Product Drinks Ploiești, Episode 2: Ending an Eventful March

• 5 min read
community product ploiesti events ai

The rain was pouring so hard on this Sunday morning that for a moment I forgot I was heading to Ploiești by train and not commuting somewhere in the Netherlands. The weather hit differently this time, but the destination made up for it.

Back to Ploiești

This was my second time joining Product & Design Drinks in Ploiești and it starts to become a habit. (Here’s how the first one went.) The more I visit this small city in Romania, the more it surprises me.

Bülent Duagi introduced us to Teatrul Nației, a place I had never heard of before. Great concept, good food, and they completely conquered my heart with a sticker in the bathroom that said something along the lines of “smoking forbidden. yes, vaping too”. That’s the kind of attention to detail that tells you the people behind the place care about what they’re building.

As always, the atmosphere was laid back. Topics ranged from product development, to AI workflows, to how life in Ploiești actually is, and of course, planning the next gathering. This time, the plan is a wine-tasting oriented location since spring is expected to bring better weather. I’m already looking forward to it.

The conversations that matter

Besides the fun times, these kind of get-togethers bring real professional value. You get to sit down with people who think about similar problems and learn from how they approach things.

I had a chance to hear from Andrei Stroescu and Catalin Stanciu about how they are tackling product challenges and orchestrating their AI workflows. The kind of conversation you can’t get from a webinar or a LinkedIn post.

I also met Georgiana Atanasiu, who pivoted from CRO to Product. We had a lot to talk about, especially around Omniconvert and the cool things she was doing back in the day. She also recently attended the LIT Hackathon where she tackled a last mile delivery challenge from Sameday. That kind of problem felt like it would be perfect to model in Machinations.io, where you put all your variables into a scenario and run simulations until you find the highest throughput for parcel delivery, similar to what game designers do for game economics. Food for thought. And an even bigger FOMO for me for not making it to that hackathon in time.

An eventful March

March 2026 has been packed. My energy levels were not always there, and I was not fast enough to write about everything as it happened. But the events themselves were worth showing up for, and I plan to give each of them the dedicated write-up they deserve.

Here’s what my March looked like:

  • Mar 2 - AI x Business #1: Using AI at Sameday. Dragoș Bărbulescu shared concrete use cases and lessons learned from actual AI implementations at Sameday. The chat was on fire with discussions about adoption metrics vs usage metrics. Read my writeup.

  • Mar 3 - How AI is changing product decisions at Booking Holdings in Bucharest. A fireside chat with product leaders from Booking.com, Clever Craft, and Trilogy. One of those rare in-person events where the networking afterwards is just as good as the panel. Read my writeup.

  • Mar 6 - AI Talk: Cursor for non-coders. Radu and Tibi explored how Cursor works as a workspace for thinking and execution beyond coding. Cold email personalization, competitor analysis, prompt optimization. Read my writeup.

  • Mar 13 - AI Talk: Mentorship program automation with n8n. A live session on how the Product Mentoring Programme automates operations for 30+ mentors and 300+ mentees through n8n workflows. Read my writeup.

  • Mar 13 - Change management strategy and vision. A session with Paula Anastasiade moderated by Bülent. This one hit close to home. I first encountered change management around 2013 when I worked with process mapping consultants, and I’ve been trying to master it since. I even proposed a follow-up session: horror stories from change management gone wrong, part standup comedy, part group therapy. Bülent is already thinking about a dedicated series. I volunteered. Read my writeup.

  • Mar 19 - Upskilling the Romanian IT Industry at ING Hubs. A hands-on session about turning soft skills into power skills in an AI-driven landscape. I asked some spicy questions there about role blending in the age of AI. Read my writeup.

  • Mar 25 - Claude Community Bucharest: Meet the Builders. The inaugural gathering of the Claude AI community in Bucharest. 240 people showed up. Live demos of Claude Code and the Claude API for AI agents. The energy was real. Read my writeup.

What I take from all of this

When I look at this list, the common thread is obvious. AI is everywhere, but the events that stuck with me were the ones focused on the human side: how we adopt, how we change, how we show up and talk to each other about what we’re building.

Ploiești was the perfect ending for this kind of month. No slides, no agenda, just good people, good food, and the kind of conversations that make you leave with more questions than answers. In the best way possible.

Thanks to Bülent for bringing this community together, and to everyone who made March such a rich month. See you at the wine tasting.