Xenia Muntean, Planable: the road from underdogs to a successful exit | Follow your gut, take advice, but raise only when the timing is right for your company

The documentary "Romanian Startups: Roaring Tigers of Europe", made by the start-up.ro team, spans across 33 years of history, from the first entrepreneurs in the transitional years to the initial technology company transactions that brought Romania into the international spotlight.

Romanian Startups: Roaring Tigers of Europe - The Extended Series will present the people who built the Romanian ecosystem and who discussed with the VideoCorp and start-up.ro team for this documentary. In this series you will find the extensive interviews and find out the stories of those who built entrepreneurship in Romania.

Xenia Muntean, one of the cofounders of Planable, a platform dedicated to optimizing social media processes founded in 2016, got into the startup world "accidentally”, as she herself recounted during our interview from 2023 for the Romanian Startups: Roaring Tigers of Europe documentary.

But hers' and the other cofounders', Vlad Caluș, Nicu Gudumac, Miruna Dragomir, road during the 9 years they developed Planable proves that entrepreneurship can often be a serendipitous path rather than a lifelong dream.

Cum arată ecosistemul de startups din Republica Moldova

An exist after 9 profitable years

Since the beginning of August 2025, Planable became part of SE Ranking, a SEO company based in the UK. "We’ll continue to develop Planable as the place where social media teams plan, create, approve, and schedule content. We’re working on increasing our analytics and community management skills, powered by SE Ranking’s data and insights, it will also help teams connect social performance to the bigger marketing picture", the team stated in the official press release. You can find out more about the exit in this extensive interview with Xenia Muntean.

Initially unfamiliar with the startup world, Xenia says that she accidentally ventured into entrepreneurship through managing social media for Coca-Cola during her student days.

She contrasts running an agency with building a product company, emphasizing the scalability and deeper problem-solving that a tech startup enables.

Starting in Moldova, where the startup ecosystem was nascent, she and her team quickly transitioned to Romania’s growing startup community, benefiting from local accelerators and mentorships that helped shape their global mindset.

Investitorii specializați în food și HoReCa se aliază sub umbrela Food Angels Hub

The challenges of bootstrapping

Xenia also discusses the challenges of positioning their product in a competitive market, the difficulty of saying no to customers’ feature requests that could dilute their vision, and the complexities of fundraising.

"One of the most difficult things was saying no to customers’ feature requests that would take us away from our vision. Staying true to our positioning and creating our own market category was challenging but essential".

Choosing a near-bootstrapped approach, the Planable team raised less than $1 million and prioritized profitability and sustainable growth over aggressive funding rounds. She highlights the importance of timing in fundraising and advises founders to stay rational and true to their company’s needs rather than succumbing to hype.

"We wanted to make sure the business worked first before raising big rounds. Fundraising is not pleasant, and timing is super crucial", says Xenia.

Regarding the Romanian startup scene, Xenia reflected on its rapid evolution from a small, energetic community to one with numerous accelerators, competitions, and growing reputation internationally.

While success stories like UiPath are inspirational, she notes the ecosystem still lacks a solid presence of Series A and B companies for founders to benchmark against.

She believes Romanian founders are marked by resilience, discipline, and product intuition, with a strong culture of self-starting to overcome gaps in formal growth marketing and product knowledge.

Highlights from our discussion:

• Early exposure to startup ecosystems in Moldova and Romania shaped a global vision.
• Product positioning and staying true to vision were major challenges in a competitive market.
• The near-bootstrapped approach prioritized profitability and sustainable growth over rapid fundraising.
• Importance of investor-founder trust and alignment emphasized for healthy partnerships.
• Female founder perspective highlights subtle biases and evolving leadership styles in startups.
• The Romanian startup ecosystem is rapidly growing but still lacks many late-stage success stories.

Key Insights from Xenia Muntean, ex-cofounder of Planable

• A shift in mindset - from an agency to product founder: Transitioning from an agency to a product startup requires a fundamental change in approach. Unlike agencies that rely on client-by-client engagement, product startups scale by building a solution once and serving many customers. This shift demands a focus on deep problem-solving and long-term vision rather than transactional client work. The founder’s experience illustrates the challenge of adjusting expectations and embracing product-market fit dynamics, which are often underestimated by those new to tech startups.

"We were more scared about disappointing the people that supported us along the way than failing ourselves. The pressure was more about proving those who invested time and resources in us right".

• Global thinking from day one is crucial: Although beginning in a small ecosystem like Moldova, the founders adopted a global mindset early on, aiming to build a product that could serve international markets. This approach was reinforced by participation in Romanian accelerators and exposure to mentors with Silicon Valley experience. The insight here is that starting locally doesn’t limit ambition; rather, founders must actively seek community and knowledge beyond borders to scale globally.

"The biggest thing for us was adjusting our mentality to think 10x. We were thinking globally from day one and knew the product should serve a global audience".

• Romanian startup ecosystem growth - from underdogs to emerging leaders: The Romanian ecosystem has evolved from a small, close-knit community to one with vibrant accelerators, international recognition, and increasing success stories. However, the ecosystem still lacks a strong presence of mid-to-late stage startups (Series A/B) that founders can learn from locally. The founder emphasizes the resilience, discipline, and self-starting mentality of Romanian founders but also points to the need for better growth marketing and product skill development within local careers. This gap requires founders to seek knowledge globally, highlighting the importance of international exposure and community.
• The importance of timing in fundraising and growth: The founder highlights how timing can make or break fundraising success. They chose not to raise during the 2021 boom because they hadn’t fully understood their growth drivers, preferring to wait until they could deploy capital effectively. This insight is a reminder that fundraising should be strategic and aligned with company readiness, not driven by market hype or pressure, to avoid inefficiency and dilution.

"You have to stay true to your focus and not get swept up by hype or pressure to raise just because it looks good. Follow your gut, take advice, but raise only when the timing is right for your company."

Roaring Tigers of Europe is a production by start-up.ro and Videocorp, part of the Romanian publishing company InternetCorp, active for almost 20 years on the market. The documentary was made with the support of partners BCR, Orange, and 2Performant. Community partners included Guran Consulting Global, How to Web, Launch, Impact Hub Bucharest, Flaviu Simihaian, Rubik Hub, SoftServe, and the Romanian-American University.

Watch the full documentary in the video below: