Member Since 2018
DevriX
Bulgaria
CEO of DevriX and a Business Advisor providing business, tech, marketing strategy to SMEs, fast-paced startups, and large publishers generating hundreds of millions of monthly views. My background is in tech, starting as a software engineer in the enterprise space. After going through my freelancing period and co-founding a startup, I switched to an agency consulting model, building a highly efficient team of 50 representing an award-winning top 20 WordPress agency worldwide. I've spent over 8,000 hours in training and consulting across organizations like SAP, VMware, Saudi Aramco, Software AG, CERN. As a WordPress contributor, I've presented at dozens of WordCamps across North America and Europe. On a day-to-day, I manage our crew at DevriX, provide advisory and consulting services to fast-paced startups and agencies, and help business communities and universities with strategic know-how.
Being an entrepreneur requires a unique blend of creativity, vision and innovative thinking. To stay ahead in the ever-evolving business landscape, entrepreneurs need constant inspiration and fresh perspectives. Luckily, podcasts have become an invaluable (and readily available) source of knowledge and motivation for ambitious business minds.
As artificial intelligence continues to revolutionize industries across the globe, it is crucial for young professionals entering the workforce to develop skills that will keep them relevant and adaptable in the face of rapid technological advancements. While the integration of AI may raise concerns about job displacement, it also presents abundant opportunities for those equipped with the right skill sets.
In business, you have those who strive for stability and the peace that comes with knowing you have a steady stream of revenue. There are also those who like to push the envelope and create the next big thing, sometimes taking big risks in order to do so. However, no business owner has to fall on one side or the other.
After many years of being a business leader, and after all the lessons learned and experiences had, sometimes there are those lessons that just stick with you throughout your career. These lessons often shape the way you run your business and make decisions on both a day-to-day and long-term basis.
Marketing and branding experts have long touted the power of live video content to build genuine, long-lasting relationships with target audiences. Not only does this help you improve your follower count, but it can also help you boost your brand recognition among new viewers. But to do so, you’ll need to focus on how to make your live videos interesting and engaging.
Email is a core component of many companies' marketing strategies, and its success depends on how effectively you can grow and maintain your subscriber list. The more people who opt in to receive your business's newsletters and marketing messages, the greater the number of potential leads you're reaching every time you send a campaign.
When you're feeling burned out or overwhelmed with the constant struggle to balance work and life, it can often feel like you don’t have any time to dedicate to self-care or getting yourself back on track. However, you don’t necessarily need an hour of meditation or a long workout to get your mind in a better state.
In today's digitally driven world, tech departments are often the ones driving companies forward. It makes sense, then, that organizations would want to prioritize this team's hiring budget and build out a robust department with distinct roles and skill sets.
With the right project management tool, you can save you and your team valuable time and money as well as streamline your workflow and reduce stress. Having all your project information in one place ensures deadlines and details aren’t missed, and you’re better able to keep track of who is working on what and what roadblocks they may be facing.
Sometimes, leaders aren't able to grant an employee's request for a raise, whether it's because there's no budget for it or because the person's performance or skill set doesn’t currently warrant one. In either case, leaders need to focus on tact and kindness when declining the employee's request — a task that may feel awkward or uncomfortable for leaders who have never done it.
Employees are searching for employers who take an interest in their career trajectory and genuinely care about their future with the company. If an employee doesn't believe they're truly valued, they may choose to find an employer who does value them, which is why it's so important for businesses to focus on professional development.
It's often said that “the devil is in the details”—and getting them wrong could mean the difference between a successful and unsuccessful project.
Every growing organization will experience role transitions at some point. Whether a project is changing hands, an employee is moving into a promotion, or you’re hiring someone to take on a new position, you will want the transitions to go smoothly.
As a leader, you likely have a hand in many different sectors of your business, whether it's overseeing employees or directing specific projects. Because of the amount of time you have to devote to so many different activities, you may be losing time jumping from project to project. But there are ways that you can optimize your workflow without risking burnout and still get the same amount of work done—if not more—with time to spare.
