The Recursive Podcast

Next, on The Recursive podcast we welcome seasoned entrepreneur Ilia Krastev. As the CEO of A Data Pro, he’s managing a diverse portfolio of companies in the data and information economy -  the business news provider for Southeast Europe SeeNews, the media monitoring company Perceptica, the business platform for renewable energy - Renewables Now, and the scientific unit, based on AI solutions Identrics. Ilia Krastev is also the chairman of the Association for Innovation, Business Excellence, Services, and Technology, that aims to be the voice of companies of the high value-added business services in Bulgaria. In his conversation with Georgi Nenov, Ilia tells the story of how his first student job turned into his lifetime calling. While studying microbiology, he started as a coder indexing news articles, explored different positions within the company and rose to the role of CEO. And he’s been at the steering wheel of A Data Pro for the last 13 years. Throughout the years Ilia has experimented with different ventures - some very far away from tech, and he says that trying new things and learning about people has been his main focus.  He owned a restaurant and an agriculture business which taught him much more about listening to people than any corporate training. In the episode, Ilia talks about: How to stay at the top of the game in the ever changing world of data; How to develop an intrapreneurial mindset within the company and make sure your organization can adapt fast to changes; How to learn to let go of control as a leader and give opportunities to people to lead;

Our next guest on The Recursive podcast is an illustrator and designer turned entrepreneur Gergana Stancheva. She and her co-founder Angela Ivanova found a way to say goodbye to plastic in the packaging industry. Together they created LAM’ON in 2017 - а startup producing biodegradable laminating film for print and packaging. Several years later they are ready to launch officially and sell their products in Europe. They are focused on building up their production and distribution lines here in Bulgaria. In the episode, Gergana opens up about all the sweat and tears that go into building a product company.  As she puts it herself: “It’s a constant failure until you actually get it right.” She talks about dealing with rejection and building resilience as a startup founder and shares how she and her co-founder went broke while developing their product. In her conversation with Georgi, you’ll also learn: How to build a company with your best friend and keep your personal relationship going strong; What makes you a good salesperson? (Hint: really believing in your idea) How to fight people’s indifference about climate change; What does it take for a Bulgarian manufacturer to go global;

Our next guest is a seasoned French businessman whose entrepreneurial journey is deeply intertwined with the fast development of the Bulgarian post-communist economy. Xavier Marcenac first came to Bulgaria in the early 90s, as the country was opening up for foreign investors. After several years of managing companies in Europe, in the early 2000s he came back to start one of the first BPO companies in the country. A sector, which later became one of the fastest-growing branches of the Bulgarian economy and a focal point for attracting young talent from the country and abroad. Marcenac managed to grow his company Call Point to a leader in the BPO services in Europe. It currently employs close to 5000 people, mostly based in Bulgaria and Romania and it is owned by Canadian TELUS International. While Xavier and his life partner Olga Marcenac started their new venture in the promising biotechnology sector. Together they co-founded Nasekomo, a startup converting organic waste into high-value animal protein through the use of insects. Xavier is a graduated IT engineer, he holds an MBA degree from INSEAD, and is a passionate runner, hiker, and admirer of Bulgarian nature. In his conversation with Irina, Xavier shares: Why selling his business was one of his hardest decisions as a manager? What are his secrets on how to make it work to build a business with your life partner? What was their fascinating discovery about black soldier flies and why is it so beneficial for animals to eat protein, sourced from these insects?

In Bucharest again, we meet the co-founder of established software company QUALITANCE and most recently the AI-assisted platform for digital transformation FLOWX.AI Ioan Iacob. FLOWX.AI has just raised $8.5 million in a seed round, led by PortfoLion, with Day One Capital and SeedBlink also participating in the round. In this conversation with Ioan for The Recursive podcast, you will learn: How a Romanian engineer in Silicon Valley, overlooked because of his accent, beat the odds and changed the way software was built; How did Ioan get GoogleX’s co-founder Tom Chi to join their board of advisors and what did they learn from him on how to build great products; Why losing the ego is key to running a successful startup; For more inspiring conversations with leaders from SouthEast Europe, subscribe to our podcast. 

