mission & team

Emilyan Enev is the chairman of the Startup Factory Association, the initiator of the organization and its main driving force.

He is one of the founders of the Bulgarian Startup Association (BESCO) and winner of numerous awards. Managing partner at the high-tech company Recheck.

His strengths are in business process management, online marketing, content creation, idea validation, customer acquisition and monetization strategies.

Martin Panayotov has been in the IT industry since 1997 with a primary focus in web development and online marketing.

He heads a successful social network targeting the US and UK.

He is currently the manager of the online marketing agency Weberest. Creator of the platform Realistimo – a portal for real estate listings

Vihren Ganev is a software engineer and startup IT entrepreneur. He strives to help knowledge-hungry people of all ages develop and succeed by teaching programming courses and guiding them to develop their personal projects.

Vihren is making efforts to present the Startup Factory as a preferred meeting and working place for the city’s IT people. Creator of the platfrom Realistimo – a portal for real estate listings.

Kaloyan Tsvetkov has been working for the last two decades at one of the best e-commerce companies – Upshot Commerce (now part of Mi9Retail), developing the next generation of top-class online sales platforms.

Kaloyan is a lecturer, sponsor and organizer of many seminars and events in Ruse dedicated to information technologies and entrepreneurship. He organized the first meetings of the IT community in Ruse, where ideas such as the formation of an association or a shared workplace in the city were discussed.

Kaloyan is one of the founders of Startup Factory and has participated in many of the association’s projects and ideas.

Ivaylo Sholekov is an entrepreneur in the field of web-based applications. He manages several native apps and others for third parties. After certain “failures” in offline entrepreneurship he is currently focused on web development.

He likes quality tools and a job well done. He likes people who don’t use expressions like “I can’t” and “this can’t be done”.

Ivaylo develops a site for free lessons in Bulgarian w3schools.bg

Teodora Eneva is part of the Startup Factory management team since mid-2018. She has initiated and organized dozens of trainings and events for adults and students from the city of Ruse and the country. Manages and coordinates the projects of the organization  and is responsible for communications and digital campaigns.

Her interests are in the field of education and the modernization of training methods in Bulgaria.

Ana Todorova is responsible for the digital marketing of the organization. She maintains the website of Startup Factory as well as the platform with video courses and useful educational resourses that she had created. She writes content on a variety of topics such as decentralized technology, green and circular economy, emotional intelligence, leadership and more.

Ana makes interviews with interesting and motivating people from our community. She creates the visual content for the site and social networks, as well as all the printing and advertising materials. With her active role, the organization has a built-in marketing strategy for social networks and community development. Startup Factory owes its fresh online presence to her skills and inexhaustible ideas.

Author profile ✎

Radostina Hristova graduated with a bachelor’s degree in “Computer Systems and Technologies” from the Technical University – Varna and a master’s degree in “Electronic Business and Electronic Management” from Sofia University.

She is professionally developing applications for Android devices for more than 6 years.

She took part in programming and entrepreneurship competitions as a participant, mentor and jury.

Suzan Feimova is a senior teacher of informatics and information technologies at the “Baba Tonka” Mathematical High School – Ruse, a lecturer in informatics.

She has a master’s degree in mathematics and informatics with many years of teaching experience. Leads extracurricular activities for additional training of students in informatics and information technologies.

She trains young IT talents and supports the development and realization of their ideas.

Boyan Petkov is a professional graphic designer with over 15 years of experience. He  is a PhD in ergonomics and industrial design, has research interests in music visualization and the search for synergy between the physical and digital worlds. He has specialized design in Austria, Italy and Greece.

He likes teamwork and participates in innovative startup business projects applying modern technologies in information design. He also freelances on multidisciplinary projects, mobile app development, web design, product design, packaging design, logo design, graphic design.

Petya Boneva has been engaged in design and digital painting since 2007. She completed her Phd degree in design at “Angel Kanchev” University of Ruse.

With over eight years of experience in the gaming industry and active involvement as a streamer and designer/illustrator in international projects since summer 2018, her work has been exhibited in major cities around the world including New York, Hollywood, Miami, Liverpool, Barcelona, ​​Berlin, Bali and others. Latest works of Petya Boneva. See all about her here.