Building a Startup in Europe: Live Q&A with FI Founders Freddy Yoann Atangana & Kostadin Mihaylov

What's a bit of advice that you got that you're thankful that you didn't take? What's your name?

Uh, it's a copycat business. People are doing it, uh, in different parts of the world. You don't have to do it. There are enough businesses like yours.

Good evening everyone, and good morning, good afternoon, depending on where you at. This is Chris Foltz, Global Entrepreneur in Residence at Founder Institute. So excited to be here with you. It's Tonight we're gonna be talking about launching and scaling startups in Europe, right? The magical land of Europe and all the excitement that's happening in the startup ecosystem from coast to coast throughout the entire European area has just been amazing to watch through the years from here in America. Tonight we're gonna be talking about some of the proven strategies that our founders have learned inside of our Founder Institute programs in Europe. And where it's actually gotten them on their pathway to success. So tonight we're going to be welcoming two amazing guests that we have from different parts of the European ecosystem. One of them is currently in Africa, for that matter, but started in our Zurich program. So let's welcome onto the stage Kostadin and Freddy. These are two amazing leaders. Kostadin has come out of our Eastern European program, is currently in Sofia, Bulgaria. And Freddy had, although he's originally from Cameroon, has worked out of our Zurich, Switzerland program and is currently in Cape Town, South Africa, right? So we're gonna get them both on the screen and we're gonna get this ball rolling. And just for all of you that are on tonight watching, make sure that you ask questions, uh, right into our Q&A panel. And I've asked both of these founders to stay after a little bit and possibly do some networking with you and be able to answer some of your questions directly at the table. So I want to go ahead and get right into this, and we're going to start with you, Coach Nadine. Now, I checked out BuddyGuard, right? So not only do you have this kind of really cool background and kind of a polymathic background to you, but BuddyGuard is super interesting. Now, for those of you who haven't checked out BuddyGuard, you know, Coach Nadine is going to explain it a bit here. But imagine you have a pet. A lot of us have them. Do you know how hard it is to find someone to trust when it comes down to pet sitting, walking the animal, just doing anything like that. It's a very stressful thing. Come to find out they didn't even have this in Bulgaria before Kostadin came up with BuddyGuard. And so why don't we start with you, Kostadin? Tell me a little bit about BuddyGuard and what it has going on, then I'll jump over to you, Freddy, and ask about your adventures. Go ahead, my friend.

That was a great, great presentation. Thank you so much about that, Chris. Yeah, so hello everyone, my name is Kostadin. Mikhailov, and I'm the co-founder and CEO of BuddyGuard. BuddyGuard is a pet sitting platform which connects pet owners with verified and trustworthy pet sitters. Our goal, as Chris said, is to resolve the main, main problem which pet owners have, and this is who will take care of my pet when I go on a business trip or traveling with my, with my friends and family. So we're We're working since 2021, and so far we have more than 250 sitters based in Bulgaria, and we are serving more than 1,500 pet owners all around the country.

Wow, those are some amazing numbers, you know, to go from something that, you know, a lot of people get scared sometimes when it comes down to being the first to market, right? Sometimes it's even frankly scary, but in something like this, everybody loves pets. And anytime you can make that easier, um, and in the heartfelt way that you are, it's amazing. Plus, I love being able to go to your website and it immediately translates to English, so then I was able to read all the amazing things you have going on. Thanks. I'm looking forward to asking you some questions here shortly. Kossadin, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Freddy, my man Freddy Johan Atanaga, from Cameroon originally. I believe you're in Cape Town right now, right? You, you know, you have this interesting background, right? There's not that many people that have the kind of creative mind plus the digital marketing side, mind plus the operational side. But then I noticed you launched a startup in the beauty industry, right? So tell us a little bit about this. Like, first, how did that come about? Where you're at with this and, and why you're in Cape Town now after being in our Zurich program, originally from Cameroon. So welcome, Freddy, to the stage. Let me see what you got going on, my friend. Unmute yourself whenever you're free. Look at that smile, right? Never go wrong with that. Go ahead, buddy.

Hello, Chris. Thank you. Thank you for having me on stage. So basically, as you mentioned, I'm from Cameroon and I'm very passionate about beauty, beauty technology in general. I think it stems from the fact that as a child, I used to walk with my mom every Sunday to the beauty salon. And on these trips, she would tell me about my grandfather and seeing the struggles and the problems they were facing in the beauty sector, I think naturally I was attracted to the industry. So yes, basically I'm Pat, I graduated from the Zurich program in 2020, and we decided to test most of our ideas in Cape Town. Though we believe like our products here at Dryco are going to perform greatly in the European market, though the ecosystems are kind of different, that I would say. So yeah, so basically that's why I'm in Cape Town currently working with my team. And from here we are connecting to the other— we are doing liaison with our advisory board that is still based in Zurich.

You know, I'm going to start with questions with you, Freddy. I mean, although I don't look like I've ever spent a day working in the beauty or fashion industry, believe it or not, I have. And I've actually worked on several products in Africa, for that matter. You know, you mentioned, you know, about walking every single week, you know, with your mom to the beauty salons. I also know in your background that your grandfather played a role in your kind of entrepreneurial mindset. Tell me a little bit about that. You know, so much of us want to grow up and be like our elders. But tell me, what was it specifically with your grandfather that helped on this path?

