Iliya Valchanov

Team-GPT

Used by companies like: Maersk, Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, Shift4, EY, Charles Schwab, and many more.


Private Enterprise sofware for using LLMs.

0 to 25K users in 9 months.

Learn, collaborate, and master ChatGPT in one shared workspace.

Co-founder & CEO

Udemy

1.5M+ students in the field of statistics, data science, machine learning, and deep learning.

Bestselling courses:
- The Data Science Course: Complete Data Science Bootcamp (750,000+ students and 150,000+ reviews)
- The Business Intelligence Analyst Course (250,000+ students and 45,000 reviews)
- Statistics for Data Science and Business Analysis (220,000 + students and 45,000+ reviews)

AI Course Creator

3veta

3veta is a product company, specializing in video conferencing, scheduling, payments, and more.

Our core products are: 
→ A SaaS that simplifies scheduling and streamlines video meetings for remote and hybrid teams
→ A white-label video conferencing tool
→ API for appointment scheduling
→ Marketplace builder

Co-Founder & CEO

365 Data Science

By 2020 reached:
- 1M+ students on Udemy
- Our own learning management system
- 500,000+ students on our own platform
- 30 employees
- $1M ARR

---

It started as a simplistic WordPress website showcasing our portfolio of courses. With time, our team started growing and we developed more complex software solutions until we launched our own learning management system and developed comprehensive in-house marketing expertise.

My role was closest to that of a COO. My OCD has always been preoccupied with structuring work and developing processes in order to never miss a step or a deadline. Therefore, scaling our team and processes was more of a relief (of my obsession for structure), rather than an occupation. 

But as a co-founder I have worn many different hats with the C- in front: CFO, CTO, CMO. Nonetheless, I have never neglected the specific business driving activities of our industry, such as creating and editing content (video and text), content dissemination (automatic, semi-automatic, and unfortunately, at times, manual), social media management automation, technical SEO, tracking, ads management (running Facebook ads until my last day) and probably many more.

On the managerial side, apart from overseeing most processes, I was head of content creation and have personally read and edited all the educational content that came out of 365 Data Science. This has proved invaluable for expanding my programming knowledge base and providing me with incredible breadth of data science skills (all types of statistics and machine learning, incl. regressions, clustering, dimensionality reduction, credit risk models, price elasticity models, visualizations, feed-forward neural networks, convolutional neural networks, and more). 

In December 2020, I exited 365 Data Science to devote more time to other projects.

Co-Founder

365 Careers

365 Careers is the #1 best-selling provider of business, finance, and data science courses on Udemy. The company’s courses have been taken by more than 2,000,000 students in 210 countries. People working at world-class firms like Apple, PayPal, and Citibank have completed 365 Careers trainings.

During my time with 365 Careers, I have worked extensively on creating, managing, editing, and curating the data science content of 365 on Udemy. 

I am the author or co-author of the following courses:
-> The Data Science Courses: Complete Data Science Bootcamp
-> The Business Intelligence Analyst Course
-> Statistics for Data Science and Business Analysis
-> Deep Learning with TensorFlow 2.0
-> Python + SQL + Tableau: Integrating Python, SQL, and Tableau
-> Machine Learning 101 with scikit-learn and statsmodels
-> Customer Analytics in Python

I have overseen the creation through editing and/or project management of the following courses: 
-> The Data Analyst Course: Complete Data Analyst Bootcamp
-> The Data Visualization Course: Excel, Tableau, Python, R
-> Convolutional Neural Networks with TensorFlow in Python
-> Credit Risk Modeling in Python
-> Probability for Statistics and Data Science
-> Web Scraping and API Fundamentals in Python

I have also lead the translation effort of video content in German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese, resulting in the following courses:
German:
-> Das komplette Data Science Bootcamp 2021 in Python
-> Statistik für Data Science und Business Analytics
Spanish:
-> Bootcamp Completo em Data Science com Python 2021
-> Estadística para Data Science y análisis de negocios
Português:
-> Entrenamiento completo en Data Science con Python 2021
-> Estatística para Data Science e Análise de Negócios
Chinese:
-> 数据科学和商业分析中的统计学

Content Manager

CEO @ Team-GPT | 1,300,000+ AI students on Udemy

👉1 sentence about me: 
I teach AI to 1.5M students on Udemy; also CEO of Team-GPT: A leading Enterprise AI software. 

👉Multi sentence about me: 
I used to compete in Maths for 10 years and was quite good at it. To this day, my work ethic is highly influenced by my Math competitor days.

