Cristian Leana (Genios.ro): Having Others Promote Your Products and Paying Commission Only on Sales Seems Brilliant for a Store

We sat down with Cristi to understand how an atypical store sells—one where the best-selling product is the Rubik's Cube, and the second best-selling is a book explaining how to solve it.

By the way, did you know that the Rubik's Cube has 43 252 003 274 489 856 000 possible scramble combinations? Now you know. You'll find that statistic—and many others—in the interview below. If you haven't launched a campaign yet in the world's only affiliate marketing competition, create your account here.

When and how did the Genios story begin?

In 2009. The store was opened by Radu Faciu, the founder of the speed-cubing community in Romania and the first person to make Rubik's Cube solving methods available in Romanian on speedcubing.ro.

Here you can read more about Radu's journey. It came naturally, out of competitors' need to have access to professional speed Rubik's cubes.

Radu is the one who signed me up for "Românii au Talent" ("Romanians Got Talent") in 2012, when I took 3rd place, and he also signed me up in 2015, when I won the entire competition. He also provided us with 200 cubes for the finale act and helped us with everything we needed. You can read more at the link above.

What products did you start with, and how has your offer evolved?

We first started by bringing in the fastest models used in official speed-cubing competition events. Besides the classic 3×3×3 cube, competitions also feature the 4×4, 5×5, 6×6, and 7×7 cubes, plus several irregular-shaped models: megaminx, skewb, square-1, skewb, clock.

Those were the initial models, but today we have over 200 different models, as manufacturers compete year after year to create ever more interesting and fascinating Rubik's puzzles.

What is the best-selling product right now?

The best-selling product is the classic 3×3 magnetic cube, priced at 95 RON. It is the model I used in the 2015 "Românii au Talent" finale. Back then it was the V1 version, and now it is the V2 version, which is much faster and magnetic.

Right behind it comes my booklet on solving the Rubik's Cube—the only book in Romanian that teaches you the complete method in just 4 moves. Even 4-year-old kids have learned it!

Tell us something interesting and little-known about the Cube

The Rubik's Cube can be solved in a maximum of 20 moves, no matter how much you scramble it. That number was calculated about 10 years ago in collaboration with Google.

At the time, Google was the only company with servers powerful enough to calculate all possible combinations.

The Rubik's Cube has 43 252 003 274 489 856 000 scramble variations—a number so huge that if you drew each combination on a sheet of paper, the stack would surpass any building, reach the sky, pass the exosphere and the Moon, and even reach the planet Pluto.

And that would cover only 14% of the total; it would take seven such stacks of paper, from Earth to Pluto, to encompass all possibilities!

How did you discover affiliate marketing through BusinessLeague, and what made you sign up?

I received an email from you about the affiliate program and how I could earn by promoting products. At first I didn't pay much attention to it because I was focused on promoting GENiOS.ro on my own channels.

A few days later, I found out that I could also join as a merchant, paying a commission only upon sale—the perfect idea! I was constantly receiving offers for Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc., but I never liked investing money without a guaranteed return.

Because I cannot afford financial risks, BusinessLeague was the answer I had been looking for for a long time. Pay for performance only = zero risk for the store!

What have you set out to achieve in BusinessLeague? Are you going after records and rankings? 🙂

We want to grow and attract as many marketers as possible, especially since we offer an above-average commission rate and keep our time to payment below the general average.

Our products are rarely returned long after delivery, so we approve commissions in a maximum of 15 days (with the average probably under 10 days)—a serious advantage for affiliates.

So far, how is affiliate marketing delivering compared to other channels? Can you share some numbers?

Most of our traffic and orders still come from my own promotion on social media, but even so, the affiliate program has started bringing in 1–2 orders per day—just a few weeks after signing up.

We look forward to and hope to see the numbers climb rapidly!

How would you describe BusinessLeague in a single sentence?

The platform where everyone wins!

How do you choose your affiliates? What is important to you in BusinessLeague partnerships?

Since we have no restrictions on traffic sources, we accept anyone who wants to promote the store, with the sole limit of 5 CSS affiliates.

We didn't invest a single leu in ads between 2009 and 2025—everything was organic, without listing products on other marketplaces.

We believe there is huge untapped potential, and we invite you to join our affiliate program!