Success Stories
Francesco’s Encore: Building a Creative Business in Bulgaria
In recent years, Bulgaria has become an exciting destination for entrepreneurs. Especially for people in the creative industries, the country offers …
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This article is also available in German: Unternehmer in Bulgarien: Erfolgsgeschichten
Back then, I first approached the idea of starting a business in Bulgaria from a purely theoretical perspective. It quickly becomes clear that there are significant potential advantages to founding a company in this beautiful Southeastern European country. These include an attractive corporate tax of only 10%, a withholding tax of 5%, low labor costs and rents, and a qualified and often multilingual population, especially in the larger cities. But I then started wondering: how do entrepreneurs in Bulgaria see it? What advantages and disadvantages do they perceive? So I set out and began interviewing other entrepreneurs in Bulgaria. How that process went and what insights I gained, you’ll find out in this blog post. Let’s go!
It must have been around April 2024 when, as part of the research for the book "Start in Bulgaria", I began to wonder what advantages other entrepreneurs saw in founding a company in Bulgaria. I would have loved to exchange ideas with some of them, listen to their stories, and learn from their experiences. Of course, I knew several Bulgarian founders, but foreign entrepreneurs in particular likely have their own unique perspective on the pros and cons of starting a business in Bulgaria.

While searching for exactly these kinds of entrepreneurs, a Facebook group called "Foreigners in Sofia & Friends" came to the rescue. In response to a post where I asked for entrepreneurs willing to share their stories about founding a business in Bulgaria, several people got back to me, and over the course of the year, I was able to conduct several super exciting interviews.
The full interviews can be read in our book "Start in Bulgaria". At this point, I’d like to thank all interviewees and list them here again. I will also introduce them in more detail in upcoming blog posts.
| Entrepreneur | Company | Website |
|---|---|---|
| Hristo Mirchev | HMChocolates | hmchocolates.bg |
| Monika Marinova | zariadnozaotslabvane | zariadnozaotslabvane.com |
| Frank Op Den Kamp | The Wheel Crew | thewheelcrew.com |
| Amy Sabella | Spectra English | Spectra English (Facebook) |
| Mikhail Chistopolov | Mikhail Chistopolov | chistopolov.com |
| Nadya & Aleks | Imagine Travel | imaginetravelbg.com |
| Francesco Marzola | Marzola Music | marzolamusic.com |
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