START LOCALLY, THINK GLOBALLY

10 reasons you should START NOW

ABOUT CHRISGrowth engineer @ Imagga

board member @ StartUP Foundation

blogger, Apple fan

chris@startup.bgwww.chrisgeorgiev.com

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Startup Weekend SofiaNo talk, all action!

May 15 - 18, 2015

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WHY BULGARIA? #startupbg

#1

thriving startup community

StartUP Conference with over 1000 of attendance

over 200 startups funded by 6 local VCs

betahaus | sofia - full to the brim

Silicon Drinkabouts every week

Emerging Startup Ecosystem

#2

LAUNCHub & 11 - EUR 20M for acceleration & seed

Sofia is 3rd by # of accelerated companies (not seed and later stage)

attracting tech talent from neighboring countries - Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia

Access to Financing

#3 #3rd worldwide in number of certified IT professionals per capita

#1 in EU in number of certified IT professionals

#2 in EU and #5 worldwide among the most attractive outsourcing destinations

60% of Startup Weekend participants are developers

Abundance of Tech Talent

#4 7th in the world on number of gold medals (22) won at International Informatics Olympiad (Germany - 14) 3rd in the World in

well experienced software engineers and project managers, working in multinationals

vibrant dev community with lots of events and support groups

Geeks Love it Here

#5 24.6% of the population hold university degree

35 000 students with IT related degree a year

50% of the universities in BG offer computer related programs

Telerik Academy & Soft University - tailored dev education

Education First

#6 HP GDS - 4100 employees

IBM - 530

SAP - 650

Skrill (MoneyBookers) - 400

VMware - 500

Telerik - 700

Amazon, Nemetschek, Johnson Controls, Software AG, Experian

Big Names are Here, Too

#7 Product Hunt - partly developed in Sofia

SoundCloud - did have dev office in Sofia, now in Berlin

Uber - over 40 developers so far

BG examples - Telerik, Chaos Group (V-ray), Flipps, Imperia Online, SX Software, Imagga

Trendy Startups, YEAH

#8 Legal Framework harmonized with EU legislation

Lowest corporate rates in EU:

- 10% flat rate on taxable profit

- lowest social security payments in EU

- accountants can do miracles!!!

Legal Framework & Taxes

#9 2 hours flight to Berlin, Prague, Vienna

Fast and cheep Internet -broadband download speed - ~34Mbit/s

Lowest office rent in EU

Low cost of living - Restaurant and taxi prices the lowest in EU

Well Connected and Affordable

#10 Culture close to the principals and values of Western Europe

Almost the same time zone - 1 hour difference Germany, 2 - London

Willingness to work overtime - most companies rarely pay overtime Work from home/freelancing is widely accepted

Cultural & Time Adjustments

#11 45.5% of the population speaks at least one foreign language

English, German - most popular

Over 25 different languages spoken

Unique specialized language schools

We speak languages

THINK GLOBALLYEU is not big enough!

Bulgaria is not big enough for most of the startup ideas

There’s bigger world with much more opportunities

Need to know the world to serve it - travel, learn languages

Different work skills are required - sales, presentation skills, etc.

Think BIG, your big is not big enough, trust me

Do it NOW!

Concur the World

@chrisgeorgievwww.imagga.comchris@startup.bg

Questions?