Meet Uwe Allgäuer - Co-founder and Irina Pandeva - Chief Coworking Officer of Coworking Bansko in Bulgaria

Introduction of Uwe Allgäuer and Irina Pandeva | The idea of building Coworking Bansko | Coworking Landscape in Bulgaria | Open Partnership and Collaboration | Expansion Plan | The Unique Selling Points | The Future Plan of Coworking Bansko

[01.17] The Idea of Coworking Bansko

Uwe:

Matthias and I, we thought we do a coliving space in rural Austria. A friend of us suggested to have a look into Bulgaria then he came up with where can we establish a coworking space or a coliving space then Bansko somehow came in our mind.

Bansko it's a place where you can ski. It's between Sofia and the shore of Greece and it comes up with many benefits. We thought, we give it a try and this delegation of six people we came here almost a year ago and found out that Bansko is an amazing place. It has a magic and we fell immediately in love with it.

I'm from Austria and Matthias from Salzburg and we both came from Austria to Bansko. At right in the beginning we met Irina.

Irina:

I've been studying and working in the hospitality industry for many years in Sofia. Doing a lot of different stuff of startups a few failures everything. At one point I decided to move to Bansko where my roots are my grandparents are from here. It was fun but missing some international and fun community. It's a touristy place when people don't stay for a long time.

When Mattias announced that they are opening a coworking space, I want to be involved but I don't have contacts with them. And my friends said look they're opening a coworking space. I would say we just connected and it's like destiny.

Coworking space should offer friendly community within their members. Our slogans are fun and work. Fun is a big part. Bansko is a ski resort, you can combine these two very easy.

[06.12] Coworking Landscape in Bulgaria

Irina:

In Bulgaria have 12 coworking space by now. The trend is really growing. People are starting to understand what is coworking space. When we had the major opening of our coworking space, people say it's interesting. Locals want to know and getting involved.

When it comes to coworking development, there is a demand. People want to have coworking. It's also kind of new work. We want to provide something new. We want to elaborate and involve in the community. What we want to bring to Bulgaria is working from home or home office or so it's not so known in Bulgaria. As a coworking space we might be able to work in our space is open up a new world.

People asking question, what is coworking. They get infused with this orange new idea. Dream bigger ventures together. Create some playground for business people, for entrepreneurs and it's not only like your encapsulated in this lurking sort of thing. It's meeting like-minded people. You have an amazing place. It's a healthy environment. You have so many possibilities to do fun things. If your adrenaline junkie or if you like the silence of the nature climb being hiking in all this you can get here at Coworking Bansko.

[11.34] Open Partnership and Collaboration

We establish at least one event per month in general where we invite all the people from everywhere. Of course, we have specific events for specific target groups. Let say for internal membership events like a barbecue even sport events for the members.

We are actually looking for partners and it can be anything. For instance, if it's a sponsor, we're open for sponsorships and if you want to contribute as a mentor or whatever, we are very open for partnerships in any direction.

Our events actually the public events, as well as the member events, are published on our website coworkingbansko.com and also be published at Facebook groups. We tried to spread the word on different channels but one of our biggest promotion is Facebook.

We try to involve our members to make some events that they will be interested in. Almost everyone has made a workshop from them to the others and it's a good skill sharing thing. For example, we have now dream building. Whoever wants to do a workshop if they feel that they have enough things to share with the community.

We are not a finished product. It's a test space like experimental. We want to be open for ideas. For instance, we have food for a brain like where we meet with all the members and asking feedback. They come up with ideas and we are very open for ideas and try something new. We want to be able to grow with our community together with of members.

[15.00] Expansion Plan

Definitely. We have a good space. Now, we have 20 members at the moment and could easily have forty members this is possible. I think with the upcoming events and more publicity, people started to consider to come to Bansko.

It's the ski season starts mid December and we will have the Nomad Soulmate events. It already attracts a lot of people. When ski season starts, we can ski again and it's a seasonal place here. Summer was amazing it is generally like a Mediterranean climate when you have many Sun hours. It doesn't rain. Meanwhile, Spring was a little bit rainy.

Summer was amazing. Warm temperatures almost no rain. You're in mountains, you have this amazing weather you can go motorbiking, hiking, downhill biking, mountain bike. We also have hot spring- second in the world. We even have a secret hot spring in the forest.

[17.30] The Unique Selling Points

Our unique selling point it's very personal attitude and at the same point pushing you towards your professional success.

Most of the coworking spaces are lacking professional work environment. Most of the places have good internet and stuff but we wanted to have a great chair and really comfortable working environment. The major thing we were looking at in the very beginning. We don't want to offer a cafe situation where you buy a coffee from us and then you sit on the wooden chair. Then you get pains in the back in the very first two hours.

We try to constantly improve the work environment and this community like-minded people so you get in. I think the experience you come to us. It's hard to put it on paper and it's hard to tell about it but if you come, you will find out. It's very a unique thing.

[19.20] The Future Plan of Coworking Bansko

We want to do more into that direction and we want to enable more people to participate. It's great, we have a lot of people coming internationally but also being able to contribute the local community. We like to invite them more to us and to participate also to interact more.

As coworking Bansko, we don't want to own the wings but we want our members and our visitors to own the wings. They shall come and find out. They shall succeed and own the wings. This is what we want to establish. We want to invite the local community more into this. It's our vision.

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Website

The song is by Norton Still Stay On Transient Remix under CC license.