Young parents Silvena Hristova and Krasimir Lambov struggled to get adequate and up-to-date information about having a child with Down syndrome. To encourage and support other families, they started video blogging and created a dedicated YouTube channel called “Life with Down syndrome”, creating funny and informative video clips, recorded together with their son Chris and daughter Mikaela, who has Down syndrome. Their first video called “My sister has Down syndrome, but that doesn’t bother me!” reached over 200 thousand views in the first week. It was then that they applied to participate in Promyanata, a Bulgarian acceleration program of the international foundation Reach for Change. Promyanata aims to help social entrepreneurs find sustainable business models.
“At that time we had the concept, but we didn’t know how to implement it. We contacted specialists who helped us develop it,” says Hristova. “Life with Down syndrome” has grown over time into a real community with 66,000 subscribers on YouTube and more than 11 million views (anyone trying to promote a startup probably realizes how important this is). And the family supports the project with advertising, but also by selling products.
Krasimir Lambov, Chris, Silvena Hristova and Mikaela © “Life with Down syndrome”
This is just one of the many stories of teams, companies and initiatives that Promyanata has thought of since it started in Bulgaria in 2014. In fact, 20 companies took part in the 1-5 year incubation programme, and 70 went through a two-month acceleration. For us as a team, as for many people in Bulgaria, social entrepreneurship sounds like NGOs. So when we heard about these projects that have actually managed to increase their audience and find financial sustainability despite being causes, we decided to tell you these stories. Moreover, Life with Down Syndrome, Loveguide, Margaritka and Vratsa Software Society have impacted at least 200,000 people so far.
Sex education and 37,000 community members
One of the first projects that entered Promyanata is Guide to loveThe sex education platform encourages young people to have a responsible and informed attitude towards themselves and their partners. It was started by Nikoleta Pokostadinova and Nadya Zdravkova in 2015 with the vision of creating a safe space for conversations about sex and helping teens learn about their bodies without painful discussions. Today through its Youtube Channel Every week they reach over 37,000 girls and boys with a new video. The team is currently developing an educational package for schools and creating an app that would allow them to monetise the service. The initiative is also supported by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, SureCheck, the Vivacom Foundation and others.
Nadya Zdravkova and Nikoleta Pokostadinova © Loveguide
“Social entrepreneurship is not like the corporate world. Here everyone shares knowledge and helps each other. But we learned how to measure our results and what the criteria are for such projects,” says Nadya Zdravkova, educational trainer at Loveguide.
Developing a region through IT education
Vratsa Software EnglishCommunity was the dream of two people to train developers in Vratsa, a town in the poorest region of Bulgaria. Five years after starting, Emiliyan Kadiyski and Teodor Kostadinov managed to attract three IT companies and one digital marketing company to Vratsa. They joined Promyanata in 2014. When they were selected for the programme, they had already put into action their idea of training young people and helping them to get a challenging and well-paid job in their hometown. The two developers wanted to create an IT centre and build an IT community, offering free programming courses to provide education to young people or adults who are unemployed. Completion of the programme was linked with the option of starting an internship and later joining Kadyisky and Kostadinov’s own company.
Emiliyan Kadiyski, Iliyan Dimov and Teodor Kostadinov © Vratsa Software
“Promyanata helped us to quickly accelerate our development process. What they did in one year would have taken us three or four years,” Emiliyan Kadiyski, co-founder of Vratsa Software Community, expresses his gratitude. In 2016, Vratsa Software Community was the only Bulgarian project to win the Google Rise Awards, which helped the company finance another school year. In total, 26 developers who completed the courses found work at Vratsa, and the community began to grow.
Bulgarian Sesame Street
One of the youngest projects that entered the incubator in 2018 is the educational content platform for young children Daisy flowerFounded by Yana Lipovanska and Bulgarian pop singer Victoria Terziyska, the platform focuses on creating high-quality original music and video content for the Bulgarian market and the team breathes new life into favourite children’s songs, through a contemporary arrangement and performed by popular Bulgarian singers. Today, Margaritka has over 70,000 subscribers and over 30 million views on its YouTube channel and aims to become the Bulgarian Sesame Street.
Victoria Terziyska and Yana Lipovanska © Margaritka
Probably the greatest proof of the demand for Daisy flowerThe result of Margaritka is that in the first month 4,000 CD copies were sold and in the first year 10,000. “Joining Promyanata gave us a new perspective on where we were currently in the development of the project and what to do next. We discovered new tools that later helped us to better structure and prioritize our tasks. It’s just a great network where we all tackle different social innovation problems but can also find solutions to problems that all NGOs share,” Yana Lipovanska, co-founder of Margaritka, told us.
VC’s perspective and the numbers
Numbers, measurements and KPIs are just as important in social efforts as they are in deeptech startups. Interestingly, the Reach for Change foundation was founded by entrepreneurs and investors: Scandinavian venture capital group Kinnevik Group and Sara Damber. Kinnevik Group primarily invests in digital consumer brands and has invested in companies such as digital bank Monese and online fashion platform Zalando. Damber founded the Friends Foundation, which is currently the largest organization in Scandinavia and the only international research center fighting bullying. This rather unusual partnership yielded quite solid results. Established in 2010, it has helped entrepreneurs in 18 countries across Europe, Africa and Asia.
For the sixth consecutive year, Reach for Change, in association with Nova Broadcasting Group, organizes the social entrepreneurship event Promise in Bulgaria. Applications are open until 18 July. Up to 15 participants will be selected for an acceleration programme and in February, the top five participants will win a place in the incubator for a period of one to five years. One winner will receive a prize of €15,000 to further develop their company. In addition, all will receive access to an international network of social entrepreneurs and mentors.
“I would encourage people to apply for the program regardless of the maturity level of the project,” advises Loveguide’s Zdravkova, who signed up with only one idea in mind at the time.
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