I graduated in Finance and have all the financial knowledge I could ask for. It was not my calling, so I never pursued it... but I find it quite useful in running a business. 

At 23, I co-founded an educational startup for online data science courses - 365 Data Science. I helped it scale to 30+ people with millions of students worldwide and $1M+ ARR. Courses that I have personally created have been taken by 1,300,000+ students. This EdTech business was bootstrapped to $30M+.

Currently, I'm Co-founder and CEO of Team-GPT. Team-GPT reached 25K users in 9 months and is used by enterprises all around the globe.

I'm a very curious guy, who loves to build stuff.

Learn, collaborate, and master ChatGPT in one shared workspace.

You got into marketing because you love the work. 

The strategy. The creative. 
The moment a campaign clicks and everything comes together.

But that’s buried. 
Dozens of tools. Hundreds of workflows. Endless details.

You spend more time managing systems than creating. 
More time switching contexts than turning ideas to life. 
More time explaining what you're doing than actually doing it.

This isn't what you signed up for.

Marketing should be simpler. 
Much more delightful.
More like... Juma!

-

Juma is the workspace where your team does their best work.

Everything you need to plan, create, and launch lives in one place. 
Your team has the same context. The same tools. 
The same ability to move fast. 

A place where work stops feeling like a burden.
Experience the joy of marketing.

Think together, move as one!
Welcome to Juma.

juma.ai

CEO @ Juma | 1,500,000+ AI students on Udemy

Когато пиша за политика, алгоритъмът се обърква, тролове коментират, маркетинг стратегията ни пропада, а бизнесът ни страда.
Но има нещо от което бизнесът ни, както и на много други българи, страда повече.

Това, че ни спират тока, като им пречим.
Това, че съдебната система е завладяна от мафията.
Това, че взимат бизнеси на хора безнаказано (Илия Златанов от Изамет и Осемте Джуджета, както и десетки неразказани истории).
Това, че държат кмета на Варна 6 месеца в затвора без причина и без присъда.
Това, че саботират полезните действия на кмета на София.
Това, че Европейската прокуратура трябва да се намеси, за да търси справедливост срещу кметове на ГЕРБ и безумията им. 
Това, че САЩ трябва да използва Магнитски, защото сами не можем да се справим с корупцията.
Това, че от години в България няма истинска журналистика, защото разкараха всички достойни журналисти.
Това, че медиите показват каквото им се каже, а социалните мрежи показват истината.

Това, че закърпват държавния бюджет с парите на най-здраво работещите хора. Не за да ги дадат на учители и лекари, а за да приберат парите в джобовете на безкрайно оядени престъпници. 
 

Ние сме хората, които градим, а не рушим.
Които вкарваме външни инвестиции в страната и увеличаваме богатството на България.

Протестираме, защото заслужаваме много повече от прасе и тиква.

New product, who dis?

Soon to empower every marketer in New York.


Proudly created this in Juma

devote-academy

LinkedIn

li_at

JSESSIONID

Talks about #ai, #chatgpt, #startup, #buildinpublic, and #entrepreneurship

Now 15,000+ people follow my content here.

I'm the CEO of an AI startup but don't use AI to write on LinkedIn.

Why?
-> I think AI can help with wording.
But it can't help with self-expression.

-> Lots of work will be automated by AI.
But human connection is not one of them. 

-> AI writes cheaper, faster, better than me.
But I mainly write to structure my own thoughts.


That's why I'm on LinkedIn -> 
to structure my own thoughts, express myself, and hope to connect with likeminded people on the way. 


In the last 3-4 years of posting, I shared the good, the bad, and the ugly.
-> Reached millions of AI students with 365 Data Science 
-> Closed 3veta and shared why
-> Built Team-GPT in public from Day 1: 0 to 10K users posts, fundraised $4.5M, posted investor reports, shared deeply dramatic insights, hit $1M ARR, and even posted the OpenAI legal letter suing us


I share because 𝘺𝘰𝘶 have shown me it's useful!
And am thankful for your time. 

.
.
.

P.S.
If you don't know me -> let's connect!
If you know me -> Thanks for being around, I'll continue sharing 🫡

This weekend I finally did it. 
I've been avoiding it for 2 years.
I'm planning for it to last 50+ years. 

It's my personal website, featuring:
- links to my work
- some of my favorite articles and posts
- mini projects (e.g. beautiful QR code generator)

I have a bunch of stuff I've been meaning to publish online but LinkedIn doesn't feel like the right place. 

