On January 19, the Entrepreneurship and Startup Council with the BCCI, in partnership with Business Lady Club – Female Entrepreneurship organized a round table on the academic training of girls in Bulgaria starting their own business.
Successful business ladies from Bulgaria with a personal mission to share experiences and urge more and more members of the “fair” sex to take risks and develop their own business in our country invited representatives of leading educational institutions to debate the topic of conditions and environment that higher education, the state, and family create for the entrepreneurs in high heels.
“Each generation sets its own time said Mrs. Yanka Takeva - a unionist and a teacher, who opened the discussion,” and today, our students are much more pragmatic than before. Generations X, Y, Z have an interesting aura; they just focus on making money.” She emphasized the importance of pupils, students, and trainees meeting with representatives of successful businesses in person. “Because there are young people who, if not for personal example, quickly despair and set their sights on moving abroad.” Still, she announced that here has been trend reversal and, according to statistics, about 60% of our graduates now envision their future development in Bulgaria. She stressed that entrepreneurship is taught in vocational schools from 1st to 12th grade and pointed out, “Students are ready for entrepreneurship,”to which Ms. Gena Sabeva, co-chair of the Council, replied, “Maybe more ready than after graduating from university.”.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Radostin Vazov, Vice-Rector of VUZF University, responded to the provocation and passionately defended the adequacy and effectiveness of education offered by VUZF University, “Our goal is for our students to graduate with working companies. Their final-year project dissertations are in fact their business projects.” As a confirmation of his words, he pointed out that some 80% of graduates register companies after leaving the university, and four years later, about 20% of these companies are still in the market, which is a good indicator to anyone who familiar with the topic. “And our teachers are mentors, not just teachers,”he added.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kostadin Kolarov, Head of the Department of Entrepreneurship at the Faculty of Business at UNWE talked about interesting cases in which academia was involved in assisting in the retraining of long-term unemployed women from Pernik and Radomir, as a result of which nearly one-third of them have started their own business, and the rest have increased their competitiveness on the labor market. Kolarov also shared an interesting observation, which everyone around the table agreed with, namely that a woman is looking for a business that she likes, while a man for one that will bring him more money. “Yes, women do business with empathy,” said Victoria Karaabova,co-chair of the council and moderator of the meeting.
“Men are also genetically more prone to risk-taking than women, but this can be overcome with proper socialization,” said Dr. Maria Vasilska, Assistant Professor at the Department of Entrepreneurship at the Faculty of Business at UNWE. “In addition, boys are taught to try and the girls to be perfect.”.
But entrepreneurs are not divided into women and men, according to Antoaneta Popova, serial entrepreneur and owner of Petroleum, but rather into successful and unsuccessful. “As early as the second conversation with a client, partner, or investor, no one is any longer interested in whether you are a man or a woman.”As one of the main obstacles to the sustainability of young companies she singled out the lack of financial literacy and added, “I think that women do not do business because they lack confidence and horizon… To have a businesswoman as a wife, you need to have great respect for her and provide her with free time. Also, not everyone is suited to be an entrepreneur.” She said that she considered the connection between business and universities as not strong enough, but she pointed out that businesses are looking for employees, not entrepreneurs. As another significant mistake in doing business, she pointed out tolerating people who set the team back.
One of the most titled specialists in the field of advertising and communications in our country - Prof. Hristo Kaftandjiev, who currently teaches "Marketing Communications" at universities in Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Russia, Portugal: "There is a growing feminization of this specialty around the world. Even more and more often, ladies are at the head of creative departments, which until recently was considered an exception.
The discussion was concluded by marketing expert Radoslav Blagoev whom readers know from his books Catch the Joker, Business over the Red Line, You Lead. Your Business And Success Are a Projection of Your Thinking, Levels UP: Turning Ideas into Business and Dreams into Reality. He presented his new board business game You Lead, giving everyone between the ages of 12 and 112 the opportunity to learn by playing. Mr. Blagoev pointed out with a smile that despite the dice that can be seen on the board, there is little luck and more strategy in a business. „Предприемачеството е настройка на ума - he said. “I have consulted businesses at various stages, only refusing to perform an autopsy on businesses, especially if I have warned their owners in time. I have also consulted people who were about to start a business and the truth is that many of them, after talking, gave up. Because making money and entrepreneurship are not the same thing, but sometimes it is hard to understand. From the same spot on the shore of the same lake, one fisherman can catch a lot of fish, and another one – none, and the credit will go to the fisherman, not the lake. As a rule, a good trader is also a good person. In my next book, I want to talk about limited businesses and the fact that a large part of the businesses fail exactly at managing growth, which they find themselves unprepared for.”
In the audience in Hall A of Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in addition to students, guests and interested citizens, were the mentors of the Entrepreneurship and Startup Council hybrid program, starting on January 28. During the networking, in an informal setting, over a glass of well-chilled white wine, they were available to answers guests’ questions and provide clarifications about the program designed for women of all ages who want to start their own business or build on their experience and develop a contact network; as well as for those in middle and senior management who are in the role of entrepreneurs in their organization.