People of Zigi with Yanko

My background

I started my professional path with economics and finances. I graduated high school with business focus. Then I got a bachelors degree in business administration at the university. I decided to specialize in brand management and marketing and continued my masters degree with Saatchi & Saatchi Bulgaria.

However, after getting some experience, it turned out the marketing reality in Bulgaria was not satisfying for me at that time. I decided to switch to more technical job opportunities. I started working as a support engineer, and soon enough I became a senior support specialist.

A bit later I started a new job at Tek Experts where I worked as Microsoft Azure support. I gathered more and more tech knowledge, communication skills, and experience in working with enterprise clients. Gradually, I started doing more managerial stuff like onboarding and training new members of the team. I learned some skills that are priceless, and are helping me in my current role, too.

My role at ZigiWave

My current role at ZigiWave is technical presales consultant. It is a combination of sales, marketing and tech. So I do a lot of stuff like conducting demos, PoCs sitting down with the clients and integrating their systems together with ZigiOps, assisting some clients with our iPaaS version. I also help the marketing team by preparing demo videos, additional video content recordings and voice over. I work closely with the sales team, too.

I am constantly improving my skills, and I think this is great. For example, sales and communicating with different people. As we know technical people are usually not well known for that. I am happy I can develop this part of myself, that I did not have the chance to work on in the last years, before joining ZigiWave.

In short, my role is Marketing, Sales and Tech combined. It is a triangle where you can easily get lost if you dont manage your time and work processes right.

You need to be tech literate and at the same time open minded with people and able to easily communicate. Make the communication nice and pleasant. Its no big deal, we are not rocket scientists, we are not surgeons, but we are people who build processes. In summary we are communicators, good skillful communicators.

The Zigi team

Im the only technical presales consultant in Zigi at the moment, but we are actively looking for at least one more person to join me. So in near future I will most probably be onboarding new people, too. There is lots of work, lots of demos and interest in our platform, and I would be happy to have a hand.

I see our work in ZigiWave as a football team. Each player has their own role in this team, but to become better at what we do, to be able to combine our strategies, to be resilient and fast at the play field, and all other things that are needed for a team to be good we need to come and practice every day. And this is what we do we practice. Our everyday work is to come and practice so that we can become better.

My advice to someone just starting at Zigi

Make your work look beautiful. I mean, leave worries behind, be yourself, dont let challenges pull you back. Be open, test different solutions no matter if it is for purely technical stuff or processes and communication. You need to be eager to make things happen. You should not let changes and challenges stop you. Just take the action you know you need to take, and everything will come together.

To summarize: Just be yourself and chill out.

What is the most important lesson I learned from my job in ZigiWave?

There are many lessons Ive learned in Zigi.

Maybe the most important one is: Stay true to yourself. Be absolutely honest to yourself, dont take everything to heart and make your work beautiful.

This is something I believe in generally in life just live beautifully, thats it.

How I deal with difficulties at work

I learn not to take everything to heart. There will always be insecurity. These things that make you eat a large box of ice cream, or smoke 10 cigarettes and drink 5 glasses of wine in one evening. But if you ask someone for help, the people of Zigi will never let you down.

This is what others from the team have told me when I was starting. Maybe this is because I am like that I take things quite personally and emotionally. All sorts of things happen, but I learn to react in the right way and in the right moment and things just settle down.

As with everything, there are tough times, but like a wise man once said: Tough times dont last. Tough people do.

I love this quote (by Robert Schuller) that my brother reminded me of, in the end of last week, which was very preoccupied. I was under lots of stress, and it really helped me chill out and gave me some fresh energy at the right moment.

... And in my life, in general

In life, I would say there is only one way to deal with difficulties, and it is to smash them.

This happens with persistence, perseverance, and patience.

Remember the metaphor for the football team? This is how life works in general. No matter if it is work, love, sports its the same.

Of course, there are individual lessons, that we need to pay attention to, and they are very well noted. But these are rare, they are for the special moments.

Anyway, it does not matter if it is at work or life in general I use the same model because it is quite efficient.

How do you celebrate success?

First, I always go and do a sport of some kind, so I can be absolutely guilt free.

Then it depends on my mood. I am not a big drinker anymore, but I can celebrate with a glass of wine and a walk.

For the personal holidays and big successes, of course, I celebrate with my family. I also often celebrate with my colleague from ZigiWave Ventsi, who lives close to my place. We usually visit a Holland pub in our neighborhood together and we have a few beers.

But there is always sport. Without sport, its not the same, its not pleasant, its not such a holiday.

Its like with work when you put extra effort in something, then you feel proud of the success and it turns you on. It makes life great!

Recharging and de-stressing

I usually recharge with sports and family time.

After a tough day at work, when Im really exhausted, I would first go to play some sport.

Then I would sit down with a nice ginger lemon cup of tea, turn on my Xbox console and talk to my friends in the game. This is my yoga in a way.

This is the best way for me to de-stress and release the tension, by communicating with other Bulgarians located all over the world.

Of course, there are days that I just want to watch some TV series and fall asleep at 9.30 pm.

It depends on my mood.

My favorite activities

As I mentioned, I like playing games from time to time. But I mainly do this during the week, in the evenings, as I live alone.

In the weekends, I like going to the mountains, snowboarding, windsurfing, travelling I play lots of sports, usually together with my brother. Its like a family fun time for us, as he loves sports, too.

We also like going together to SPA in the countryside. Mineral pools, saunas, steam baths, all these types of stuff.

I like being in wild nature, and our country offers great opportunities for that. Mineral pools, mountains, clean wild air. These things that are nowhere to be found in the cities.

My sources of inspiration

My parents, my brother and nature.

Also artwork. When I say artwork I mean the whole scope it can be music, it can be everything.

My hobbies

My hobby is to be in the wild, in the mountains, in the open air. This makes me relax a lot. This is why I like these types of sports windsurfing, snowboarding as they are fully related to nature. In the water or in the mountains its always great for me.

Besides all sports, I also love beer, wine and food. I like good food a lot. As wise people say food can be a cure and a poison at the same time. So this is what I like best about food it is unique for every person, you need to sense it yourself to know what the best combination for you is.

Books and movies I like

I love movies a lot. I am a big fan of movies. I can name a few directors and producers that are my favorite. For example Stanley Kubrick (he is my number one), Ridley Scott, Akira Kurosawa. These three should be enough for you to get the idea.

I have not read many books lately, but the last one I read is called The price of inequality, by Joseph Stiglitz.

In general I like science literature, Im not attracted by science fiction, or novels. I cant focus on them.

Favorite place in the world

I dont have one.

But I would say Morocco since I lived there as a child. I love Bulgaria, too, but recently Im thinking about Morocco a lot. And more specifically, at the ocean this is the spot to go windsurfing and then get some great food for lunch.

A day in my life

I wake up early in the morning. I have coffee and eat my breakfast.

Then I start work and I carefully plan everything for the week. Especially on Mondays I spend a lot of time planning. I want to be as efficient as possible, and planning is very important, so I can complete everything I have for the week. I try to free some time between all the meetings and demos, to finish my other tasks.

My day always ends with sports. No matter how tired and exhausted I feel after work, I always go play some sport. I just get up and go because I know after that I will feel amazing, and I will be grateful to myself and to the Universe that I did it. I became a better person through sports.

And this is something that we should focus on becoming better people. I think the best way to achieve this is with persistence and devotion.

The things Im looking forward to

Spring and the end of Covid.

Im looking forward to this Spring and Summer, and this whole year, because it is filled with great plans for myself.

In general, Im looking forward to my life.