Check it out 👇

iliya (.) ai

graphical user interface, application, Teams

Първи ден на Джума и вече е в новините 😎 

Благодаря на Mary Ivanova и Капитал, че отново разказаха историята ни!

🤖 Преди година, малко след като #TeamGPT привлече 4.5 млн. долара финансиране в рекордна за млада компания на този етап сделка, в лондонския офис на дружеството пристига писмо, адресирано от OpenAI. "В него ни подтикваха да се откажем от търговската си марка в САЩ, Великобритания и ЕС, защото не можем да я притежаваме", обяснява Iliya Valchanov, CEO и съосновател на Team-GPT (българското дружество се казва "Тийм ГПТ").

📧 Екипът от петима бизнес партньори решава да игнорира писмото, защото компанията има запазени марки на трите пазара, одобрени от съответните контролни органи. Разбира обаче, че не можеш да игнорираш OpenAI така, "както можеш да не отговориш на съобщение на мъж след неуспешна среща", смее се Вълчанов...

🌍 Тази седмица стартъпът, който от две години обслужва вече над 75 хил. клиенти в САЩ, Канада и Европа, сменя своето име и търговска марка. Team-GPT вече се казва Juma. Какво се случи междувременно, какво правиш, когато технологичен гигант съобщи, че иска да те съди и какво казва законът? Четете в статията  на Mary Ivanova тук: https://lnkd.in/dJ-2qRqy

Open article: Team-GPT вече е Juma: какво правиш, когато OpenAI иска да те осъди by capital.bg

Team-GPT вече е Juma: какво правиш, когато OpenAI иска да те осъди

Founders, VCs, angels:
Our fundraising materials for raising $4.5M in San Francisco as Silicon Valley outsiders.

What it took? 
85 'NO's and a physical breakdown.

The steps?

Prep:
1. Read books
2. Meet founders
3. Prep materials
4. Get angels
5. Get VCs

The VC bits:
1. Create an investor list
2. Get warm intros
3. Pitch deck is used to get a 1st meeting
4. NEVER show the pitch deck in the first meeting
5. 1st meeting is to get a 2nd meeting
6. Follow-up with the f*cking best materials
7. Receive a term sheet or get a ‘NO’ ASAP


Unfiltered, 1-hour lecture:
👉 https://lnkd.in/dt6xEJhB

Other materials:
1. PPT presentation from video: https://lnkd.in/dhpirdmD

2. How to raise $5M-$15M from Silicon Valley? Learnings from a conversation with a VC from Sequoia Capital: https://lnkd.in/ggPfyJFh

3. How Team-GPT raised $4.5M- A True story - 100% real story about our fundraising. Journalled as it was happening.
https://lnkd.in/dZ3UxmfE


Thanks for the support along the way!

Our product is largely shaped by a couple of visionary clients.
VertoDigital is one of them.

Amazing webinar with their team starts in 1 hours. Don't miss it!

👉 https://lnkd.in/dmbh2QP3

No alternative text description for this image

Yellow alert!

We are changing everything about us next week.

New name, new agents.

Stay tuned!

Getting from 0 to 10K users was wild.

Revenue: $80,000
Net revenue: $ 47,819.58
Time: 170 days
Users: 9597

Who remembers the first days of building Juma (ex Team-GPT) in public?

- Took us 6 months to make $80K in total revenue.
- Last month we added $80K recurring revenue. 

The scale has changed drastically. 
But we still have the same passion! 
And much better direction.

Here's how we got from 0 to 10K users:
👉 https://lnkd.in/gFXPFhga

Not all $$$ are made equal. 

Recurring revenue is way more valuable than one time. 

Service revenue is easier than product revenue. 

B2B revenue is easier than B2C. 

Enterprise revenue is hard to get, hard to lose.


The goal of each business?
It's not generating money but generating free cash flow.

So it's not about how much money you make. 
It's about how much money is left.

86% of marketers believe AI will benefit their work.
Only 26% can actually execute on it.

That's a 3x gap between confidence and capability.

Many teams are stuck:
- Not decisive enough to commit. 
- No internal drive to manage the adoption.
- Not technical enough to set AI up for success.