I think he's— At the beginning of his journey, you know, he lost his parents at a very young age. He was still a baby, an infant, and he was dropped in front of a church. So he was basically raised by the Catholic Church back home. And from nothing, basically, he managed to get into the farming business and other little small businesses around his community. So he became kind of a pioneer in his region back home in Cameroon. Seeing the drive he had coming from nothing, I said to myself, hey, I have a little something already that he has created for the family, and I need to take it to the next level. So that's my drive, actually. That's how much he inspires me. Like, hey, I had nothing. Nobody was there for me. I made the most of every opportunity I was given. So that's why he inspires me so much. And actually, the company name Ekamu, That's his name, actually. So that's why I even named my company after him. So it's like a North Star that guides me towards my goals.

You know, I think we all need some sort of North Star like that. I mean, so many people ask founders what motivates them. And what I've realized is the greatest founders are actually self-motivated. And where they get that self-motivation is through inspiration. I love that you put that right into the title of your company, Freddy. That's totally awesome. Let me jump over to you, Costadine. You know, I did some research in your background, right? So You know, you've got this kind of interesting blend of working as an entrepreneur, and then you decided to just go off the deep end and launch a startup, right? In Sofia, Bulgaria, one of the fastest growing markets in this space. You know, you could have probably just had a lucrative career. What caused you to make the jump into this type of startup world and with all the challenges and everything that it takes to actually launch this? Let me hear it, Kostadin.

Yeah, so, um, you're absolutely correct. I actually graduated pharmacy in the Sofia University, and, um, I thought that my path will be connected to only with pharmacy, but in fact I started working in, um, in customer support, and after that I became a manager, uh, in one of the top dating companies back here in Bulgaria. But at some point I understood that this, as you say, lucrative life is not for me. I just wanted a new adventure, a new, um, a new path which I wanted to go by myself because I need— I knew that I cannot more— I can be more than just a manager in, uh, someone else's company. I can build my own dream, and, and this was Bodyguard, uh, so How did the company start? I actually needed a pet sitter for myself when I was traveling, but in fact I was not able to find such. The dog hotels were not the perfect option for me, so I thought myself, well, if I have this problem, then more people should have this problem as well. So I started asking people, do you need a pet sitter? I can make dog walks, I can do cat visits. And from mouth to mouth, in a matter of 6 months, I had more than 150 customers. So I thought myself, uh, I should start, uh, hiring people on full-time so they can be pet sitters by themselves. And in a matter of 2 years, we had more than 500 customers. And, uh, I pivoted and I changed the whole business model from taking people who are on full-time jobs to making the platform marketplace option where people can add the different types of hours which they have on a daily basis so that they can do it whenever and whatever options they have. They can do dog walks only in the mornings and in the evenings, and that's why it's the perfect jobs for students.

So that's a very interesting point. So you mentioned that you had this problem yourself, right? And, you know, what I found with, with some of the greatest founders I've ever worked with is that they're solving a problem that, that they specifically faced, right? So what you said, what were some of the alternatives? So many people think, you know, well, I'm brand new to the market, there's no competition, but there's always alternatives. You had mentioned something like maybe dog hotels or something. What were people using in Bulgaria before they had pet sitting like this?

Yeah, uh, there, there were only kennels, uh, and, uh, of course friends and family. But the good thing is that by using BuddyGuard, you have a professional sitter who has experience, who has training, and of course insurance coverage up to €15,000 in case of medical intervention, interference, in case it's needed. When you use friends and family, there is always an option for the, for your grandma or grandpa to give a little bit more food for the pet which is on a diet because it has medical issues. But in case something happens, you can't argue with them because after all, they're your family. But when you, uh, when you use a professional sitter, you can always tell him you should do this, you should do that. You have specific instructions, and, um, that, that's the best, the best thing.

That's amazing. And how many total customers do you have right now on platform?

We have more than 2,500 pet owners who are using the platform currently.

That's amazing. You know, I gotta hand it to you. I'm gonna jump over to you, Freddy. You know, it's one of those things where spending as much time as I have worked in the African region, I realize how much culture plays a role in businesses, right? And, you know, I also noticed that you, you were part of our Zurich program. Was your original intention to create some sort of gap closer for people in the European markets. You know, what, what has caused you to take such a cosmopolitan approach, you know, versus working just in our accelerator in Cameroon? You chose to go Zurich. Is it something about where your products are going that caused you to do that, Freddy?

Basically, I'll say, is first thing I said to myself is if you win in Europe, If you win in Zurich, if you're able to make it on that market, you're going to make it globally. So the competitiveness of the market, that's what attracted me actually to the European ecosystem in the first place. Like, I need to get there, meet the people in that ecosystem, talk to them, bounce my ideas with them, and see what's viable actually. So when I started with Ekamu, my idea first was to just simply connect people to beauty services. And COVID-19 happened, so it was like, oh, okay, everybody is now sitting at home, it will make things easier, you can just book a hairdresser and whatever, or a barber online. So we went with that approach initially. The traction was good, it was working, especially in South Africa, but I could still feel like in the European market, uh, there are certain parameters that were not adding up. It's easy for the clients to get the number of the business you refer them to and not use your app in the future and you might lose commission. So our focus then shifted to, okay, let's really try to innovate the beauty space, not just in Africa, but in general. Though we feel like Africa represents, I'll say, the largest market when we want to see the consumption of beauty products globally. Africa is one of the biggest markets. That's what attracted us to like, hey, listen, let's go in that market and really identify the problem. So today at Ecamoo, we are focused on mostly reducing the amount of waste generated by the beauty industry. So our focus is on sustainability. What are the future tech tools that are going to help beauty artists, beauty salons, or whatever kind of beauties to reduce the number of waste this industry is generating globally? So right now we are actually working on a tool. We are doing some testing and prototyping. It should be out this year, but it's in the realm now of we've shifted from just, let's say, an e-commerce or a booking platform, and we are more into augmented reality, virtual reality. That's the field we are working on right now. Like, how can we leverage the recent technology in order to impact the African beauty market? It's not easy, and I think we are enjoying more the journey than we thought we would, actually. So yeah.

