September 12; back to in-person life🔥
Back to the office and back to hosting friends and partners... this was my week
Happy Sunday,
Slowly but surely, summertime is coming to its end. In Bulgaria, beaches usually finish up the season in the days between the September 6 national holiday and the kids going back to school on September 15, so from tomorrow onwards most people in Sofia are back to business.
With our Vitosha team, we made a plan months ago to do a little gathering for our family of team, founders, and partners, right after the holidays on September 7. To my big personal delight, the Bulgarian government announced a new set of rules on September 2, going into effect exactly on September 7, that regulate Covid-proof in-person interactions. The rules basically boil down to hosts having to verify the guests’ vaccination, PCR-test, or recovery status through checking their EU Digital Certificates.
Last Tuesday at our office, we probably hosted the first Bulgarian business event that was in compliance with these new rules. Much like in many other European countries, and increasingly in the US as well, it’s becoming a mandatory requirement that you need to get vaccinated if you plan to interact with people, starting with gatherings. Or if you can’t or don’t want to get vaccinated; to get tested for every social occasion.
Besides it being wonderful to host our growing family of company founders we invested in, it was also a huge pleasure to have almost the entire Vitosha team together in Sofia. With many of our team members traveling for extended periods of time, it’s no small feat, especially if you add Covid into the equation.
Venture funds are very unusual when it comes to team dynamics. Unlike other small businesses, there is a fixed ten-year business cycle, which makes the team composition similar to marriage; you’re in for the long haul together. Also, most funds are partnerships, and Vitosha is no exception. A partnership means every partner has their own business inside the firm. Admin, communications, budget are all unified like in a normal company, but management styles and business processes vary greatly from partner to partner. I’ve had the good fortune of starting my career in the legal profession, where law firms have very similar dynamics, but I see many fellow venture fund managers riding a steep learning curve as they adapt to the partnership type of business.
For me, the additional milestone with Vitosha is that I get to work with people I deeply trust and admire. It took us over three years to just design, raise, and launch this fund, and some of us have been practicing for this run with previous, unsuccessful, fund setups for another four years before that.
So all in all, a year after launching, and eight years into the game from the beginning, here we are with Vitosha. To me, this is only the first foundation of the many great things we’ll be building together, in the years and decades to come.
Now, with additional clarity and guidance on in-person interactions, it feels like we can finally start putting the upheaval that is the pandemic behind us, and going back to seeing each other, meeting and working together, and of course, celebrating often and a lot.
If you’re in Sofia, or plan to visit, do drop by at our beautiful Vitosha base at ul. Mizia 23, for a coffee and a chat. Just reply to this e-mail or add a comment if you’re reading this online, and I’ll be more than happy to have you over.
Thanks for checking in today and talk to you next Sunday! 😇
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