The Growth Syndicate made a report which covers 110 B2B marketing leaders and breaks down:

1. Where teams are actually using AI (91% for content, only 20% for sales enablement)

2. Why skills matter more than budget (60% cite training needs vs 25% budget constraints)

3. Much more


My contribution to the report:
"Don't be afraid to make changes to your strategy as you learn more. But with any marketing activity, if you give up after one post on LinkedIn, have you really tested the channel? 
Same with AI tools—commit long enough to learn, then course-correct."

Link:
https://lnkd.in/d3seAUE7

Next week AIEF After Hours is in our office. So I couldn't miss it, even if I wanted to.
But I wouldn't miss it because Rangel Milushev (YC-founder, Harvard gradudate) will be talking about AI.

You should totally come: 
👉

Open article: AIE.F Europe After Hours #46 · Luma by luma.com

To make $1M per year,
you need:


1,000,000 customers paying you $1
100,000 customers paying you $10
10,000 customers paying you $100
1,000 customers paying you $1,000
100 customers paying you $10,000
10 customers paying you $100,000
1 customers paying you $1,000,000


Which one do you prefer?

San Francisco hits different when you're all-in building.

Sure, the investment money helps. 
But it's not about that.

It's about the energy. 
The ambition. 
The history.

The belief that you can actually change the world with a laptop and a vision.

You're the average of the 5 people closest to you. 
When that may be Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Satya Nadela, and Jensen Huang you either become a supervillain or you get really ambitious. 

Hope it's the latter.

We're cooking up something that will change how people market stuff.

More soon!

I know these tease posts have been a bit too much...

But I literally have only 2-3 days left to do them.

Stay tuned- 
dropping our biggest update ever next week!

How do you know your outbound sucks?

It's outdated.

I still receive calls for 365 Data Science. 
I receive emails for 3veta.
LinkedIn messages for Team-GPT.

Idk where these people get their data but a message like this kills trust immediately. 

0% chance to work together.

graphical user interface, text, application, email

'Dogfooding' means being our own customer.
All successful startups practice dogfooding.

I'm in top 1% of the users of Juma, using AI more than 99% of the people on the platform.

Juma (ex Team-GPT) has saved me ~2 months of work in 2025. 

My favorite capability? 
Projects!

I hate Black Friday.

After building multiple products and runnning many promotions-
Black Friday deals work only for ecommerce.  

- For software, it cheapens the product and the experience. 

- If you do this often, people get used to it and 'wait for the discount'. 

- Loyal existing users feel betrayed that you gave a deal to someone else, while that someone else only chose you cause you are cheap, not because of your value prop. 

+ the revenue is not that much anyways

There is a lot of hype in AI because there has been a big shift in what's possible. 

It's clear a lot of value is being unlocked. 

Truth is- we are all figuring it out. 

👉 We, the builders, are trying to build new age tools which create 10x or 100x more value than existing software for our users. While figuring it out, we are often creating more noise and not making it easier for users. 
(when you have more clarity a rebrand often comes, see us as an example haha)

👉 For AI adoption leaders it's absolutely clear they need to act. But what to do? The best results are seen when:

1) There is a clear owner who is responsible for making sure people in the org use AI. This person should be empowered to make decisions, rollout the way they see fit, and keep going with this decision for at least 3-6 months. 

2) Don't be afraid to make changes to your strategy as your learn more. But similar to (say) LinkedIn posting, if you give up after you post 3 posts on LinkedIn, have you really tried?
Same with the AI tools- 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁.

3) Do weekly check-ins with people using these tools. The fact that a tool has been purchased, doesn't mean it is being used. Be on top of it and measure. Make data-driven decisions. 


AI is not overhype.
NVIDIA, OpenAI, and similar are. 

But AI is creating a lot of value. 
But it needs to be harnessed.

emil-ivanov.design

Fractional Product Designer

Uplisting

At Uplisting, I served as a UX Consultant, playing a pivotal role in developing their Property Management System (PMS) for the Short-Term Rental (STR) industry. Over 1,700 customers now trust this SaaS, B2B solution to manage upwards of 17,000 properties. Key contributions include:
→ Led the product development lifecycle for a brand new mobile app (iOS and Android) for property managers and hosts - empowering them to manage their vacation rental businesses (bookings, guest communication) on the go and save time.
→ Contributed to product and feature definition and overall strategy.
→ Helped integrate ongoing user research as an internal part of the product development process.
→ Worked closely with Product, Engineering, Marketing, Customer Success, and Sales teams to drive numerous initiatives, from improving existing features to conceptualising and executing new functionalities and reviewing and improving the overall UX.