You have to enjoy the journey. Otherwise you're never gonna have the smile on your face, you know? And you're so pleasant for somebody that has gone through this kind of pivot and specificity. You brought something up, you know, first you were looking at this kind of broader beauty industry and where you played a role. And then you got really specific here a moment ago and you said, you know, we're focusing in on the waste that's happening in the beauty industry, right? That was an unexpected specific focus. Why, what caused you to focus in and drill down specifically on the waste of the beauty industry, Freddy? That's interesting.

There are many diseases that are contracted by, in beauty salons, especially here in Africa. From what we've noticed in our research, because we've done a lot of R&D and market research, I think I've spoken to more than 1,000 or 2,000 people in the beauty industry till date right now. There are certain winds generated during the hair care process, doing the nail filing. For example, if a lady wants her nail to be filed and all that, those little filings, sometimes you don't have protective equipment. What happens when the person inhales that? When you're talking about makeup, the quantity of makeup that somebody has to go through before finding the perfect look during the practice also. So there are these different things when you look at it and say like, hey, okay, you've applied the wrong product on your skin, what are the repercussions that are to happen, let's say, a week later, 2 weeks later? You've inhaled the wrong product. What's going to happen to your lungs? What's going to happen to your health? So we've had cases of people actually that we've noticed like their health is really degrading over time because of the work they are doing in this industry. And when we look properly at it, we saw like, hey, the problem is the waste. The cosmetic materials are not that healthy as we think. Yes, the world is now shifting to a more organic approach and all that, but even the 100% organic doesn't guarantee us like, hey, listen, these people are going to be safe health-wise. And the effects still that a person might experience on their skin is not guaranteed. It varies from one product to another. Nivea might work for you, but it doesn't work for me. So there are also those little aspects. So that's why we've really focused on that and say, hey, listen, let's look at the waste, let's look at how we can really innovate this space, but by focusing on those key problems. Because we know if we can solve the waste problem, we can actually solve a lot of health issues. That are generated due to the waste materials produced in the beauty industry.

You know, I was totally expecting it to be something just purely on recycling or being green or something of this nature. I was not thinking about the health situations with this, Freddy. Matter of fact, I grew up every week going with my mother and my Italian nanny grandmother to the beauty salon. So any of my shortcomings, I'm just going to blame onto whatever I inhaled at the beauty salons here in America. You know, but I think that's probably eye-opening to a lot of people, Freddie. I'll have some more questions pertaining to that. Let me jump over to you, Kostadin. You know, it's one of those things, you know, you had expressed how you were the first to market, right? And I'm sure when you went to investors for the first time, you know, were they excited about being a brand new industry in a country like Bulgaria, or were they trepidatious about this? Why should I put money in? Nobody's put money in it. It must not be a good industry. What was the initial feedback you got, Kostadin, on this?

That's a great question, actually. The pet sitting market in America and in Western Europe is more than 15 years of age. Like, it's an already established business model. And yeah, as you said, in Eastern Europe, that business model is not that popular. And we were the first one in Bulgaria. So when I started pitching in different events in Bulgaria, people loved it. We even became the best startup in Bulgaria for 2024. But when it comes to venture capital and investors, they told me that most likely it's not that deep tech scalable business which can become a unicorn. So I told them, well, it might not become $2 billion, but it's still a problem-solving software and technology which really has traction already. We have more than €100,000 in traction for the last year. So as a startup, I can say that we are doing quite well. So that's why we are still bootstrapping. Our goal for 2026, of course, is to scale our business in Hungary. So that's why we are currently starting our crowdfunding campaign.

Well, although you may not be a unicorn yet, if somebody needs someone to walk their pet unicorn, I know they can probably go on BuddyGuard and find that appropriate person, which reminds me, you brought You brought up in, in the last set of questions this whole idea where it appears you have kind of like an Uber model or a Lyft model where, you know, where somebody can go on there, I need some extra work, I'm a college student, I'm somebody have some part-time employment opportunity, and I myself could be a pet sitter and dog walker through your platform. Did I hear that correctly, Constantine?

Yeah, that's absolutely correct. Everyone can apply to become a pet sitter in the platform. The good thing is that we don't allow everyone to become one. They have a motivational letter. After that, we provide an interview, which is fully automated so that we can check, we can— so that we can make the background checks of every person. Because the most important thing is for the pet owners to be safe by using the, the service. And of course, we have more than 1,000 pet sitter applications, but only 15% of them are actually becoming part of the company. So we are making everything possible so that we can have really high standards.

Now, I believe you mentioned that this wasn't your original plan. You know, you didn't necessarily— this is kind of like a secondary product offering, a secondary market that just appeared. How did you realize that this was something that you should have focused in on and made happen versus it being a potential distraction from your core offering?

Yep, so everything started perfect with 5 employees which were on full-time basis working for BuddyGuard, but in regards to scalability, that was not the best option because people were already feeling tired. Because at first everyone's super happy by making full-time dog walks during the day, but at some point people feel tired they're not that motivated. So that's why I thought to myself, well, why don't I give this opportunity to 1,000 people and to give them the opportunity to work 2 or 3 times per hour but to make enough income so that they can make their lives better than just having 5 employees and telling them, yeah, you can grow in your career path, but making it definitely less expandable than it is right now. So the main, the main goal was to bring Bodyguard throughout Bulgaria because before that it was only in Sofia.

