D2S Workshop: Lyubomir Minchev on Budgeting and Business Planning – Our First Hybrid Workshop

The 3rd workshop of Dare to Scale 2020 took place yesterday at Telelink’s offices & online and was led by Lyubomir Minchev, founder and CEO of Telelink Holdings B.V. Group and founding board member of Endeavor Bulgaria, Hans van Houwelingen (CEO of Urban Impact Ventures and Endeavor Bulgaria Mentor), Jordan Popov (Group CFO at Telelink and Endeavor Bulgaria Mentor) and Rumen Trilev (CFA at Telelink).

In the first of its kind hybrid session, half of the 2020 class participated via Zoom livestream while the others attended the event live with all health and safety precautions in place. Lyubo took a novel and approach on the format of the workshop – together with Hans, Jordan and Rumen, he divided the class into 4 groups – each was assigned a case, especially written for the session and with the participating companies’ businesses in mind. Each group was supported by one of the workshop mentors and was provided with a financial model template for their case. All four teams discussed their important assumptions in order to generate a basic profit & loss statement, balance sheet and cash flow projections. The final goal was to determine the amount of financing the particular case would need and to present a 1-page business plan presentation to the rest of the class.

The innovative format of the workshop challenged the founders and also prompted discussions. Dare to Scalers had the chance to receive straightforward feedback from Lyubo who highlighted the exercise’s goal – to provoke the participants to reflect on their budgets on a regular basis and ask questions – whether they are being reactive vs proactive; if they are the disruptors or the ones being disrupted by the market; where they are now and where want to go. Lyubo shared also that although the current pandemic situation is a business disruptor, it can also be an opportunity for a number of sectors. After the hard work and quite deservingly, the workshop was followed by a cocktail hosted by Lyubo at Telelink’s offices.

The team of Endeavor Bulgaria thanks Lubo, Hans, Jordan and Rumen for the candid and practical session and for sharing so much of their expertise with all participants.

The next Dare to Scale workshop is to be entirely online and will be led by Vladimir Davtchev, founder of BG Menu and Endeavor Entrepreneur.