In the current hiring market, competition is fierce. With so many options available to job seekers, companies must attempt to out-compete others in their industry in order to attract and hire talent, and this has led to many companies struggling to fill roles—and wondering what they can do to make the top of candidates’ lists.
Overcoming a creative block can seem impossible at times, but with the right strategies, you can unlock more of your potential.
When you're looking to impress potential employers and business peers, it can be difficult to show off your personality on the limited pages of a resume or job application. Thankfully, LinkedIn provides a great opportunity to get more personal with your network.
For many professionals, having the option to work from home has brought significant benefits, like cutting commuting costs or working in a more comfortable setting. However, it can be even easier to lose time at work when sharing that space with responsibilities in the home, whether it’s the laundry sitting in the corner of the room, the kids’ homework or the dog needing to go outside.
Throughout the pandemic, it has been difficult for many professionals to build and maintain new business relationships. Interactions may have been limited to Zoom calls or virtual happy hours, while valuable in-person networking events were placed on the backburner.
A product or a service can really only be effective and helpful to others if customers are able to find that product or service online. Search engine marketing (SEM) helps solve this problem by targeting customers through keywords and drawing them into your website.
In the era of information overload, we're surrounded every day by new ideas, technology and innovation. Finding a niche that hasn't already been dominated may seem impossible for the aspiring entrepreneur. Yet every day someone creates something new to reach a market that hasn't yet been saturated.
The "Great Resignation" has forced many businesses to contend with understaffed teams, demanding customers and discouraged employees. This environment of overwork and reduced morale can naturally have a negative effect on a team’s productivity.
A great employee shows up to work each day ready and willing to do their best work for your business. It's only fair that, as their employer, you support their professional development—especially if these skills will help them grow within your company.
No matter your current role, when work gets to be too stressful or monotonous you may begin to daydream about moving on to bigger and better things—things that you're in charge of. The thought of starting a new chapter of your life where you call all the shots can be thrilling, but the reality of making such a move isn't always what you dreamed of.
The beginning of January is ripe with new possibilities. "New Year's resolution" season is the perfect time for companies to reassess their business vision and set concrete goals for the upcoming year.
As a professional, there are dozens of goals you may have, such as getting a raise, snagging a promotion or simply wanting to be recognized for your hard work. Annual performance reviews are an excellent time to discuss your goals with your manager to make sure you are heading in the right direction with your company.
Accurately gauging the fit of a job candidate can be difficult, and sometimes new hires who seemed great during the interview process don't pan out as expected. In situations like this, a leader must take action to course-correct and figure out the problem before the whole team suffers.
When you want your business to stand out online, it's crucial to have a never-ending supply of new and creative ideas. Sometimes new ideas come naturally, but every business owner or entrepreneur will go through times when the creative juices aren't flowing when they need them to the most.
Employees want to feel valued, included and represented at work. Not only do they want to receive encouragement from supervisors and support from upper management, but they also want to be able to express themselves and their opinions freely with colleagues without fear of retribution.
A strong manager can inspire loyalty and guide their team toward reaching their goals, helping the company reach new heights. Conversely, a manager who is ineffective or difficult to deal with can drive away talented employees, leading to high turnover rates and the subsequent loss of time and capital.
As a leader with a lot of responsibility on your shoulders, you'll likely experience many moments that cause you anxiety or fear. Whether you're battling imposter syndrome or simply taking on too much work, it's easy to feel like you're just treading water.
As your company grows, you might face challenges maintaining the same level of transparency across departments and teams as you had when your company was small. However, doing so is crucial to cultivating a healthy company culture with every employee on the same page.
Many entrepreneurs fail to fill strategic positions in marketing, project coordination and even assistant-level jobs primarily due to not knowing what traits to seek while hiring against a traditional job description.
Content may be king, but to truly have an impact, what you create must be engaging and influential.
One of the biggest challenges for any new entrepreneur is learning their own sales habits and processes. It can take years for a person to really hone their skills and become an excellent salesperson.