It's amazing, you know, and I think that that's one of the things that when people actually listen to the customers, you know, I can generally tell within about 5 minutes whether a startup is going to be successful by how well they know their customer. You listen to your customer, realize that the demand was so that if you didn't expand in a way like you did, you'd probably reach a critical mass fairly quickly and not be able to get beyond that. So I appreciate your foresight. Let me jump back to you, Freddy. You know, you had mentioned in the previous segment, Freddy, you're using something like augmented reality. You have some sort of technology involved in your brand. Now, I would not think of anything like this being utilized in the beauty industry in terms of the waste industry. Walk me through what you got going on in that department. It sounds interesting, my friend. Can it make me look— someone wears glasses, look at me, do I look more attractive? Because if you're coming out with that product, I got plenty of people that are into this. All right, go ahead.

Okay, so basically is, let's say for example, the first step we are going in for is a simulation of makeup tutorials, of a makeup practice, a makeup artist that needs to go and learn the makeup at school. And they have to buy these different products generally to test the product on themselves, how it's going to be applied. So we are working on the technology that's going to help her do the training digitally, but still while practicing as if it was on a real person. So it's an AR tool that's related on a mobile device and with your camera. And there is a lot, a lot, a lot of technology behind it because there is sensors, there's movement detections, and a lot of little technical aspect, but basically you are able to practice for a makeup as if you are in a real class in real time and really gain the experience. So you get different looks and then from that look, we guide you like, hey, listen, first do this, first do this step, first do this step, first do that step. And we are actually working with beauty makeup artists to help us while we are doing the machine learning process. Because there are so many, as I said earlier, like the quantity of products they go through during the training process is alarming. So we said like, okay, let's digitalize this training. But what we've seen so far on the market, because when we got into the market, some advisors told us, hey, you have brands that are already trying to do that. But when we've looked at what they're doing and what we are doing, it's day and night. Trust me, it's totally day and night. They are still painting things on the phone, trying to draw this, draw this line. You still have the filters. Also, it's not you using a filter or whatever. It's, for example, let's say I had a pen. I don't know why don't I have a pen with me here today. It would have been nice to show with a pen. But basically, I'm going to be drawing a line on my face without applying anything on my face, but on the camera, I can see it being reflected. That's what we are going into. So leveraging augmented reality to facilitate the training of, especially to first the makeup artists digitally. After that, we are going to take it into the commercial world to have people actually try it at malls or wherever they are before they shop for any cosmetic product. Detecting like, hey, my skin type. Yeah, go on.

Okay, so, well, you said something in there that you've been talking to actual makeup artists here. So when you say that, does that mean that you were asking them for feedback and figuring out what is actually something that's like real life? Like, what was the role that the makeup artist played in your product development?

Their role basically is the— how can I say— the training process. When putting makeup on a face, there are different steps. As we come from Italy, technical background and all that. So they are coming with that beauty experience to tell us, hey, if you are going to do some kind of machine learning, you want the camera to do this and the software to do that, these are the basic steps you need to follow for any type of makeup in general. Yes, there are certain rules that are going to vary, but we need their feedback and their experience to know what we need to plug into the software, because it's them actually that are going to be running the first experiments, trying it themselves, and helping us correct their product. So already what they've seen so far, they like the approach we have. So the next stage of the testing will be them then trying the tools in real life because it's a hardware tool also. It's not just a software, it's software and hardware tool. So it's— that sounds like it's really kind of really, really technical. So you need a hardware to interact with the interface.

Basically, are the makeup artists going to come across this in their schooling? Like, you know, here in America, you go to a place like Pivot Point, Academy or Mario Cicocci School to learn how to be a cosmetologist, cosmetician, in order to work in cosmetology. You have to get a license. Is the same thing play a role in Cape Town and Cameroon and some of the markets that you're in where perhaps you're going to go to these schools in order to utilize this platform for training? Or where do people go and use this?

Actually, that's— you just actually pinpointed what's our goal. Actually, the thing is we want to get into cosmetic schools. For people, for students to start practicing with it. Our goal is cosmetic schools, and then let's say, as I said, the beauty shops, the beauty stores you already have. But our really main focus is like we want to get it to students who are in cosmetic schools and want to learn, are learning how to do makeup, because it's to them that are going to add— it's going to add more value, and it's also going to help the institution in the long run to save all the products that they're surely giving out to students for them in order to practice. So that's really our key point.

That's amazing. And I think, I think that when people actually— so many people out there are developing platforms and technology, whether it be AI or something new, a new classroom experience, but they've never talked to a teacher, or they're building something and they've never talked to somebody that worked in that trade. They're just taking their technical knowledge and building something after chatting with ChatGPT about it. You actually listened to people in the industry, got feedback, and changed your product. And I got to applaud that. I think that's a huge, important thing. Not everyone does that. Kostadin, let me jump over to you. You know, you kind of have this interesting background, right? I saw you work for Crypto.com, I believe, in customer experience and all this. You know, again, you could have done anything. You faced the problem yourself. You seem to have launched this. You've scaled. You've kind of pivoted into this new product category of also having people service, be the actual providers of dog walking and sitting. There had to have been some challenges along the way where you're just like, you know, this is not going to work. This is not going to play out like I thought it was going to. What was your biggest challenge do you think you faced through this process of starting off, Constantine?

