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I understand that you might be more focused on developing your career and considering how others perceive your success and growth. That’s natural — the world we live in often equates validation with progress. But I’d like to take a moment to share a bit of my journey with you.
For me, life has been more about following my inner guidance rather than worrying about others’ opinions. It’s really about finding happiness in your own choices and letting go of the “what ifs.” Remember to trust your own instincts and chase what feels right for you. Your inner compass is what truly matters.
You may ask, Who is this guy with a weird Russian name who is telling me how to live my life? Hah, I’m not Russian at all, but actually Bulgarian — a country above Greece.
I have always been kind of the oddball, different from others in the sense of always looking for more, exploring the world to find my own unique meaning of life, trying different types of careers and jobs in search of myself, and somehow seeking acceptance from the people around me.
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You have the power to define what matters most.
Ever since an early age, I felt misunderstood for my actions and felt the pressure of other people trying to box me in and put restrictions on me. I did not know it back then, but everything could have been eased up by communication — and overcommunication — about your goals, thoughts and planned actions. I’ve lived and achieved some things important to others, and I am here to share the biggest idea of all: you have the power to define what matters most.
I had a normal life in a small town in Bulgaria, next to the Romanian border. I was 14–15 when I watched The Beach, and I was amazed by the natural beauty of this world. When I found out that this movie was set in Thailand, I decided I would go there someday. And it happened — really soon after.
My next-door neighbor went to Bangkok in a boarding house with a scholarship set up by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and the then-called Regent’s School. I was set on leaving — quitting my then life, leaving my parents — for my then-called idea of freedom and adventure. So, I took the proper math and English exams and applied to go there, with the support of my parents, of course.
I was 16, leaving my comfortable but boring, repetitive life for a Thai adventure. I am telling you this to show you that I’m not all talk — but that I act on my ideas and dreams.
I immersed myself in everything Thai — international students, and the open-mindedness of the whole Thai experience. It was one of the best decisions in my life. I urge everyone to think about sending your kid, if they want, to a boarding house on the other side of the world.
Fast-forward: I moved to the UK to study Economics at the University of Hull, graduated, and did a three-month internship at the European Parliament. And that’s where my entrepreneurship urges started. There, the spark started — being kind of struck by the slow pace of democratic decisions at the European Parliament.
Do not get me wrong; I am all for democracy, and there is nothing better.
However, I needed to be in a more fast-paced environment — at the start of business processes. To push a project into the light, so to speak. I got an idea for a phone application, and based on my scared mindset at 22 years old, I decided to learn programming to understand my potential co-founder’s tasks and to have an overview of the software development process.
It was kind of daunting for me, as I thought it was a smart person’s career — but with perseverance, everything can be achieved. Fast-forward a bit of time, around a year and a half, and I graduated from an intense software engineering program in Bulgaria — Telerik Academy. I jumped at the opportunity to start working as a .NET application developer for the Microsoft platform.
Do you recall when an attempt was made to develop an alternative to iOS and Android? Well, it didn’t quite take off. Honestly, it’s not my cup of tea either. The environment didn’t feel right. Project managers tend to focus on overseeing every aspect of their work while showing little concern for the development team’s well-being. Their main goal seems to be pushing for more output and the rapid release of new projects and features.
And even though managers and colleagues at the company told me I was making the biggest mistake in my life by leaving the company, internally I knew I would be all right.
Externally, from everyone’s perception of your trajectory, career choices and everything that entails, it looked like I was walking away from success. But I was not happy with staying the course. I did not want to be in the place of the senior developers at the company a few years into the future.
So, did I make the biggest career mistake in my life? I do not think so. It does not feel like a mistake or a failure on my end.
After my software engineering period, I jumped into the then-biggest startup community in Bulgaria — Start It Smart and their pre-accelerator program — with the app idea and a developer co-founder. There, I learned everything about the go-to-market strategy for a startup, pitching, looking for investors and all aspects of business and product development. It was energizing. But that is not where the “success” started coming to life. It was another “failure” — in the eyes of everyone and, at the time, even myself.
Whilst I was in the aftermath of it all, I kept the name of the startup and all the websites and decided to create an array of car apps for all brands, just for the fun of it. I think I spent a month overall on all of them, added ads and pushed them to both the Android and iOS Stores. And I left them. Little did I know — a couple of months later, I’d have more than one million downloads of all the apps combined, achieving my first taste of “passive income.”
I had a new idea after the car apps. And that was learning e-commerce and white-label product creation. I started selling products on Amazon US with my own branding. The first signs of winning, whilst still being involved with marketing for the startup organization Start It Smart. From zero to six figures from Fulfilled by Amazon. A nonlinear path to “success,” but a personally fulfilling one.
There is still more to my story — of trial and error, traveling and living in multiple countries, exploring and finding myself, chasing my idea of success, happiness and freedom. But that is not why I am writing this for you. I am showing you, through my story and past actions, that there is more to life than the outside — even the social perception of success and all the known career paths.
Related: How to Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable as an Entrepreneur
Be different
The moral of the story: your intuition and your heart know better than the overanalysis and overcomplication of the “best scenarios” your brain comes up with. Go and be different. Be yourself. As tired and cheesy as it sounds, it is the truth. Take that leap of faith and learn from it. You will be better for it.
Consider this a letter to my 22-year-old self — a call to be even bolder, to go for it without hesitation.
I believe in you. Live life through trial and error — or like the scientific process: set a goal, try and test it, learn from it, optimize your actions and plan for the next iteration. It never ends, but that is what life is — to experience it all and learn, whilst enjoying every single moment, from the struggles and pains to the happiest you will be after those leaps of faith into the unknown.
Be yourself. We do not need more copies or people following a blueprint of the “best life” of somebody else. You know what you want. Go chase that idea, be the change, be different and trust that you’re not alone.
I am the same. I am here with you. And there are many of us around the world — entrepreneurs working in silos, caring not about external accolades, but about understanding life and chasing the grand ideas we want to see in the world.