though. Let’s see what might come up at some point.

Since my childhood I got addicted to electronic dance music, in various forms. I DJ’ed in Rome while still at school and kept going during my student time in Berlin. Music genres varied from straightforward Techno, to harder and faster stuff I stopped liking at some point, to breakbeat, Jungle and Drum and Bass, and finally Electro. With time, my music slowed down, got more electronic, and broadened it’s palette of styles. Business stole most of the time I used to dedicate to music, that’s why a lot of my stuff dates back to earlier days. The advent of podcasts and streaming changed my consumption from active vinyl buying and mixing to more passive listening – unfortunately.

I enjoy Mendeleev Radio Show (a souvenir from nights clubbing in Moscow), De:Bug, DJ Broadcast. You can listen to some of my mixes on Mixcloud. Enjoy!

Professionally I’m an entrepreneur, advisor and investor in the consumer tech space. Past companies I (co)founded include GoReadyMade, CityDeal/Groupon, Blissbooker, Tarifas24 and Alpha Internet Ventures. I’m a venture partner with Global Founders Capital, and also worked at Jamba/Jamster and other tech companies in their early stages. I grew up in my parents publishing company in Rome (Italy). You can find me on LinkedIn.

Sometimes I write about business & political issues, although I try to keep this short:

Nobody has the Intention to Raise a Wall around Catalonia, 09.11.2014

Letter to The Economist: Your article “The European Union – Europe goes to the polls”, 17.05.2014

Letter to The Economist: Your article “A slow climb – Business creation in Germany”, 05.10.2013