Yeah. So I think that every founder has his moment when he thinks about the whole startup journey. Does it actually, is it actually for him? Is the product good enough? And we have, we have a couple of situations like that. And last year during the summer, we thought that we will have our first investment so that we can scale and reach our like dream goals. But in fact, the investment didn't come up. So we thought, uh, we thought ourselves with our, with my co-founder, well, the one of the options is to quit and start our normal jobs as it was 3 years ago. And the other option is to start working, uh, as pet sitters ourselves so that we can gain as much income as we can so that we can, uh, later on reinvest everything so that we can actually pay for the whole platform and for the whole, uh, thing which we needed the investment for. So that's what we did. We reached our goals by working really hard 24/7. And eventually, I'm really happy about doing this because, uh, currently we don't have any investors. And when I go to investors right now, I have the confidence because the company is not diluted. We didn't have our pre-seed stage investment, so We're 100% with our equity. That's what I meant. So yeah, last year we had some issues, but eventually, if you believe enough in what you're doing and you can work, you'll make it up.

So you're saying that you actually went through set goals met and exceeded your goals to change the dynamic of where you're at with your investor narrative. Is that what I'm hearing correctly on this, Kostadin?

Yes, because most of the startup founders think that if they don't have an initial investment, their startup won't start working at all. That's a really wrong thinking, and that's what I'm trying to do here in Bulgaria, to show people that venture capital is not the only option in regards to investments. There are angel investors, there are also credit, business credits. So, um, if you ask me, you should first really start working on, on the business. Uh, do we do it also by yourself? Then ask friends and family, of course, uh, to reinvest for 1 year, for 2 years. After that, you have an initial investment but the company will be in a definitely different stage than what it is right now. So if you believe enough in what you're doing, then take the risk. And I'm sure that you'll thank yourself 2 years later.

You know, I've never, I've never heard anyone say it just like that. Right. You know, it appears you've had this aha moment where you're like, listen, there's so many other people that are going for investment, whether it be in the region and the sector. You know, what is going to make me stand out compare to those investors, right? Even though I'm, you know, new to a market, got something that's obviously beneficial and helpful to the customer base. What was the one thing that made you decide to— was it some sort of rejection from an investor or something like this that made you decide to just really double down and make sure that you were the most investable company you could be?

There was actually one one conversation which really triggered me. I was talking with the investor, I told him our goals, that in the next 5 years we want to be all around Europe and yada yada yada. And he told me, no, that's a family business, you can't scale, you can't have more than 50 pet sitters. And I'm like, why, man? Uh, the problem is really huge. Like, more than 50% of the households in Europe has at least one pet in Bulgaria it's even more than 60%. And he was like, well, uh, prove me wrong, uh, we'll talk one year later. And, uh, actually he wants to invest in this right now, so I proved him wrong.

I love it, I love it. That's so amazing. And for all of you listening, you know, that's very, very solid advice. And for those of you listening also, if you have questions, get them into the chat. And I'll make sure that I ask him here in the next 10 minutes. I'll ask some questions that I've seen from the audience come in. Let me jump over to you, Freddy. You know, here you got a company coming out of Cameroon. For those who don't know, that's a Francophone country. I believe that French is the native language. Plus you have other languages that you speak in Africa. Then you decide to go into our Switzerland program and they've got like 4 different languages they speak there. Now you're down in South Africa. So for me, I know one of the biggest challenges I would have is you're dealing with all these different cultures, all these different languages, all these different levels of ego, right? What have been some of the challenges that you faced along the way, Freddy, especially ones that you may not have thought you would have faced?

I would say the biggest challenge we face— what can I say? The setback. As I said earlier, we have done a lot of R&D and market research, and that's thanks to We had pre-seed investments. We managed to raise pre-seed investment for our startup. So the pre-seed investment, the investors were clear with us like, hey, listen, we know you guys are going to do a lot of research and development and try to understand better the market. So the challenge actually came after that, managing the team. You have a software developer in Europe, you have your marketing person in Congo, you have the salespeople rep here with you in South Africa. So you have the team a little bit all over the place. And for us, it was kind of new in this remote, in the remote setup to be able for us to achieve the goals. So we constantly had to realign ourselves with the organizational goals and the mission we're trying to achieve. And it's tough to manage, to manage a team when you're running a startup because they come with so much expectation and they thought like within 2 or 3 years we'll be raising, I don't know, this super seed round funding and the seed round doesn't come and you need to keep your team motivated so that they can keep working on the goals. And I think for me that's the hardest part actually of being a startup founder, keeping your team motivated well enough and tell them like, hey, we are all going to take a pay cut, everybody's going to have to manage with this amount of money for now. For us to keep growing. And that's hard for some people to accept because you might have this senior software developer coming from this big tech company, he already has this big salary and he's like, okay, will I have to bring down my salary just because I want to work with you? And that's the moment where you need to push your vision and mission you have of the business forward. If the person is going to work with you when even the startup is at the hardest point, it's because you have a great vision. He sees that you believe in something that's bigger than yourself. And I think for me, that was the hard, the difficult part because I can self-motivate myself because I know what I got into this for. But now, how do you motivate the rest of the team with you when they don't see you hitting those big milestones, not being published, having the articles like, hey, Ikamu just raised this 5 million. No. How do you keep the business alive at that point? So for me, that was, I think, the biggest learning curve I had in the past few years.

