Interview with Micle Mihai-Cristian, the Founder of Freshome

Micle Mihai-Cristian, founder of Freshome, is the primary mind behind the website. Widely popular, millions of visitors visit Freshome monthly. Micle is 24 years old and lives in Timisoara/Romania.

How did you develop a love for design & architecture?

4 years ago I decided to start a blog, so the next step was…choosing a niche.

I spent some time thinking what niche I should choose and while I was researching online one idea hit me…I want a house just for me. Once I had this idea I wanted to make it more clear, because we all know that when things are clear it’s easier to do them.

Now you might ask yourself how I started to make this idea more clear…simple…I started to gather images with homes and interiors that I loved.

Tell us about Freshome.

Freshome is an online magazine for home & design enthusiasts where we present a mixture of carefully edited selections of the best home furnishings, interior designs, architecture and all kind of news from the design world.

Freshome was started as a simple blog in March 2007 and today we have almost 5000 unique articles with more than 30,000 pictures…so we’re pretty sure that you can find everything you want here. The primary focus of this design publication is to give you inspiration to make your home more beautiful, organized and healthy.

We believe that a calm, healthy, beautiful home is a necessary foundation for happiness and success in the world.

How do you go about developing traffic and publicity for Freshome?

At this moment Freshome has more than 2 million unique visitors per month and our visitors help us a lot.

For example you can see that immediately after we publish a post, tweets and shares appear. So at this moment we don’t do to many things except interacting with our fans.

How can people harness social media in a more powerful manner?

Today’s socially-engaged customers like to talk.

And whether they’re communicating via email, phone, in person, on social media or via some other channel, they expect to be heard. This might sounds as something simple, but everyday you can see brands that just broadcast content.

Where do you find inspiration and motivation?

Inspiration is everywhere online and whomever says he/she can’t find inspiration is not searching enough…our lives are dominated by information overload.

For me personally inspiration comes from everywhere…just look around you…everything is amazing. Just take a look at your phone, car, computer.

To those who want to develop successful communities online, what advice would you give them?

That’s simple: Solve problems & give solutions.

People always have had and will have problems, and if you can solve them they will come to you.

What are some of your hobbies and passions?

There are lots of them, so here are just a few. Everything that is related to sports. Football and tennis are two sports that I practice every week. Board games, reading and analyzing books, human mind, design, and the list can go on.

Tagged as: architecture, blogging interviews, creator of freshome, freshome, growing an online community, home architecture, home design, home style, interior design, interview, Interviews, micle mihai, Micle Mihai-Cristian

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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

Tisa September 23, 2011 at 8:09 am

I enjoyed the post. I appreciate your thoughtful questions as well as Micle’s insightful answers. You gave me a few things to think about!
Tisa recently posted..Does Practice Really Make Perfect?

Christian Hollingsworth Twitter: smartboydesigns September 23, 2011 at 9:19 am: The great thing about interviews with people of Micle’s stature, is that you get a clean look at what it’s really like to manage such large communities. He’s an inspiration!

Thanks for reading Tisa.

Christian Hollingsworth Twitter: smartboydesigns September 23, 2011 at 9:22 am

Micle, this interview was fantastic. I learned so much from you from just a few simple questions.

I love how you talked about having your goal of blogging, and then setting out to accomplish your original intention. You wanted to start a blog, and then you went ahead and DID! You worked hard, and look at all you’ve accomplished in the process. It’s really, very inspiring.

Just goes to show that if you find a need and solve it, you’ll find success. You’ll also find success from blogging about your passion first. It goes a long, long way.

Thank you.
Christian

Justice Wordlaw IV Twitter: Justicewordlaw September 23, 2011 at 2:57 pm

Great interview here Christian. I have to say that I did learn a lot from him and I love the second to last answer about “Solve problems & give solutions.” That is probably one of the best solutions that someone could give any new or existing entrepreneur that is out.
Justice Wordlaw IV recently posted..Spent $5 On A Latte And $1Daily Affirmations

Christian Hollingsworth Twitter: smartboydesigns September 23, 2011 at 3:33 pm: If there’s one takeaway you had to grab from this interview, I think that would be it. Solve problems and give solutions.

Nora Reed September 23, 2011 at 11:36 pm

Christian you are the best, i liked your interview and get inspired by your words, Thanks for the interview
Nora Reed recently posted..25 Corporate Letterheads with Creative Display of Logos!