Boris Hristov

Founder of 356labs

Founder of 356labs
and PowerPoint MVP.
Speaker, Trainer & Author.
A guy that loves to do sports, have fun and enjoy life. Gallery / Blog / Contact

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Documenting My Days on Instagram

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Some months ago I started documenting my life on Instagram. As many of you know, I am now completely out of the SQL Server world and into developing and growing 356labs which now, I am happy to say, is already a very financially stable company.

To be honest, I tried to do the same in Snapchat, but for some reason… I was not motivated enough to push content on so many platforms (even though I did Snapchat stories throughout my whole Microsoft Ignite journey, for example). That all changed when Instagram copied Snapchat and introduced “Stories”. Probably it was the fact that now everything was in one place or it was something else that made me start documenting. I don’t know. And frankly, I don’t care. It’s just so much fun to be able to document what I go through every day and look back at it.

So, if you are on Instagram and want to follow my constant journey and actually learn the things I am doing way before they are posted here or on the 356labs blog (if blogged at all), go on Insta, find my account – brshristov – and enjoy!

See you there!

Video: Startup Grind Sofia

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A month ago I got an invitation from the local chapter of Startup Grind to speak about 356labs, my story and the presentation world. It was a long, but incredibly interesting and more importantly honest conversation.

Enjoy watching!

Simon Sinek and Personal Accountability

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You know Simon Sinek from his “Start With Why” TED talk, right? If not, please stop everything. Stop reading this blog post and watch this.

I try to consume everything that Simon Sinek produces and probably that is the reason I saw the video above and stayed up until late in the evening one day to watch and then reflect on what he said.

Stop here for now and watch the whole video. Please. Yes, it will take you 1 hour, but I promise you – it’s worth your time.

Welcome back. Now you may be wondering why I am writing this blog post? The answer is very selfish – because I want to keep myself publicly accountable. This way I won’t have any excuses in front of myself and in front of you to not do what I learned from this video. Here are the 2 “accountability lists” I prepared for myself:

The personal one:

  1. When going out with friends, family or my girlfriend, leave my phone at home or have it with me, but don’t use it except in an emergency.
  2. Don’t put my phone next to me on the table when on a meeting or use it while waiting for someone. Notice the world.
  3. Leave my phone at the living room during the night.

The ones for 356labs:

  1. Make a rule – before a company meeting – phones out of the room.
  2. Care. Truly care about the people who work with me. Build a family.
  3. Support. Give chances. Make people at 356labs understand that I will always be there to help them in a hard moment.

…

That’s it. It’s public. Now I have no excuses.

Did you watch the video? What do you think?

Why not?

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why-not-boris-hristov-356labsNo, this is not one of the post on what I am learning as I am growing my company 356labs. However, it’s related to it.

Together with the designer who works with me in 356labs on “everything creative”, as I like to call it, we were recently talking about some of things we were doing and some of the things that we were thinking about doing, but seemed a bit impossible. At first…

And then I shared with her that… if I think about it, everything that allowed 356labs to still be here and get so much traction in it’s first year (8th of September, people!) is because I was asking myself one very simple question:

Why not?

Why not leveling up our trainings and deliver the best possible experience for our customers?

Why not reaching the local TV stations and ask to be their guest and talk about us being accepted and being the only presentation company to speak at Microsoft Ignite?

Why not putting the time and recreating our Instagram account from scratch after we were banned for no reason?

I just don’t know why not…

…

Turns out, when you ask yourself this question, you end up trying and doing the first step in regards to the thing you are questioning.

Turns out, when you make the first step to the thing you desire to accomplish, you actually do accomplish it.

So. What are you waiting for? Just ask yourself why not.

Starting My Company. Mistake 10.

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starting_356labs_boris_hristov_blogI can’t summarize this one in 1 sentence, so please read. It’s an important and an interesting one. That’s why it’s number 10.

When I started 356labs, it was clear to me that we were going to offer both company trainings and opened trainings in which individual people who want to learn more about the world of presenting would enroll. That’s what we did and that’s what we continue to do. Let me tell you a story about our first opened course, though, because I believe it’s a good lesson of what a founder of a company must be ready for. 

See, we do not have our own training room yet. We rent such. And so I rented one of the most creative places in Sofia, Bulgaria for our first opened course. At the end of the day our we were teaching storytelling & presentation design. The place needed to be… special. I didn’t want a hotel room.So far so good. I rented the place(meaning, I paid for it — that’s important and you will see why) and a day before the event I went there to set up everything.

I walked in that place and it was… gosh, it looked ugly. Everything was covered in dust — chairs, tables, everything. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. The trash cans were not cleaned. Yes, including the one in the toilet.

That’s not what I paid for, I said to myself! Problem was there was no time to go and complain to the host. The course was starting tomorrow morning! I needed to do something myself because one of the things about our trainings is that I want us to deliver an experience. An incredible experience to our students. That means that not only the content and our materials must be top level, but every single other thing should be too — the venue, the food, the organization, the communication prior the event, everything.

What happens next is my lesson for all of you— I went and cleaned all the dust. Every single chair. Every single table. One by one. I cleaned the floor. I went and changed the trash bags everywhere. Yes, the one in the toilet too. And yes, you are right, I didn’t like it and I wasn’t happy I was doing it, but at the same time, I knew this would pay off…

On the next day the training went incredibly well. Many of the people who came and paid for the event are now coming to every single one of our events and recommend us to others. So to all of you founders, co-founders and all of you who truly care about your customers — get ready to do things you have never ever thought you would if you really and I mean really, want to deliver incredible experiences.

P.S. After this training, we gave this room another chance and hosted another course there. We were faced with the same and that was the last time we rented it. We now moved to a new place which is a true state of art. The place that I was looking for from the start of 356labs…