June 13; all the work modes for this summer 👨🏻‍💻☀️

In the office, from a beach, or from anywhere else... this was my week

Happy Sunday,

Summer is here in full swing, and through the combination of pandemic fatigue and the onset of work-from-anywhere, you can never reliably predict anymore where people are working from. Some are in the office all of the time, some sometimes, some never, and most people move from one state to the other every couple of weeks.

Ellie and her launchlabs Sofia team spent the last week remote-working from Coral Beach, 450km from Sofia, south of Burgas, and on Friday I paid them a visit there:

Not bad, not bad… I actually really enjoy working from our Vitosha office in Sofia, but when I’m there, I end up pulling 12-hour days most of the time, and summer is a great time to diversify and offset those days with something else.

Busy days this week in the Vitosha office in Sofia, as usual

On most days, when I need an hour or so of concentrated alone time with my laptop, I’d sneak to our ground floor, where the Missia23 cafe is a great place for being remote without leaving the building.

I’m quite asynchronous with this entire remote culture, as I didn’t have an office from 2013 till 2020, building up skills on how to be productive from home or on the road, which came in handy last year. One of the things I miss about traveling is how you’re always much more productive on the go, limited by constraints of meetings to go to, flights to catch, or hotel checkout deadlines not to miss. Being away from home for a few days during the week gives me a bit of that feeling again, and generally feels like a more productive way of working for a change. Even today, on a Sunday, with sharing this with you being far from actual work, I’m still better at it by the poolside, rather when I have an entire day at home to my disposal:

Exploring Burgas for the weekend 🏖

Burgas is Bulgaria’s fourth largest city, and somehow most people I know who aren’t from there don’t know much about it. It’s a place millions pass by every year, either the tourists who fly in to Burgas airport to go to Sunny Beach, or all the Bulgarians and people from neighboring countries who drive by it, heading to the Bulgarian Riviera south of Burgas.

This weekend Ellie and I decided to spend a few days in Burgas, and we’re quite thrilled with it. There’s a beautiful seaside park, the Sea garden, the old downtown is quite well-kept, with many beautiful old mansions, and the docklands, much like in other European cities, are being transformed into a hipster paradise with cafes, restaurants, and public spaces.

Sunrise at the Burgas sea garden

Burgas is well-known for its lye and healing mud baths, just north of the city, in inland lakes next to the seaside beach. Administered by the city, you pay two leva (EUR 1) for dipping into healing mud

Another thing Burgas and the area around it is known for is black beach sand. The story is that this is magnesium-heavy sand, which was common everywhere in Bulgaria before it got filtrated when magnesium became a valuable commodity, turning the sand to the usual white and brown.

On Saturday, Ellie and I rented bikes and rode all the way along the shore to Sarafovo, about 10km north from Burgas, along the brand-new bike lane that is off-limit to cars.

Sofia discoveries ⭐️

During the week in Sofia I also stumbled upon two places that shouldn’t go unnoticed by connoisseurs. Yordan Zhechev, the well-known Sofia advertising man, opened his own lounge place recently, which I happened upon accidentally while heading for a company meeting: Ж jazz room.

The place has an immaculate jazz-inspired interior, and serves ridiculously tasty hipster goods like saloop and truffle-oil popcorn. Here’s a write-up about Ж jazz room in Bulgarian.

Another one has been long in the making and finally opened last week: Dönerstag Sofia. Berlin-raised Sofia chef Ivaylo Spasov talked to me and all of his other friends for years about his cravings for a proper Berlin-style kebab. I always thought it’s his signature joke theme, but lo and behold, after winning the last edition of Bulgaria’s Master Chef competition, Ivaylo set out to open a proper Berlin-style kebab place in Sofia, called Dönerstag, at Iskar street 11.

Getting my first Dönerstag kebab from master chef Ivaylo Spasov

Last week I had the pleasure of trying it out for myself, which is no easy feat: every day from opening at 12pm until supplies run out about three hours later, there’s a line that takes you at least 35 mins to get served.

The kebab is really worth it: tender and juicy, and the sandwiches are in classical Turkish pide bread, without fries or any other garbage you usually get in Bulgarian kebabs. Here’s another writeup in Bulgarian by the Kapital folks about Dönerstag.

Incredible challenge for an incredible company

One of the most interesting startups in Bulgaria is Kinetik Automotive, launched a few years ago in Varna by my friend and YC alum Teo Teodosiev. They’re building EV technology, focusing on producing the fastest track racing car, the Kinetik 07, and taking over the eGo karting world with the best product in the industry. Next to that, like many startup EV companies, they’re perfecting and marketing their tech by doing conversions of old-timers to EV powertrains.

One day two months ago, I got a message from Teo that an early-morning fire erupted in Kinetik’s garage, and destroyed almost everything. They managed to salvage one of the old-timers, a Volvo P1800, and thankfully no one got hurt from their team or firefighters. It’s probably the worst thing you can imagine happening to a startup company reliant on a hardware workshop.

But Teo and his team are not the kind of people who give up, and they continued working in makeshift conditions, trying to generate revenue and planning to rebuild. Now that they’ve made some progress, they launched a crowdfunding campaign, where we can all help them and even get collectible gifts, like burned company artifacts. I suggest that everyone who cares about EVs and Bulgarian tech takes a look at the above video, and considers donating:

Thanks for checking in today and talk to you next Sunday! 😇

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