No matter how organized and productive you normally are, there will be times when you'll feel overwhelmed with the amount of work you have to do. Feeling like you’re behind on your work can cause additional stress that can affect your output.
Communication is extremely important in the business world, especially when it comes to customers and clients. Without transparent communication, customers might feel disconnected from your brand and like they lack any support from your business.
While many large companies may have the resources to offer funded relaxation retreats or other extensive mental health perks, it can be difficult for small businesses to find ways to offer similar benefits without those same resources.
Scaling a business usually means employees will be taking on new tasks and responsibilities and new rules or processes may be put in place. Depending on how fast the company grows, the employees may become frustrated with all the changes, leading to disengagement and low team morale. If not addressed, this lack of connection with the business and its goals can be the first step to losing those employees.
Cash flow is a crucial element of success whether your business is just starting out or well-established. However, as a business owner, you may find it difficult to move toward positive cash flow while juggling the other management tasks on your plate.
Leaders often fall prey to and mistakenly share myths about sales with their team. Believing these misconceptions can hurt their ability to sell.
Work can be a distracting place. You have questions and requests from your co-workers or boss interrupting your workflow. You have your cellphone to distract you—emails and texts you feel compelled to answer, social media messages you need to respond to and calls you need to pick up. Without a doubt, maintaining focus is a challenge if you're not strategic about how you spend your time.
With the rich educational value podcasts often provide their listeners, it’s no surprise that the business community turns to this popular form of content to improve their skills and strategies. Some entrepreneurs even make major business decisions based on the information they’ve learned and the stories they’ve listened to on podcasts.
Content marketing is one of the most effective methods of gaining exposure for a brand and bringing potential customers into the sales funnel. By integrating strategic distribution, search engine optimization and inbound tactics as part of this approach, most businesses see excellent returns on their investments in content marketing.
Sometimes an employee just doesn’t work out within an organization and needs to be let go. Firing an employee is a task that needs to be handled with delicacy and care, and the process can be intimidating for someone who has never been responsible for terminating an employee before.
Small businesses have several benefits over larger companies, but resources aren’t usually one of them. This limitation can significantly impact the way a small business deals with new hires. While a larger company can dedicate weeks or months to training a new employee under an experienced team, smaller businesses don't always have that luxury. The result is that these smaller enterprises have to be more creative with their onboarding. Below, 13 professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) delve into this topic by answering the following question:
As an entrepreneur, you're likely to face adversity, rejection and low self-confidence at some point in your journey. These are bound to happen over time, and how you deal with them can define the success of you and your business.
Senior leadership has a heavy burden to carry, and you can help relieve that.
With the increasing awareness of the need for diverse workplaces and teams, diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policies have become a pressing issue in the business world. Yet, not every business owner knows where to begin or what to do to ensure their company is hiring for diverse backgrounds and skills.
When your business starts seeing success, it's natural to want to ride the momentum and build upon it. However, it's possible to grow too fast, too soon.
As with other marketing efforts, social media can sometimes be a challenge because it has to balance customer appeal with staying true to its brand promise. But with so many social media platforms, trends and opportunities for innovation, it can be easy to let the brand message get lost along the way. So how does a company keep all of its different social media profiles and content on brand with each and every post? Below, 11 experts from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) examine the following question:
Staying tuned in to the pulse of your industry is key to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Public groups, online forums and the like are among the most valuable resources for gathering and contributing industry information. But if someone is looking for in-depth insight into their business niche, locating the right groups where this discussion occurs is the first step. To help you find them, 12 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) respond to the following question:
As machine learning becomes more prevalent in business, it has the potential to affect a company’s day-to-day interactions with its customers, whether positively or negatively. Many businesses have already invested heavily in machine learning and have found great success. However, new tech can always be intimidating, scary or potentially difficult to implement.
Business advice can come from anywhere, even from those who have never owned a business. But if you’re a new entrepreneur just starting out, you tend to soak up all the information that you can. The most significant problem is there’s no simply way to tell the lousy advice from the good advice. Sometimes experience is the only way to figure out the difference.