You know, I think that it's interesting. I've worked with hundreds of different FI programs, thousands of founders each year. And, you know, one of the things I like to ask people is, you know, Freddie, when you're in the FI program, like I know before I got involved in Silicon Valley landscape, you know, I thought I knew everything. I come from politics, you know, I owned a public relations firm. I thought I knew everything. Then I get involved in the global venture landscape and realized I knew nothing. I thought that when I, when I always used to see AMA listed on Founder Institute events, I'm like, why is the American Medical Association so involved with Founders? I didn't realize it was an Ask Me Anything, right? There's all these acronyms and everything. What, what is, what is something that you learned in the Founder Institute program that you just didn't know at all existed in the kind of startup ecosystem, or something that you needed to know, but you didn't even know that you did?

I would say the critical, what is it? Critical Assumption Testing. That's one thing that changed my life at Found Institute. Critical Assumption Testing, CAT. The first time I was introduced to it, I know people are more familiar with the Lean Startup model and all that, but for me, Critical Assumption Testing was perfect because it allows you to quickly verify your assumptions and validate whether an idea is going to be viable or not. So it shortens the time you have to— you take in the main assumptions you have, you want to know about, I want to verify and validate by the customer. And that's also the second point about Founder Institute: talk to your customers as much as possible. Because before I joined Founder Institute, I thought like, okay, I'm just going to develop this big product and put it on the market. But the emphasis they put on customer-centric. You have to be customer-centric. You need to talk to your customer constantly, have conversations with them. Those are the— I feel like those are the two things that really impacted me a lot at Founder Institute, talking to my customers and how to quickly test my ideas.

I think that's amazing. I think that the people that are listening right now, there was a mad dash towards Google or Perplexity looking for the definition of what you just described so eloquently. I'm going to ask the same question to you too, Kossoudine. You know, Another one, you know, I come from the world of marketing and I, you know, I was a part of my first event on GTM and I'm like, you know, what is GTM? And here I'm speaking on it, not realizing go-to-market. There's so many acronyms and everything that we just don't talk about in Main Street the same way. You know, you obviously come from, you know, a bit of a technology background, but then you have this, you know, this diverse background of experiences. There's got to be some things that right when you got into Founder Institute, it's like, dang, I did not know about this at all. What was one of those things for you?

The most important thing, of course, as you said, the acronyms are really, really important. I didn't know most of them, but I'm, I'm always trying to be a really good brand ambassador of Founder Institute because it helped me manage, to manage my, the whole company which I'm currently doing business with. And the most important thing which I learned is to really receive and acknowledge feedback. Because before that, I thought, I told myself that I'm the person who, who knows everything in regards to pet sitting and creating a marketplace here in Bulgaria. But when it comes to receiving feedback from people all around the world, and then you tell yourself that you, you're the person who actually has to ask every person for feedback to check out your website, check out your mobile app, and provide positive or negative feedback. Because if you don't receive feedback and if you don't acknowledge it, then you won't grow. So this is the main, this is the main point for me from the Founder Institute program. And of course, the networking, this helped me a lot, and it's helping me on a daily basis.

You know, you bring up getting feedback oftentimes, and, you know, I know one of the challenges for a lot of founders is they're they're getting opinions from all over the place, right? Different mentors, different backgrounds, you know, people from different countries may not know the same things. What's a bit of advice that you got that you're thankful that you didn't take? What's the name?

Uh, it's a copycat business. People are doing it, uh, in different parts of the world. You don't have to do it. There are enough businesses like yours.

Wow. So that would have shut you down, right? Like, if you would have got that advice and taking it, something that was happening in another part of the world, they were trying to tell you should be the reason why you shouldn't do it in your area. How did you know not to listen to that?

Well, um, I actually— it was, uh, part of, um, part of the Founder Institute program when you have the investor reviews. And, uh, that person, he's an investor in Bulgaria, and he gave me a one from five, and which meant that I'll be dropping off from the system if it weren't the fives from the other two people. And he told me, well, you're not capable of scaling the company. It's a copycat business. There's nothing specific. And we really have our unique selling points, of course, as every company has them. But he told me, like, for, through your pitching, I don't understand anything. 'Uh, thank you so much, that's one from me.' And I was like, 'Well, uh, okay, that's your opinion, of course.' And I'm seeing that person on a monthly basis during different pitching events here in Bulgaria, and he's always asking me, 'Hey, what's going on?' And I'm like, 'Thankfully, if I, uh, if I listen to your feedback, I was, uh, going nowhere.' But, uh, luckily I have different people who I'm receiving positive feedback and I'm growing month by month. So thank you so much for that.

That's amazing. I love doing that. You know, I'm going to ask you the same question, Freddy, right there. You know, you've gotten tons of advice all over the planet, right? You know, you've literally learned in all these different programs. And I'm sure, Freddy, people— a lot of people are coming to me like, listen, you know, you're going into beauty, you've got AR, VR type stuff, you got all these different things. You know, what is that bit of advice that you are so you did not listen to from somebody?

Don't go for this idea. And that was at a very early stage when I got to Founder Institute. I think a couple of reviews during my first pitches, they told me like, there was no purpose of doing this kind of platform because remember that time we're still trying to connect people online, like, hey, listen, find your hair care, your hairstylist and all that, and they were telling like, hey, listen, um, you should not go into that market, it's not going to make any money, it's easy copyable and all that. And me, my mind, I was like, that's the first step actually. I'm seeing further than this. I want to go into that market and really dig, dig, dig, dig more problems and try to solve them. So I almost switched from that to another idea I had at the time, at that time, but I said no, you know what, this, I should stick to this because there's this other, um, mentor who said like he feels something natural and I should stick with my idea. So I said, okay, the other feedback I received, that was perhaps misleading. Let me just stay focused, push through it, and things are going to work out. I do, I am very thankful I did not take the advice and change my idea completely or go into a different sector. I would have not found my unique selling point and unique angle I'm able to focus on today within the beauty space.

