You would have to be a great dreamer and an optimist, at the dawn of Bulgarian entrepreneurship, to start a business without a ‘briefcase stuffed with money’ or relatives (in the right places). Odysseia-In is exactly that – a crazy project for its time, which owes its conception to the efforts of Lubomir Popiordanov and half a dozen climbers and mountaineers, members of the Edelweiss Alpine Club,
Sofia. Together, we had traversed the Bulgarian mountains, the Tatras and Pamir. Somehow, it seemed natural to try and make a living out of it. We weren’t short of ideas, but reality struck even before the end of the first year. Yes, we had some foreign guests already, who for some reason had placed their trust in us, but in 1991 the company was in unannounced bankruptcy. In 1993, we added to our business the import and distribution of outdoor equipment. We grew slowly, made mistakes, our services were substandard. In 1994 Momtchil Damyanov joined us. We learned at the expense of our first clients, we learned while travelling, and the course I took in France in business development and marketing, supported by a program of the French government, gave us our first corporate contacts. An important expertise in making business was provided by a couple of MBA consultants via USAID. The rest was a matter of integrity, faith and perseverance, common sense, talent and creativity, determination. That’s the key to understanding Odysseia-in – a phenomenon in Bulgaria’s business history, whose team still holds in high regard the company’s mission, corporate ethics, vision and commitment.