When a leader leaves your organization, even on amicable terms, it could prompt a significant upheaval in the department that they were a part of. Depending on how intrinsic they were to that department’s function, their departure may even shift the company's operations.
Every day, new devices pop onto the scene promising change and innovation. For an entrepreneur who's focused on the expansion of their organization, staying up to date with the latest technology that can support personal and business growth is essential. Whether it’s in a simple or a major way, some of these technologies carry with them the power to change how we do business altogether.
Hiring for a senior position at a company usually requires a lot more time and effort than hiring for other positions. In many cases, business owners may have a hard time finding the most effective way to source senior talent for their organization. You don't want to lose out on great talent, but you also need to spot the best talent out of the field of applicants, because making a wrong hire at this level can spell disaster for the organization.
Onboarding a new employee is an exciting time for any business. While you're eager to get your new team member up and running on their tasks, you also need to ensure they understand the company culture and will mesh with your organization for the long term. That's why we asked the members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:
[LONG FORM EMAILED TO KELSEY]
Most of us can look back and remember several less-than-ideal experiences we had as customers. Even more memorable, however, are those times when a company's customer service exceeds our expectations—even delights us. In almost every instance, receiving outstanding service from a business creates a loyal customer for life. Therefore, taking note of and learning from excellent examples of customer service can be an invaluable tool for any entrepreneur or business leader looking for ways to "wow" their own customers.
Programming is highly in demand in today's digital-first world. Try these tools, courses and platforms recommended by business leaders.
Email marketing is still among the most effective ways to target an audience. However, for email marketing to be successful, you need to encourage people to sign up for your email list. This step might seem like a simple task, but recently consumers are extra-protective about their email addresses. Individuals have been flooded with spam and have become a lot more cautious about who they share their information with.
It’s already well-known that entrepreneurs spend a lot of their time working on getting their businesses off the ground and keeping them solvent. It's not uncommon to hear a business owner working 50 or 60 hours a week. Many of us know how 10- and 11-hour workdays feel and the negative impact this amount of work can have on one’s mental and physical health. To address the issue, busy professionals need to find a way to work smarter and gradually reduce the number of hours spent to run the business. That’s why we asked 12 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:
The holiday season is usually a goldmine of opportunities for product-based businesses that deploy specific marketing strategies to make their offering stand out and be relevant for that time of the year. While service-based businesses typically find it more difficult to capitalize on this season’s business opportunities, there are still several creative strategies they can deploy to make holiday marketing work in their favor. To help, we asked 12 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:
Resumes are the first look that business owners get at potential hires. As a result, they must use these resumes as a basis to figure out if that person is worth bringing in for an interview or not. Each business has its own demands for potential employees and therefore looks for specific elements in candidates’ resumes to determine possible fit. How can job seekers optimize their resumes to include these essential elements? To help, we asked we asked 13 successful entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:
Keeping up with your employees on an individual level makes for good leadership. As you hire more and more people to your team, it can be difficult to maintain that one-on-one time with each employee. However, doing so is crucial to ensuring everyone is on the same page and performing their best.
LinkedIn is often thought of as the go-to social network for professionals, but it’s more than just a social media platform. It’s a powerful marketing tool for brands to engage with customers, employees and business partners.
A company blog isn't anything like a personal blog, yet many businesses look to individual bloggers to inform their choices on topics and content. Some strike on their own, coming up with their own ideas and fleshing them out by themselves, but the result can be just as underwhelming.
It's often said you only get one chance to make a first impression, and that holds true for your company website. The visual appearance and written copy on your sign-up and landing pages must be compelling enough to grab a visitor's attention and convince them to take the next step in their relationship with your brand.
Every successful business leader needs to know how to communicate effectively. Both written and verbal communication skills are crucial if you want to build and maintain strong relationships with your employees, customers and partners.
You may measure your effectiveness with several metrics. However, not everyone has the time to dedicate to figuring out their level of daily effectiveness and productivity. As professionals, most of us have to learn how to spot the red flags indicating that we are being ineffective.