You know, I saw that there's a question that came in from the audience, so Sandy will put it up on the screen. This one came from Anna Ruth from Germany. And the question was, you know, of course, like, how did you enter the market? And if you want to touch on that again, but the second part of this question, you know, I want to know how you react when you got rejection. Right. What is the mindset when you face rejection? You know, that's the main thing I want to know, right? Rejection is a tough thing. I often say to people, we can spend all of our time celebrating our victories, but it's how we react to our failures and rejection that define us. Right. So, Freddy, what is— what is your way of handling rejection? How did you persevere from that?

A bad day is only 24 hours. That's what I tell myself. A bad day is only 24 hours. Especially, I remember when we're still doing our pre-seed fundraising, I received a lot, a lot of nos, promises from investors that did not come true, but I kept pushing through because I said to myself, hey, that investor was not the right person. If it was the right person, he would have invested. I will find my match. Because you have to keep that in mind, you have to stay positive. So whatever happened today that did not go your way, you take the positive lessons from the day. Hey, perhaps the way I was pitching to this one, I said this, let me adjust this next time when I'm pitching to the next investor. So you just have to keep taking the lessons from the rejection. Don't take all, because sometimes people are going to pour their emotions when they're giving you feedback. Don't listen to the emotional aspect of the feedback. Try to focus on the key points you feel yourself are hitting are hitting home and you take it into the following day. How can I say? You cannot fail. You cannot fail when you are building a startup. You can only learn. You either learn or you earn because those are the two things that I think my fellow founders will say the same thing. We either learn or we earn. We cannot fail. You need to have that mindset like anything that happened today that did not go my way, it was a learning experience. It was a learning experience. And if I did not earn today, I learned a bad day is only 24 hours. So that's how I approach that situation for rejection.

Honestly, you do it with such a smile. Like, I'm going to try to take this advice myself. You know, sometimes it's just that simple, right? Let me ask you, Kossadin, the same question here. You know, we know how you entered the market, but, you know, when it comes down to being rejected, you know, whether that be by potential colleagues, rejected by competitors, rejected by investors, what is your way to handle rejection? Rejection when it happens?

Uh, the, the only moment when it hurts me is when I'm rejected by customers, by pet owners, because they think that the business, uh, is not safe enough, um, because they can't, uh, they can't give the keys to a person who they don't know, or they don't think that he's, uh, trained enough, he doesn't have the background checks and, and all of these things. And the most important thing for me is to have that person have at least one walk and at least one time use the pet sitting service so that he knows that the, the whole platform and the training and the background checks is fully secured, and that we won't let one pet sitter blow up our business, which is already 4 years old, and that's pet sitter won't take his TV. Because we, we had a lot of comments like, uh, I want that— I won't let that person in my, in my home, he will take my TV. I'm like, he's not even thinking about his dog, he's thinking about his TV. So, uh, this is the main thing which I'm trying to, um, let's say, uh, resolve right here in Bulgaria. Because, uh, people are not aware of such marketplace platforms as ours, and this is the main rejection which I'm trying to resolve right now.

Um, so yeah, you know, it's interesting, you know, you have insurance, you only take 15% of the people in, you know, you make sure that they experience the platform. Like, literally, you are doing more than some babysitting services are for humans. How do you know when to listen to that customer that's criticizing? You know, for me, if I was hearing feedback like that, I would probably go on an endless, you know, I'm going to double the insurance amount, I'm going to personally show up to everything, I'm going to make people wear body cameras. I would over— I'd be overwhelming in the wrong direction. How do you know when to listen versus just take it in and, and, and move on without changing your business model?

Uh, well, I'm, I'm doing a lot of customer feedbacks, and if this person is one of, uh, 100 or 200, then I don't— I know that I can't, I can't be perfect. I can't take 100% of the market. So if I have 98 or 99% of the market, that's okay with me. If that person don't— if that person doesn't want his problem solved, then the only, um, the only, uh, creature which has a problem with it is the pets, because it's staying only with the pet owner and doesn't have a reliable sitter for him.

Well, the moment that you can start getting reviews from the actual pets to paws up, whatever the situation is, now we're cooking with fire. Um, you know, let me ask this, Freddy. Let me jump over to you. You know, obviously you've been in this kind of startup space for a while. You've faced rejections. You've come up with this best mantra of The day is only 24 hours. If you could go back and give yourself advice, right when you first started coming up with this idea, even before Founder Institute as a program, what would that advice be to yourself as a young founder now that you've learned so much?

You know, I often think about that question. I'm like, unfortunately, we can't take the experience we have today and dive back. Into the past and try to change with the experience we have. The one thing I would say I would do different would be change my recruitment strategy. I would change my recruitment strategy and build my team in a different way. That's one thing I would do different today because I feel the rate at which we— the team grew was a little bit too fast. I will adjust that. That's one thing I feel like went a little bit too fast for us. And I'll go back at that stage and really make sure that it's only 2 or 3 people working on the idea and growing the idea. So that's one thing definitely I'll change. When you are starting out, when you are still at the idea stage, I feel like you just need one person that's good at sales and marketing. You need the tech guy who is going to develop the product and whatever. And you need an operations guy that's going to keep the things moving forward, keeps the business ticking. Make sure that every task we have to do are getting done. So I think like a startup team needs to be very small. You don't need to— the sales must be done by the founders themselves. You don't need sales rep at the beginning. The technology must be developed by the founders. You don't need to outsource this. So that's one thing I'll change. I'll change my core team, uh, just keep it very small and focus on the, on the small team rather than having 8, 10 people at the beginning.

