From Boston Consulting Group to Creating Bulgaria’s First Kids’ Subscription Service
and updates from former guests - the ICL community
Hello from Eric in Bucharest, Romania.
In this issue: updates from the ICL community, Infinity Toy Box founder Boryana Levterova, exclusive offer from Frase.io and more!
Updates from the ICL Community
🙂 Alin Rosca and Repsmate, the unique platform that enables quality automation in sales and support departments, have expanded into new verticals including banking and telecommunications. Clients include Regina Maria and eMag. 📈
🖥️ Irina Paraschiv and the Acertivo team, the therapy platform that lets you take charge of your mental fitness, have given their platform a UI/UX facelift by simplifying the onboarding and content in the platform.
🏠 Raluca Jianu and the Epic Visits team, one-of--a-kind adventures in Romania, are experiencing a 50% increase in booking requests compared to same time last year 🎉
🇺🇸 Mantas Vaskela and the Aispeco team, innovative mapping technology, have launched an airplane type product and are also expanding into the US market. 👍
Innovators Can Laugh
I chatted with Boryana Levterova, co-founder of Infinity Toy Box. Infinity Toy Box is the first subscription service for kids in Bulgaria where you can rent games, toys, and books. Prior to launching her startup, Boryana was working as a consultant for the Boston Consulting Group in Chicago. We dive into how she came up with Infinity Toy Box during maternity leave, what challenges they’ve faced because of Covid, and some of her life experiences. Catch the interview here.
Time Stamps:
0:35 – Eric tries to speak Bulgarian 🇧🇬
1:25 – which city did you like best / work to live or live to work? 🗽
4:16 – what kind of projects did you work on at BCG?
6:25 – do you have any embarrassing moments when working with a client?
8:08 – when did you get the idea for Infinity Toy Box?
10:25 – what did your day look like juggling kids and starting Infinity Toy Box?
12:00 – maternity leave benefits in Europe vs USA and daycare discussion
14:20 – before you started Infinity Toy Box, what is something you wished you had known before?
15:23 – are there any tools or accelerators that have been essential for your growth?
17:13 – what’s one of the biggest obstacles you’ve had to overcome?
17:58 – does corn belong on pizza? 🍕
18:48 – what is something interesting that people don’t know about you?
Popular TikTok Video
This clip with Iva Gumnishka from Humans in the Loop is the most recent popular ICL video on TikTok. Catch the podcast interview here.
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The End
I had a great week as I attended a French+Romanian Startup event at the French Embassy, get some leg work in with my son at the track near Herestrau, attend a birthday party (kids’ of course because that’s what you do almost every weekend when you’re a parent), and make a delicious meatloaf that my kids love while drinking some pinot noir. Another great week!
Let’s go kick some butt. Have a great weekend.
🤠 Eric Melchor
P.S. If you have any updates around your startup (milestones, new products/market entries, etc.) that you’d like to share, send them my way so we can feature them in the ICL community part of the newsletter.