Next on The Recursive podcast, we welcome seasoned entrepreneur and investor turned political candidate Daniel Lorer. His journey in the business world has been versatile and rich. Starting as a coder, turned into a sales executive, who then turned into а startup founder with a couple of successful exits. After years of living between Tel Aviv, Paris, Brussels, and Zurich, he came back to Bulgaria and entered the venture capital world with Sofia-based BrightCap Ventures. Now, Lorer is at a turning point again. He’s running for the Bulgarian parliament as a part of the newly founded party “We continue the change”. In his conversation with Irina, Daniel shares what prompted him to burst his own tech bubble and enter the very different reality of Bulgarian politics. “The tech community is export-focused, our business is worldwide, we have very little attachment to all the issues here. Our problems are mostly communal, we’re not really experiencing the problems of the common people around us. That has given us the luxury to look the other way for too long. We stay in our beautiful bubble and we think that things will sort out themselves”, he admits and then adds: “However, after a long period of time where nobody else picks up the shovel and starts cleaning up, the moment when the opportunity arrives for you to do it, you start asking yourself: “How I am going to look at myself in the mirror 20 years from now?” According to Lorer the biggest asset a politician can have now is empathy - the ability to listen, understand, and relate to the different communities, big and small, and respond. He gives the credit of cultivating his own ability to empathize with others to his wife. In the episode, Lorer shares his vision of how will Bulgaria rise to become a regional innovation hub. Now that the country is finally breeding globally-oriented product companies, the missing link in public policy, he says, is the investment in education. He believes that to move to the next stage of ecosystem development, Bulgaria needs to have top education, which means both government spending on R&D and enterprises, investing more on R&D. In his view, in order to create and retain local human capital, but also attract the brightest minds from abroad, Bulgaria has to drastically improve its basic social services, but also appreciate and promote better its natural assets.  “I would like to see my contribution to radically changing the international perception of what Bulgaria stands for”, Daniel concludes. Subscribe for The Recursive newsletter to get the episodes before anyone else.

On the next stop in Bucharest, The Recursive podcast welcomes Ilinca Paun. She is a person who knows the price of taking big risks to chase the freedom and the excitement of the unknown. At the top of the corporate ladder as the manager of Colliers in Romania, she quit her job as an expert in the real estate business to become an explorer. She co-founded The Entrepreneurship Academy and became a teacher there, advising young people on their entrepreneurial journey, but also learning from them. Currently Ilinca Paun serves as the managing partner at Impact Hub Bucharest. In a very personal conversation with Irina, Ilinca shares how she landed a corporate job, even though she studied for an architect. “I was too much in the search of fame and glory back then. The corporate world could cover training, education and higher salary. It was a golden ticket and I took it”, she reflects. 18 long and intensive years followed. During 8 of them she was the CEO of Colliers Romania. She took over the management of the company after the real estate crash in 2010. The business was struggling, people were fighting, and she decided it was a good moment for a rebirth and rebuilding of the company culture. She reflects on her role as a manager. Being a confident leader and a good salesperson, behaving well under pressure was not enough. “Looking back, I was ego-driven and narcissistic. I was completely oblivious to how to communicate with people. You should have much more substance, much more competence, when it comes to understanding people around you. Being adaptable, flexible about how to take decisions taking into account their needs and their ideas”, she talks about her lessons learned. Ilinca is very honest about the personal toll she paid climbing up the corporate ladder and surviving in a very competitive environment. “It felt dehumanizing, because competition meant hating people, and it made me very lonely. I couldn’t properly connect with my family, because I had to fight this fight that was not mine”, she shares. So, she left the corporate world and co-founded The Entrepreneurship academy, a place where she started rebuilding her freedom and her sense of self. And where she also got used to a new approach to business. “My students at The Entrepreneurship Academy don’t try to steal clients from others. Their competition is with themselves - how can I serve my clients better”, Ilinca explains. In the episode, Ilinca also reflects on the culture in Eastern Europe, which shames mistakes because people are taught not to talk about it. There is a fine line between true self-confidence and a fake sense of holding the truth, Ilinca believes: “I was very afraid to say the words: “I don’t know”. Underneath our arrogance of knowing is our fear. Our fear of not being noticed, valuable or impactful.”