And Fred, let me ask this, you know, I mean, you've been phenomenal. You've given great, great answers here. Very, very motivated person. What is the thing that inspires you every morning when you wake up to keep with your journey, to keep looking forward and accomplishing things? Is there a central point of inspiration that you still currently have?

I would say I want to make a difference. You know, I want to make a difference. I want to make an impact. I want to solve a problem that really means something to people. For me, I think, you know, I say in the morning, like, when I feel down, it's like, this cause is bigger than myself. I did not get into this because I wanted to do it just for me. No, I got into it because this— I want to fight for bigger things than me. I want to fight for great causes, and I want to add something to the world. I don't want to leave this place as I came into it. So So that's my drive, actually, just trying to do my best to also just bring my own, I'll say, my own two cents to the technological growth we've seen over the last 50 or 100 years. So I just want to be a part of that and leave my imprint also in a certain way.

Thank you so much. I think it's amazing, Freddy. I really appreciate all your answers today. I mean, you're fantastic. I'm looking forward to following your journey here. And I believe Freddy's going to stay after for a few minutes. For those of you that want to meet him, ask him some questions directly. I noticed that there are some people asking in the chat who here is an FI grad, who's thinking about enrolling. The best possible people you can talk to, we've got two grads here. Feel free to talk to them after. Let me jump over to you for that last pack of questions too, Kossadin. You know, you've had people tell you that you shouldn't do this because somebody else is doing it across the planet or they're doing it on Mars. You've had people come at you and say, hey, listen, I don't feel safe enough. You don't, you don't have enough insurance, even you've done that and done everything, but yet that doesn't stop you. If you could go back and give yourself advice as younger Constantine starting off here, what would you, what would that advice be? What would you perhaps do differently?

Well, I actually think that if I didn't, if I didn't make the the wrong decisions when I was a little bit younger, then I wouldn't be here. So I don't regret anything which I did in my life right now. The only thing which I'm asking myself every morning is, do I want to work and work for the dream of another person, or I want to have my own dream come true? So that's the main thing which is motivating me every single day. So Yeah.

You know, I think that's, uh, very good. You know, if, if that, if that's what motivates you, that you want to actually pursue that dream of, of kind of running your own thing, being your own boss, and kind of having control of the impact that you make in the world, I think that's fantastic. What is it that you wake up and actually fuels that motivation for you today? I mean, like I mentioned earlier, you know, I think motivation is one of those things that, that pushes you along. But, you know, if that pushing element disappears, some people lose motivation, whereas inspiration is something that kind of pulls you, creates self-motivation. What is it that inspires you every day to wake up and continue this journey, Kossadin?

Well, I think that every single person has a really huge potential, and if you're not self-inspiring yourself by trying to learn different skills on a daily basis, try to do a different sport, for example, or try to meet different people, then you're not living the, the life at its fullest. So, uh, this is the main thing which I'm trying to also give advice to my friends and family, to try different, uh, to develop different skills, meet different people, because the world is so beautiful. And if you're thinking only about your problems, then you're wasting your life.

That's amazing. You know, where can people find more about your brand? And if they want to talk to you, how do they get in touch with you?

Go to the best option is, of course, LinkedIn. I think our colleagues from the Founder Institute pasted my direct link for LinkedIn so everyone can connect with me, ask me questions. I'll be really happy to connect with you guys and help you out.

Same thing, Freddy. If people want to get in touch with you and learn more about your inspirational journey, but then also what it's like to really hone in and get specific like you have on your product, where do they get in touch with you and find out more about your brand?

LinkedIn, LinkedIn, get in touch. Let's talk, let's exchange. As I said, like I'm somebody who likes to bounce ideas with people. It makes me better. I believe it makes also your idea better. So let's get in touch, talk about it, you know, and I find goals that align themselves. So I'm always up for it.

I love that. Thank you so much for joining us. And for all of you that listened, again, all three of us are going to join some tables afterwards for a little bit if you want to ask us questions. You know, I've been involved in pretty much every part of the world for Founder Institute as well as many other type accelerators. Happy to answer all of those. And, you know, Founder Institute has an amazing assessment that we call our FI DNA, Entrepreneur DNA. This has been something that over 200,000 founders have taken. And frankly, this has been the one assessment— I've done them all ever since I was a kid. I've done every type of assessment, leadership assessment, everything. It was the Entrepreneur DNA that actually called me out on my shortcomings better than anything else. And I think that's important. So for all of you that haven't taken the Entrepreneur DNA, we trust this test, but it'll also help you understand yourself, where you're at in the journey and where your strengths are, and more importantly, where there are some gaps. And also, Founder Institute has a myriad of events around the world that are free of charge for any of you to attend. But it all starts with this next little bit. Joining us at our networking tables, I want to thank everybody for being here tonight. And if you want to take the FIDNA test, the link has just been put in the chat for this. I encourage you to do this. Again, this is Chris Foltz, Global Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Founder Institute. I want to thank both Kossadine and Freddie and Sanni in our production suite here tonight for being together and sharing their stories. I look forward to chatting with all of you after in our breakout rooms. Thank you and have a great rest of the day.