5-Minutes With: Andrey Bachvarov

5-Minutes With is an interview series where business leaders from Endeavor Bulgaria’s network share their personal experiences, advice, and lessons learned.

Meet Dr. Andrey Bachvarov, a visionary leader with a PhD in Computer Science, specializing in real-world AI applications. As the founder and board member of several companies spanning IT, healthcare, and investment, Andrey has built a growing workforce of 700+ employees across Bulgaria, Germany, and the United States. He’s also an active investor and passionate advocate for STEM education. With his unique blend of technical expertise and business acumen, Andrey is helping shape the future of innovation and entrepreneurship.

You joined our board recently, what made you join Endeavor?

Endeavor is a mini society, which is connected to many other societies. It was a very natural choice for me when I was invited to join this group of enlightened entrepreneurs who help others become even more enlightened entrepreneurs. It was an invitation I could not refuse.

What impact do you hope to have as a board member?

As a board member, I have joined specific committees that reflect what I do internationally – business development and lobbying and connecting academic, political, and business communities. This is something that gives me a robust framework to apply all these skills, learned throughout time. A piece of the impact I hope to have is to position Endeavor Bulgaria as an accelerating force, connecting the above mentioned agendas, in a way which creates a framework to further enable startups to succeed.

You speak a lot about business as a strength of yours, so what do you believe is the most critical factor when scaling a business?

People discuss this a lot. What I feel is relevant to our region is confidence, by which I mean, focusing on your strengths and not what others have already achieved.

A second thing would be to stop reinventing the wheel. A lot of wisdom is already within reach. A big part of what Endeavor is doing is exactly this. Assisting and connecting people with other relevant stakeholders.

The third thing is communication. Building your value proposition and properly communicating it with less words is critical.

If I can summarize, the three most critical factors for scaling a business, in my opinion are – confidence, organization, and communication.

What is the best piece of business advice that you’ve received?

Stop comparing yourself to others. Try and find your inner strength and values.

You mentioned a couple of books that you could recommend. What are those and is there anything else that you may be reading, or watching, or listening to at the moment that you would recommend?

•  Going back to confidence, communication, and organization. For organization, I would recommend The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. A great book, sufficiently functional, so you can take actionable advice out of it.
• The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, which really helps you focus on now and stop lamenting on the past, what you’ve missed, and worrying about the future and what could have happened.
• Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger, which is all about how to formulate your value proposition so that it sticks.
• I would recommend anything by Yuval Noah Harari but especially Homo Deus. It complements Jonah Berger’s Contagious explaining the function and importance of storytelling.

You gave a lot of good advice above, but is there a specific piece of advice you’d give to young entrepreneurs?

Young entrepreneurs have to keep their focus. Which again relates to not comparing yourself to others. Keeping your focus also depends on your belief in yourself which again is confidence. And the third thing is not pivoting every time a perceived authority tells you something different than your initial goal. This doesn’t mean not to pivot at all, but receive advice and apply your own judgement.

As a bonus question, is there anything from the three sessions we had yesterday that you will take away?

Absolutely! From the workshop with Lazar Radkov [about social entrepreneurship] I will take away the commitment to inner values. Because nothing is only business. If you want to connect to people who are richer than you, smarter than you, more successful than you, I believe, the only thing you can do is align with your values.