Story.Me - Success, failure, and the drive to keep creating

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated

Written by Scott Green, edited by Andrea Vushkova, photo by Synergy Bulgaria


As the great Maya Angelou once said “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”

Are you ready to be inspired? Ready to feel the desire to tackle any challenge! Yes? Well, Story.Me is back again this year with another evening of storytelling. This time we talk about how failure is not the end, it is merely the process of succeeding. Synergy Bulgaria, Open Bulgaria, and Networking Premium team up to present you with three inspirational members of Bulgarian society who will be talking about how failure and setbacks are part of the path to success, how to roll with and overcome these obstacles, and be determined to succeed.

  • Date: 18 November at 19:00
  • Venue: Networking Premium
  • Maximum attendees: 40 -Green Certificate holders only-
  • Entrance fee: 5 BGN 
  • Registration link: Click here
  • Event link: Click here

The entrance fee guarantees you a seat, and a chance to meet and connect with amazing people from Sofia’s international and business community, people who can inspire you and help your entrepreneurial dreams come true. Also, the first drink is a gift from us to you.


The following entrepreneurs are in a unique position to see how Bulgaria and its capital Sofia have evolved through these initiatives and endeavors. They will share their stories on what went wrong in their journeys: bad decisions, poor hires, financial miscalculations, and more. They will also talk about what they learned from their mistakes and how they managed to overcome the problems and emerge on the other side, wiser and more experienced.

Yassar Markos
The first speaker is Yassar Markos, he is an entrepreneur and coach who has worked with more than 14,000 people from over 100 countries. In 2019 he organized ‘Big Bang’, the biggest conference in Eastern Europe on entrepreneurship and personal development with over 2,500 participants.
   Yet, his story is not that simple: he’s witnessed some great business success as well as major soul-crushing failures. He believes "Commitment is the biggest manifestation of freedom. If you can't commit, you will never be free."

Ani Androva
Our second speaker is Ani Androva who believes that “if there is a dream, there is a way” Her career highlights involve developing fidget.bg into the biggest and most widely recognized online toystore in Bulgaria, and securing a partnership with Te-Trade; a leading construction and investment company, who entrusted the property development sales to Ani’s company Sell4Scale, ultimately putting Spa Tours Bulgaria on the health & wellness industry map. Ani is all about innovation, creating value, and building wealth; she also says that becoming a Salespreneur is one of the best things she’s done in her life. Ani notes that it has been a turbulent journey during which she faced challenges related to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as strategic missteps, disappointing partnerships, and a lack of diversification of profit among other things. However, Ani always managed to turn every obstacle into an opportunity to better herself and gain new skills to lead her to further success.

Video of our previous event in June "Story.Me - Make an impact: Growing together with Sofia"

We hope you are ready for an inspiring evening of learning how to bring your own uniqueness into the world, of challenging the status quo and connecting with people and organizations to have a greater impact on society. We look forward to meeting you all on 18 November at Networking Premium for a night of honesty and a reminder to not beat yourself up about past mistakes, but to use them as a springboard for reaching greater heights. Together we can all learn, grow, and develop into something great.


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