If your company has a blog and social media presence, you know how challenging it can be to keep up with the constant demand for new content. Recycling and updating existing content is a great way to put a fresh spin on what you’ve previously published without the hassle of coming up with a brand-new idea.
Small-business owners realize almost immediately how different their businesses are to run than large corporations. For success, a small business needs to adopt its own strategies that work with limited available resources. Entrepreneurs in this position need to make critical decisions about what approaches they'll take to elements of business growth and development.
As an entrepreneur, it’s important to create and implement a branding strategy for your business. This will help you better connect with your customers and share your company’s story/personality with your target audience.
Brand loyalty forms a core concept of marketing in the 21st century. In a paradigm shift, thanks to better interactivity with consumers, brand loyalty is now easier to achieve than ever before. With a medium where the brand can interact directly with clients in the form of social media, all a company has to do is use their social media presence cleverly. Once they leverage their following and provide value to the audience, brand loyalty is sure to follow. To help, we asked 14 successful entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:
Social media is constantly evolving, as are the ways people use it. What was once primarily used for connecting with old friends and family has morphed into a platform for sharing perspectives and launching campaigns.
Being part of a creative team is an exciting job. However, it’s difficult to always be in an innovative, inspired mindset. Often, creatives experience burnout and roadblocks that hinder their performance.
Entrepreneurs have some bad habits, one of which is not knowing when they need a break. With many young entrepreneurs, it's almost impossible to take a step back and relax. Yet studies have shown that entrepreneurs that don't take time out to smell the roses risk serious health problems later on in life.
Every job candidate’s goal is to stand out from the rest. However, it’s not enough to talk about your education and work experiences, which may be very similar to other qualified applicants. Great candidates shine by saying things that are truly unique.
Electronic wearables were an exciting new concept just years ago. Now, they’ve slowly become the norm, with gadgets like smart watches and sleep trackers overwhelming the market.
Employees who work on small teams may need to play multiple roles to ensure everything runs smoothly. With such limited resources, you may not be able to have a dedicated full-time marketing person to help you reach your full potential as a brand. That's why we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council the following question:
Getting any business off the ground requires sufficient capital. However, all the financial stress doesn't have to fall on you as the entrepreneur – there are other ways to secure funding for your startup without assuming 100% of the risk yourself. That's why we asked the members of Young Entrepreneur Council the following question:
An employee referral program is a win-win for you and your team. Referral candidates tend to be well-qualified, since they're pre-vetted by staff members you know and trust, and hiring referrals shows you value your employees' input. To help you build a great referral program, we asked the members of Young Entrepreneur Council the following question:
Working remotely has become the new standard in the COVID-19 era. Companies that followed a traditional in-office model have had to adjust to how they presently work, and soon have to learn how to hire remotely.
Customer service is vital to any organization, and investing in it can make all the difference in attracting and retaining clients. But the true return on those customer service investments -- whether you're hiring and training staff or increasing your support channels -- can be hard to quantify with a single number.
Don't delay the process of getting your culture back on track.
A great digital marketing strategy can drive potential customers to your website. But high traffic doesn't always translate into revenue. Once you get people on your site, you need to ensure they have a reason to follow through on their purchase. To help you do this, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council how they optimize and convert web traffic into real dollars. Their best tips and insights are below.
No matter how entrepreneurship is portrayed in the media, you'll be in for some surprises on your own journey.
What are your business projections for this year?
Find the right balance between work and spending time with your family. It will all be worth it.
DevriX is a distributed agency offering retainer-based partnerships for SMEs, fast-paced startups, and high-traffic publishers. A team of 50 mixing business and growth strategy with rock solid WordPress development and reliable maintenance. DevriX is among the top 20 WordPress agencies worldwide, working with enterprises like Audi, banks, telecoms; scaling publishers to hundreds of millions of monthly views, building robust marketing automation stacks and CRMs. We employ 7 WordPress Core contributors who have patched the core platform over the span of a dozen releases.
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