The next guest of the Bucharest edition of The Recursive podcast is a person who anticipates future trends and helps people and organizations see the opportunities in them. Ciprian Stanescu is the co-founder of Social Innovation Solutions, an organization that assists leaders in creating sustainable tech, entrepreneurial & policy solutions. With a background in political science and economics, Stanescu consults both NGOs and companies on social impact and innovation. He’s also a professor at The Entrepreneurship Academy in Bucharest and a frequent speaker on Future Trends & Foresight. In his conversation with Georgi, Ciprian Stanescu shares how he found his own entrepreneurial drive while he took 18-month paternity leave to look after his firstborn child. This experience taught him that risk-taking is something that he both wants and can do. “Not many entrepreneurs start when they have a kid, they think it’s too complicated, but it gave me a lot of stamina and a lot of courage to release myself”, he says in the episode. He adds that he wouldn’t compare parenting to running a company, but they do have similarities. “When you create your own company, you are both the parent, and the kid”, he exemplifies. In the episode, Stanescu reflects on his teaching experience and what he has learned from his students. What he sees in the new generation of entrepreneurs is that they don’t go into business to find success, but to make an impact. Stanescu shares his views on why technology can’t solve the social problems of the world without having a clear impact model at its core. “Entrepreneurs often care more about KPIs, while the human sustainability part of the business is critical”, he believes. A cautious optimist for the future of Eastern Europe, Stanescu thinks that the region hasn’t yet found its clear and strong entrepreneurial identity. But in order to do that, the entrepreneurial community must engage the rest of the population, according to him. “If we are only looking at the UiPaths’ of the world, we have a problem. They are really important as models to follow, but if we don’t find ways to engage more people in our conversations, in the way we work, in the way we dream, it‘s not going to work out”, Stanescu concludes.

Season 2 of The Recursive podcast kicks off in Bucharest. We first meet XENIA MUNTEAN, the co-founder, and CEO of the marketing collaboration platform Planable. She considers herself “an accidental entrepreneur”, even though she started her first business when she was just 20 years old. Today, the platform she and her co-founders built to help marketing teams collaborate better is used by over 5,000 teams around the world behind brands such as Hyundai, Christian Louboutin, Viber, and the United Nations. Xenia graduated from Tim Draper's start-up academy in Silicon Valley and went through one of the best accelerator programs in the world - Tech Stars London. Growing up in post-soviet Moldova, she didn’t have any role models of women entrepreneurs to look up to. Xenia was inspired by her hustler mom, who not only juggled ventures on the side but put her kids’ education on top. In her conversation with Georgi Xenia opens up about the “sweat and tears” part of the Planable journey. She tells the story of how she and her two co-founders left Moldova and moved to Romania to focus religiously on building their business. Xenia talks about the evolution of their relationship as business partners, and the culture of work ethics, discipline, and humor they are trying to build in their company. You’ll also learn what it took them to land their first client, what is her secret in keeping up with the rollercoaster life as an entrepreneur, and how she blocks time for deep thinking as a leader. Subscribe for The Recursive newsletter to get the episodes before anyone else.