UX & Product Design Consultant

Smule, Inc.

At Smule, I focused on the user experience for their karaoke mobile application, which over 20 million global users use on iOS and Android platforms. Achievements include:
→ Introduced and implemented advanced methodologies and facilitation techniques to foster increased collaboration and engagement within the team.
→ Led comprehensive User Research studies to uncover user needs and directed UX workshops utilising Design Thinking to define issues and sculpt solutions.
→ Contributed to the development of a Design System.

Product Designer

OpenTag

At OpenTag, my efforts were directed towards a sports betting and casino gaming platform (B2B, SaaS), serving brands across global markets with a user base exceeding 50 million. My accomplishments encompass:
→ Advocated for and embedded UX design practices and methodologies throughout the product development lifecycle and established a robust design process.
→ Overseed the recruitment, mentorship, and management of new UX roles within the team, enhanced team capabilities and project outcomes.
→ Led a navigation redesign and optimisation of the Information Architecture of the player-facing web application, which improved content accessibility, user engagement and retention, and satisfaction.
→ Led the redesign of the Back Office cloud application, significantly elevating the user experience and consistency across app modules.
→ Started the development of a Design System.

Senior UX Designer

EngView Systems Sofia

→ Helped the company improve and build products (SaaS, desktop and mobile apps) for the packaging (B2B, B2C) and engineering (B2B, B2C) industries used by factories and users worldwide.
→ Conducted research to discover user needs and potential business opportunities.
→ Collaborated with Product, Engineering roles, and stakeholders to define problems for solving and requirements.
→ Created User Flows and User Story Maps, Wireframes, UI visuals, and Prototypes.
→ Worked on a help system writing HTML/CSS code.
Designed print materials.

User Interface Designer

Sirma Solutions

→  Worked on web-based and mobile app projects for government and business customers.
→  Contributed to a project for building a hardware device for contactless payments.

SEP Bulgaria Inc.

DEPO iLab

Web Designer

SmakMedia

Freelance

I help growing SaaS startups scale product design and UX strategy — combining deep user insight with design execution that drives business outcomes.

I work as an embedded, long-term partner — helping founders and product teams bridge the gap between vision and experience. Whether you're evolving your MVP, refining onboarding, or preparing to scale, I bring the consistency and product context that typical outsourced design can’t provide.

My approach blends strategic guidance with hands-on design support, so you can:

- Deliver a UX that scales with your product
- Improve usability, retention, and onboarding
- Support your roadmap with thoughtful, user-centered design

All without the commitment of a full-time hire.

If you're growing fast and need product design to keep up — let's talk.

Emil Ivanov

Last call for the Morning UX Roundtable – Wednesday, Nov 19.

Together with six founders and product builders, we’ll be discussing real UX challenges:

→ Mobile UX for complex data tables
→ Onboarding flow + Conversational vs. structured UI in a QA agent
→ Scaling facility management SaaS (from small to large-scale customers)
→ Checkout experience optimization
→ Multi-flow app design (mobility + loyalty + gamification)
→ Practice management platform usability

Small group format, collaborative problem-solving, practical feedback.

Note: We have 6 challenges lined up for Wednesday. You're welcome to:
- Join the discussion without bringing a case, or
- Register with your challenge (we'll discuss it this session if time allows, or prioritise it for the December edition)

📍 Wednesday, Nov 19, 10am-12pm
📍 Puzl CoworKing – Alabin 58, Sofia

I help growing B2B SaaS companies (Seed–Series B) scale their UX faster without hiring full-time

🚀 Morning UX Roundtable at Puzl – Alabin 58
On November 19, Emil Ivanov will be hosting an interactive UX roundtable designed for founders, product leaders, and software builders who want fresh perspectives on their product experience.

During this morning session, you’ll be able to:
 → Share a UX challenge from your product (optional)
 → Collaborate with fellow founders and product builders
 → Get expert feedback and clear next steps from facilitator Emil Ivanov

What’s inside:
 • Welcome & intros
 • Panel-style discussion of 4–6 real cases
 • Actionable recommendations
 • Summary follow-up after the event

🕙 10:00 – 12:00
 📍 Puzl – Alabin 58
 👥 Limited spots & approval-based registration.

View event: Morning UX Roundtable at Puzl - Alabin 58

Morning UX Roundtable at Puzl - Alabin 58

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The Battle

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Iliya Valchanov's LinkedIn Performance

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Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreIliya Valchanov's LinkedIn Performance