Sunny Ray talks with Robert Hangu, founder of Next Operations, an AI voice automation company serving property management, homeowner association, and strata firms. Hangu traces his path from writing his first Pascal programs at age eleven in Romania, through computer science studies in Germany, internships at Skype and Microsoft, and a stint at SAP, to leaving big tech to chase entrepreneurship. He describes a failed restaurant ordering app, being selected from roughly 3000 applicants for the Antler accelerator in London, and a plumbing supply delivery startup that shut down after two years. He explains how Next Operations began in 2023 as an AI job board, pivoted through marketing automation, and landed on voice automation for HOA phone lines, where up to 60 percent of calls are repetitive balance and document requests. Hangu unpacks why well run businesses resist new technology, why clear and complete communication with AI matters more than technical skill, and why documented, consistent processes determine whether AI adoption actually succeeds inside a service business.
A Romanian founder explains why AI voice automation only works when your 'fine' front desk process is actually documented.
Tell us a bit about Next Operations. What do you guys do?
We started in 2023 when generative AI was booming. First I built an AI powered job board, then I saw a bigger need in marketing, which soon converted into voice automation as that tech got really good in 2023 and 2024. We applied it to property management, especially homeowner association management and strata or body corporate management depending on the geography.
You wrote your first program at 11. What pulled you towards code that young and what was the first thing you built?
We had computer science in fifth grade in Romania, mostly writing on notepads, and I wasn't good at it at first because it felt dry. Then we did basic computer graphics in Pascal and I got hooked on making the computer produce shapes and colors and animate them. Every day after school I'd build small 2D animations, boxes and lines moving around, and I stuck with it ever since.
You grew up in Romania, studied in Germany, built companies in London, and now you're based between Barcelona and Bali. How did all that moving shape how you think about work and risk?
I left Romania to study computer science in Germany, interned at Skype and Microsoft, then worked at SAP in big tech. It was a comfortable life but I felt it wasn't mine, so I quit to build a restaurant ordering app. I got into the Antler accelerator in London on two weeks notice, sold everything, and later moved to Barcelona after that venture ended and the AI wave began.
You picked machine learning for your masters before the AI hype cycle. What were you seeing back then that most people were missing?
I was fascinated that AI tries to copy biology, that you put together millions of small pieces and get a system that looks like it thinks even though it doesn't, more like a parrot repeating what you say. But back then AI was basic, recommender systems and face detection, not universal like today, so I went into big tech for a few years until generative AI made it an obvious no brainer.
You quit a stable engineering job at SAP right before COVID to build a startup. What were you chasing that the paycheck couldn't give you?
I had the feeling my work was a sandcastle that wasn't really mine and wouldn't compound. It felt linear, like a treadmill, you build something, ship it, and then have to start again with nothing carrying forward. That feeling was stronger than the comfort of a big tech paycheck, so I wanted to build something of my own that could grow like a plant I water every day.
You got picked from roughly 3000 applicants for the Antler program in London. What did that pressure cooker reveal about you as a founder?
The hardest part was the first one or two weeks, trying to assess in a few days whether you could work with someone for years, out of about 80 participants split between tech and non-tech founders. We were all trying to form complementary teams under time pressure. Going through that showed me I was capable of a lot more than I thought.
You've said 'we're fine' is the most expensive sentence in any service business. When did you first realize that was the whole problem?
Every business that exists today runs fine, otherwise it wouldn't survive, so the real question is whether they want to become more efficient, not whether they need to. We heard 'we're fine, but thank you' a lot from property managers, clinics, and home services companies. It comes down to market education and product positioning, and eventually the early adopters who cut costs will pull the rest of the industry along.
Tell me about the first HOA or property management firm you worked with. What did you see there that became your thesis?
We picked property management because they have a constant inbound phone stream. The first company we worked with was proactive, almost co-innovating with us, and originally wanted marketing help, but it became clear call automation could relieve their team from repetitive balance and document requests. That let them avoid burnout and work faster, and it shaped how we built the product from there.
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