Presentation for the Elevate Accelerator of the American University in Bulgaria.

1. Vladimir Rusev
Personal Story + Goto Market

2. 1. Great Ecosystem
2. Easy Financing
3. Great Mentors
PASSION is not Enough.
GRIT and PERSISTENCE is the key.
AND - Ability to SELL!
Note: Track Peter Diamandis and Abundance
Digital. Look for what new tech is coming out.
Best time to start something!

3. Covid Effect - Growth Industries
• Gaming
• Delivery
• E-commerce
• Health-tech
• Fintech
• Education
• All verticals are being disrupted and digitalisation is
proceeding at a huge pace.
• Traditionally conservative sectors are opening up to
digitalisation.

4. The world’s biggest problems are the biggest business
opportunities

5. Goto Market Fundamentals
1. My STORY
2. My WHY
3. MyHealthBuddy MVP
4. Inbound/Outbound and the Marketing Funnel
5. Value Proposition
6. Product Specification
7. Pricing Framework
8. Prospecting
9. Sales Stages

6. My STORY
1. WizCom/Sciant - the non-technical co-foudner
a. Belief 1 - I can learn anything.
b. Moto 1: Don’t prepare, just show up!
2. CableTEL, EONTOYS
a. Belief 2 - Always say YES and figure it out.
b. Moto 2: My Success is limited to my
Personal Development.
3. Personal story with Health + Covid 19
a. Once you find your passion (ikegai) you
will not have to work a day in your life
Note: Track Mindvalley - for 500 USD per year all the personal development
needs. Optimize.me - for 10 USD per month - book summaries of best
personal development books out there.

7. Wizcom / Sciant
• Started in AUBG 1997. Changed
multiple roles, started as QA then
took Accounting / Finance, finally
took all Non-tech.
• Keep on learning while on the job
(ACCA) - Finance & Accounting.
Learned HR and IT. Hired people
and trained them.
• Grew company to 150 employees
in 10 years and sold to VMWare
• Customer Development – Referrals, Cold Emails. Slow Organic
growth.

8. Wizcom’s game
TRANS
• Spent significant R&D time
and effort to develop
• Mixed genres – strategy with
shooter – market did not
understand
• Customer and Bus Dev – Events, Publishers, OEM producers of
hardware. Now much easier – app stores.
• Did not start with MVP but waited for game to be “perfect”. Lost a
lot of money, traction and focus.
Note: Launch fast and test the market. Customer focus. Pivot.

9. Connecto.ai - Sold to Leanplum
• Found right co-founders and started
something in a hype industry to learn
Business Development and Sales
• Found investors to share the risk
• Hired a great team and figured it out on
the go.
• Found clients to work on consulting
projects to understand what the market
needs, then build the product.
• Customer Development – constant meetings – Mindshare. Banks,
Telcos, FMCGs, Viber. Book as many meetings as possible.
• Find a partner (Viber) and use him as a channel.

10. • Leanplum – Learn SaaS Sales and share with other entrepreneurs. Top
AE in EMEA >1M in Sales for 2020.
• Responsible for DACH, CEE and MENA.
• Customer Development – well oiled machine - Marketing, SDR, SE

11. My WHY
1. Wizcom/Connecto & Leanplum: Bulgaria has
great tech talent; no sales.
a. VCs - Who is your sales-guy?
2. In every challenge there is opportunity.
a. Learn to be a great salesman
b. Teach startups how to do sales
3. Personal Story with Health + Covid 19
a. Learn how to sell health-tech and find
partners - WildFit, VitaRama, BB team
b. Creating a chatbot for awareness and
lead gen for health-tech
Note: Check out Vlady’s Sales Books&Resources,
Sales Gravy University - all your sales training in one place - 1000 USD/year
You can learn more about riding a bike by doing it than reading.

12. MyHealthBuddy MVP 1
1. Does audience exist?
2. Does Audience want to
use this channel for
content and education ?
3. Can we drive audience to
purchase?
4. How can it be monetised?
Build lightweight. Enlist
partners.
Test hypothesis.

13. MyHealthBuddy MVP 2
1. What categories is the
audience interested in ?
2. Habits?
3. Movement?
4. Who are my partners for the
different categories?
5. Who will create the content?

14. 1. Look for
prospects who
are in the intent
and evaluation
phase
Long Term
1. Share knowledge
and articles on
LinkedIn
2. Build a website
with white-paper
and info to get
contacts
3. Do webinars
The Marketing Funnel
Connecto Chatbots: Look for fastest time to market. Education slow.

15. Inbound vs Outbound
● Focus on driving thought
leadership and providing value
to the marketplace
● Inbound is far more successful
in conversions than outbound
● Do not scale Outbound team
before Inbound engine is
working!

16. The Value proposition
1. Increasing Revenue (Marketing, Sales) - easy
2. Optimizing Cost (HR, IT, Support) - difficult
3. Decreasing Risk - very difficult
Learnings from Leanplum:
1. Never talk about features! Talk about business benefits.
Note: all the world is looking to digitize and go to virtual.
How are you digitizing your industry?

17. Product Specification
1. Find partners.
2. Do a consulting project first
3. Quick MVP (Duck-tape)
a. test market demand
b. test potential pricing
SIMPLIFY, LEAN APPROACH
Connecto: One-off projects, learn what the market wants.
Leanplum: Start A/B Testing, pivot to Mobile
Engagement.

18. Pricing Framework
1. Simple pricing, easy to understand
2. Check out the competition
Experiment, pivot multiple times.
Connecto: First projects - pricing per day.
Leanplum: Monthly Active Users. Minimum engagement fee.

19. Prospecting
1. Referrals are key.
2. Direct Mail & LinkedIn - PERSONALISE!
3. Viber and WhatsApp are acceptable after
LinkedIn connect.
4. Have Templates by persona and vertical.
5. Covid Effect - everything is online/video
Nobody owes you a meeting, you have to earn
it by sharing success stories or valuable info.
Leanplum: Time blocking - prospecting in the
mornings. Separate Hunting from Farming.

20. Sales Stages
1. Qualification
2. Discovery
3. Evaluation
4. Proposal
5. Negotiation
6. Signature
Note: split team into different roles. Sales Development,
Account Management, Negotiation & Deal Closing
Leanplum: Qualification call - 30 min, Use Cases call - 30 min. Demo
90 min. No onsite. Leverage videoconferencing.