What is the archetype of a great leader? Does leadership come naturally to people or is it something you can learn on the job? What are the skills you need to adopt and nurture to grow into the leader you want to become? To wrap up Season 1 of The Recursive podcast we picked some of the best insights on leadership that our guests shared on the podcast. In order of appearance:  The Vice president Regional Communities Strategy at IT company VMware Diana Stefanova believes that many people have natural leadership skills but you can also develop people-oriented leadership qualities in your managerial role. “Early in our careers, we learn to be great managers and leadership is something that you could develop from a very young age because leaders are those who can inspire. Being a leader is something really important for us to be successful in any type of business”, she explained in the episode. The digitalization expert and co-founder of infosec company LogSentinel Bozhidar Bozhanov believes that digital transformation can’t happen without thoughtful leadership. It’s not about the technical issue to change paper with files, but about the ability to convince people that this is important. Motivational speaker and author Peter Sage sees the archetype of the leader as the sovereign, who is in charge of the orchestra. Helping others, taking the initiative, and being a reliable person is the path to emerge as a new leader according to the Head of Engineering at ProductHunt Rado Stankov. And for the co-founder of Imagga and Kelvin Health Georgi Kadrev when you lead by example, you have the learn to accept your own flaws and the flaws of others. “This doesn’t mean to encourage them, but to recognize that everyone is working on their evolutional path. Showing your imperfections is a positive practice, especially when you demonstrate that you have the desire to change”, he shared. Learning to let go of control and trusting your colleagues to own the process is one of the most important leadership lessons for the social entrepreneur Iva Gumnishka. For serial entrepreneur Hristo Neychev the best leaders are those who help other humans grow and become the best versions of themselves. Being comfortable with change and staying calm when facing a crisis are also crucial skills that you need to adopt to be a good leader, says the co-founder of OfficeRND Miroslav Miroslavov. “You should feel comfortable taking risks and replacing the engine of the plane while flying”, he added. For ex-Telerik founder and angel investor Svetozar Georgiev the leader should be part of the team and in the trenches every day, especially when things are hard. He should be responsible for giving the overall direction but give freedom to people and empower them to do their best work. For Romanian serial entrepreneur and angel investor Mircea Vadan leadership starts with managing yourself first - learn to let go of control, be the catalyzer in a project, and start things in a partnership. Stay tuned for the start of Season 2 next Tuesday. We kick it off with some of the most inspiring leaders from the Bucharest innovation community. Subscribe for The Recursive newsletter to get the episodes before anyone else.

In episode 10 of The Recursive podcast, we meet with Bozhidar Bozhanov, the co-founder of cybersecurity company LogSentinel. He’s also one of the driving forces behind the digitalization of the public sector in Bulgaria. A software engineer with a passion for technology and an active citizen stance, Bozhidar has a talent for explaining complex topics. His company Logsentinel offers an information security product, which allows companies to track every single event that takes place in their information and digital infrastructure, and then find fraud and anomalies in the data. Among its clients are banks, payment service providers, insurance companies, etc. But Bozhidar has also been a vocal supporter of open data and e-governance. As an expert, he has helped the Bulgarian government implement both in its work. Most recently he’s been an advisor to the Commission for Digitalization and e-governance in the Bulgarian National assembly. In his conversation with Georgi, he shares how he balances running a startup and being an expert, involved in the innovation of the public sector. He explains why he believes that e-government is the basis of trust between people and government and how he aims to help Bulgarian citizens engage and communicate easily and digitally with Bulgarian institutions. Integrity and transparency are the values that Bozhidar cares about both in business, and in politics. He explains that for him the key to gaining clients’ trust in the infosec sphere is being a technical person who speaks their language. We also learn that it’s the love of challenges and the joy in solving problems that led him on an entrepreneurial journey. “Solving a problem that exists out there and that is not yet properly solved, or there are parts of the market that are unserved, combined with the knowledge and the expertise of the founders, is kind of the recipe for creating a startup”, Bozhidar says. A devoted blogger, Bozhidar talks about how blogging helps him organize his thoughts and writing is his driver to research and dive deep into the topics that interest him. Subscribe for The Recursive newsletter to get the episode before anyone else.