5-Minutes With: Lyubomir Vanyov
5-Minutes With is an interview series where business leaders from Endeavor Bulgaria’s network share their personal experiences, advice, and lessons learned.
Meet Lyubomir Vanyov, a visionary entrepreneur who revolutionized Bulgaria’s education system with Shkolo.bg, a platform that now connects over a million students, parents, and educators, holding an impressive 75% market share among schools nationwide. Shkolo’s success and impact led to its acquisition by Juniper Education, where Lyubo now spearheads innovation and strategy, bridging education systems in Bulgaria and the UK.
Lyubo and I sat down for a chat on a warm September day during last year’s community retreat. Here are a few things you should know about him: holding a conversation with him is effortless, he has a sunny disposition, and he’s a huge believer in continuous learning. He describes himself as “the calmest person in the room”—a quality he demonstrated throughout our conversation.
Having joined our Regional Scale-Up program in 2022 and Dare2Scale in 2021, my first question for Lyubo was naturally, “What is a surprising fact about Endeavor?”
“That it works.”
A short and sweet answer that absolutely needed a follow-up. Lyubo explained that Endeavor’s network really buys into the value of paying it forward. “There’s no back-thoughts, no hidden agendas—just a community that genuinely wants to help and support each other. Our mission seems too good to be true, so people are surprised to see it in action—and that it works,” he said.
Entrepreneurship is a rollercoaster. What’s your go-to method to stay grounded?
“It really is a rollercoaster, but when you’re down, you have to remember there’s no place to go but up,” he said. And while that may sound like a cliché, he elaborated: “I had a personal tipping point a few years ago that changed something in me. Now I look at tough situations and think, ‘This is hard, but it’s just work.’ I keep pushing, and everything turns out fine.”
This mindset reflects a shift from viewing challenges as problems to seeing them as part of the process.
Interestingly, this ties into one of the retreat’s sessions on entrepreneurial mental health, led by Slavy Stoev. Lyubo shared that he found the concept of “roles” particularly insightful—the idea that you can go into new situations, stay true to your values, but remain flexible enough to navigate them effectively.
What is one myth about entrepreneurship that needs to be debunked?
“That you need special skills,” Lyubo said. “I would say that the most important things for an entrepreneur are desire, commitment, and belief. Because if you don’t believe in what you’re doing, at the end of the day, it won’t happen. Most, if not all, entrepreneurs start because they want to fix a problem.”
Are you currently reading, listening, or watching something that you’d recommend?
Lyubo explains that he’s read a few books recently that overlapped, and that he’d highly recommend.
- Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Dan Gardner and Philip E. Tetlock
- Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke (Fun fact, Annie Duke was a speaker at our Endeavor Staff online events, where she shared tools to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions.)
- Thinking, Fast and Slow – by Daniel Kahneman
“They align because every day, we make hundreds of decisions with limited information,” Lyubo explained. “Superforecasting talks about how it’s fine to go back and change a decision when you receive new information.”
On Thinking in Bets, Lyubo said: “Annie Duke, a former poker player, explains that not all decisions are equal. If a decision isn’t significant and can be reversed easily, don’t spend too much time on it.” He also mentioned Amazon’s “one-way door and two-way door” decision-making framework, which resonates with Duke’s insights.
Finally, Thinking, Fast and Slow helps readers recognize the brain’s weaknesses and prioritize decisions that require deeper thought.
What is one piece of advice you’d give to young entrepreneurs?
“Believe. Even if you fail, that’s a lesson learned, and at the end of the day, that’s a win,” Lyubo said. He noted that the average successful entrepreneur is in their mid-40s and that most have several failed ventures before achieving success.
He shared the story of Wiz, a cybersecurity company that Google reportedly wanted to acquire for $23 billion. Wiz’s founders spent two decades building expertise through previous ventures, including a company they sold to Microsoft. “Each venture gives you valuable knowledge and lessons for the next one,” Lyubo concluded.