The Leap of Tech #8: Batman, Not Superman

The Discipline of Earned Success

At the latest Leap of Tech meet-up, the spotlight turned to a founder who knows the long game better than most. Ciprian Borodescu, serial entrepreneur (MorphL- acquired by Algolia, Appticles, Neokinetics Software, et al.), AI advocate, former Head of Algolia Romania and Principal Product Manager, and now Entrepreneur in Residence at Underline Ventures, didn’t show up with a glossy reel of startup wins or a carefully curated founder myth. He brought something better: radical honesty, experience, and a decade’s worth of lessons about what it really takes to build something that lasts.

Thirteen Years to an Overnight Success

Ciprian’s first steps into entrepreneurship started the way many do — fresh out of college, full of ambition, and light on context. His first startup secured €100,000 from a Bulgarian fund. It felt like a big deal. And it was. Until the startup failed. 

“I thought raising money meant I’d made it,” Ciprian reflected. “I didn’t understand that getting funding is just permission to start the real work.”

Most founders would have retreated after such a public failure. Ciprian doubled down.

His second attempt carried the golden stamp of Silicon Valley validation—acceptance into a U.S. accelerator program. The prestige felt like vindication. The network promised opportunities. The mentorship suggested inevitable success.

What he learned is that prestige doesn’t guarantee product-market fit. Networks don’t solve fundamental business model flaws. And mentorship can’t substitute for the brutal honesty of customer feedback.

But the third time, his approach had fundamentally evolved, as Ciprian had accumulated enough scar tissue and built his entrepreneurial resilience. So, in 2018, he launched MorphL, an AI platform designed to predict user behavior in e-commerce. This time, the team didn’t write a single line of code before raising $50,000. There was no rush to build. 

The discipline showed. MorphL secured entry into Techstars Montreal AI and they raised another $120,000. They built lean, tested constantly, and adapted quickly. When the pandemic tested the tech world, MorphL was one of the companies ready to deliver. The product was aligned with the needs of e-commerce, and the team was ready. 

Meanwhile, Algolia noticed their growth and power. So, the acquisition followed in 2020, after months of focused execution and precise decision-making. This wasn’t about a single big decision. It was about hundreds of small ones, made with clarity.

Reflecting on the exit, Ciprian was clear: “It took me 13 years to understand how to build a startup.”  

That moment might have looked like a win from the outside. But it came after 13 years of building, stumbling, reflecting, and getting sharper every time.

“Everyone talks about luck,” Ciprian told the room. “But what made MorphL different was discipline.”

The difference at MorphL wasn’t the market, the tech, or the team. It was how they approached everything: planning before coding, validating early, staying lean. 

The Life After The Exit

“Founders focus on the exit”, he said. “But what comes after is equally challenging. 

Ciprian stayed with Algolia from 2021 to early 2025. The experience, he said, was eye-opening. He saw the company grow from 350 to 700 people. He witnessed the infrastructure behind 17,000 B2B customers and 30 billion weekly search requests. 

It was a period of learning, but also of letting go.“You go from calling the shots to adapting to someone else’s systems,” he said. “And that shift is harder than most people expect.” 

Ciprian also shared lessons from the acquisition process: the role of due diligence, how to create FOMO with a buyer, and how lawyers can either support or derail a deal. One piece of advice stood out: “Don’t let the lawyers run the deal. It’s yours to lead. They’re there to support, not decide.”

To illustrate the discipline mindset that separates sustainable entrepreneurs from those who flame out, Ciprian posed a question that surprised the room: “Between Batman and Superman, who’s the better entrepreneur?”

The answer, he argued, was obvious once you understood the nature of entrepreneurial success. “Superman has superpowers,” Ciprian explained. “He’s invincible. He doesn’t have to earn his victories, as they’re guaranteed by his genetics. “Batman, on the other hand, is completely human. He’s vulnerable, human, and accountable. Plus, he doesn’t fly above problems. Instead, he builds tools to solve them.“

That metaphor grounded a wider point: the most successful founders are not fearless. They take risks, fail, recover, and make hard calls. What sets them apart is discipline and the ability to act with clarity and consistency, especially when the odds are stacked against you.

“Superman entrepreneurs burn out or get exposed when their superpowers aren’t enough,” Ciprian continued. “Batman entrepreneurs build resilience, develop capabilities, and create sustainable competitive advantages that compound over time.”

Grit isn’t optional. It’s the price of entry.

Startup Success Is Built, Not Stumbled Into

As the conversation evolved, Ciprian challenged one of the tech ecosystem’s most pervasive narratives. 

“Thriving ecosystems don’t rely on the occasional unicorn. They grow from repeatable cycles: founders who build solid companies, exit modestly, and return with capital and insights to fuel the next generation.“

This philosophy directly contradicts the prevailing startup culture that celebrates only the rare billion-dollar exits while ignoring the thousands of profitable, sustainable businesses that form the backbone of healthy entrepreneurial ecosystems.

“A $10 million exit that funds three more startups creates more long-term value than a $100 million exit that creates one wealthy founder,” Ciprian observed. 

And that’s the culture Leap of Tech wants to foster. We want to build a mature ecosystem rooted in discipline, not overnight wins.

Who Was in the Room

Leap of Tech #8 attracted exactly the kind of community Ciprian’s message resonated with. The room was filled with founders from e-commerce, AI, mental health, consulting, and Industry 4.0—entrepreneurs who had launched, pivoted, paused, and sold. These were experienced people seeking deeper insights and truthful inspiration.

The Takeaway: Discipline as a Competitive Advantage

As the room emptied and conversations continued in smaller groups, Ciprian’s message had clearly resonated. In this startup ecosystem often dominated by hype and overnight success stories, his thirteen-year journey offered something more valuable: proof that discipline, persistence, and honest self-reflection create sustainable competitive advantages.

“The overnight success story is seductive because it suggests entrepreneurship is about luck or inspiration,” Ciprian had said. “But sustainable success is about developing the discipline to make good decisions consistently over time, especially when those decisions are boring or difficult.”

For founders still building their companies, this message is both sobering and encouraging. The journey is longer and harder than most people expect, but the abilities gained along the way create compounding advantages that extend far beyond any individual venture.

See you at the next Leap of Tech event

This community is growing. Stay close, because the next edition will go even further as the meetup will build on what Ciprian reminded us: long-term wins start with honest reflection and consistent action.

Stay close. The most sustainable products aren’t built in silence. They’re built in a community.

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The Leap of TECH isn’t a trend. 

It’s a movement. A manifesto. IT starts with you.

✊ Stay tuned.