Iliya Valchanov

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

Putting AI agents inside marketing agencies.

3x founder, 1.5M AI students on Udemy, ex-math competitor, finance graduate, 3x $0-$1M, boostrapped to $30M revenue.

Creator of content, software, and agents.

Co-founder & CEO

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

Almost 3 years after we started building, we've hit:
- 80K users
- $1M+ ARR
- 20 amazing team members

Most importantly, we've found our focus: Marketing Teams and Agencies.

I'm so, so happy to introduce Juma (ex Team-GPT) to the world.

A product that can:
- Perform any Data Analysis
- Get fresh info from ahrefs to optimize your SEO/GEO
- Help you with anything marketing related: Content, Strategy, Research, Slides, Images

We are massively innovating in the next 2 months.

2 months from now it will be a 10x better product.

But even today, it's quite something.

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Personal website

Juma is a team-first AI workspace for marketing teams. 

We help teams and agencies co-create with AI, stay aligned on every project, and deliver better results together. Because the best ideas don't come from AI alone. They come from teams working together.

Juma is trusted by teams at Costa Coffee, Procore, Maersk, and Salesforce. Backed by True Ventures and Pact.


75K+ users, $1M+ ARR, AI for marketing teams

Co-Founder & CEO

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

AI Course Creator

3veta is an appointment scheduling platform with 10K+ active users.

Co-Founder

Co-founded and led 365 Data Science to 4M students and $1M ARR.

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

Juma (ex Team-GPT)

Me to my wife: 
'Can you fix my profile photo?'

Wife: 
'Done'

Love is blind.

But also...
LinkedIn algorithm is so horrible these days that it deserves nothing less.

To anyone who writes comments with AI: 
You suck!


A post is like a broadcast- it goes out to all and is hardly personal.
(𝘦.𝘨. 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴, 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴, 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘓𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘥𝘐𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺).

A comment is deeply personal. 
It's the communication between 2 human beings. 
You comment to engage the other person. And you expect them to engage back. 

Slopify your posts and you lose your unique voice.
Slopify your comments and you lose all your humanity.

Our organic traffic fell 95% the day we rebranded. 
45 days later it's still quite bad.

On it's last day (20 Nov 2025), Team-GPT got:
- 1,000,000 impressions
- 2,000 clicks 
on Google.

As of 3 Jan 2026, Juma has:
- 100,000 impressions (90% down)
- 336 clicks (83% down)

We are greatly suffering from the rebranding. 

So what are we doing about it?
1. On page technical SEO (we nailed it)
2. Off page SEO -> building links as the old days, adding Juma in directories
3. PR -> mentions, podcasts, guest appearances, taking interviews in media outlets so we can show up as Juma, not Team-GPT


Rebranding is a long-term investment with short term

We finally launched Juma (ex Team-GPT) officially, together with 250+ people from the AI community. 

Thanks for coming and super excited for what's to come!

In March 2026, we will be revealing the Juma Superagent, an AI system, which can do all types of marketing related tasks, completely on its own. 

P.S.
Video is a short snippet from our Launch Party on 15 Jan 26.

През ноември месец сменихме името си от Тийм-ГПТ на Джума.

Направихме събитие в СФ (Сан Франциско).

Сега е време да направим и в Сф (София)!

Очакваме ви на 15.01 в CampusX.

Местата са ограничени и само с предварително записване: 
👉 https://lnkd.in/d3ZH3czZ

Here's what Juma can do today.

It's 10x better than 3 months ago.

It will be 10x better 3 months from now.

Interestingly:
- I no longer use ChatGPT... like at all
- Manus rocks and I use it for some tasks (e.g. wide research, slides)
- Grok never resonated with me
- Gemini is useful sometimes but is not a part of my workflow yet
- Perplexity is also not my cup of tea, although I trust it a lot
- Gamma's slides are just too AI generated (Manus is better and soon Juma)
- We pay for Lovable but I'm not the one using it. But I can imagine myself coming back again and again to it

I'm experimenting with other tools but man is it hard to find something that fits your mental model for what AI should be.

We are trying to do

I've lost trust in LinkedIn's algorithm. 
People who are religiously following me don't see my posts. OUCH!
Lots of my content and following is here but the algorithm is rewarding AI slop and my content has lower visibility. 

(to make sure you see my posts, hit my profile and subscribe for updates via the 🔔 bell).

But nobody will actually hit the 🔔, though.

So what am I supposed to do?

Moving to another social media (e.g. TikTok, BlueSky, etc.) has the same risks- algorithm is not aligned with creators but with the platform overall.

The only place where my content-creation efforts are truly safe forever?
My own website.

It has never been easier to build a website. 

Yet I decided to go for a blog (used Substack).
Website designs come and go. 
Letters are forever.

Created. Crafted. Curated.
👇
iliya (.) ai

Changed my profile photo- I hope you are happy...

Putting the ultra-close-up resulted in 40% increase in views of my profile.

Works.
Wondering if it affected our sales and how.

2 months after rebranding, SEO is improving...
(only) 80% decline in organic traffic!

𝗕𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱:
~1,000-1,500 daily clicks
Average position: 10.3
"team gpt" query: 5,775 clicks
CTR: 0.55%

𝗔𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱:
~400-600 daily clicks
Average position: 14.0
"juma" query: 1,040 clicks
CTR: 0.53%


Interestingly, CTR stayed almost identical. The issue isn't engagement. It's visibility.


According to AI, the recovery timeline is:

Months 1-2: Stabilization ✓ (we're here) 
Months 3-4: 20-30% recovery 
Months 5-6: 40-50% recovery 
Months 6-12: Full recovery with active SEO


Was the rebrand worth it? Absolutely.

Team-GPT made sense when we were a ChatGPT wrapper.
Juma reflects what we actually are: AI agents for marketing teams.

The traffic will come back. 
But it really hurts.

No alternative text description for this image

AI sucks at Math. 
Juma doesn't. 

If you are looking to analyze your data- 
whether Excel files, CSVs or others, we run real calculations on your numbers.

You can create graphs, charts, or even Lovable-like websites with the results.

The future is now, old man.

Time for AI to do the Math.

P.S.
Charts are actual Juma data.

I came home for Easter.

I couldn’t do it any longer.

After 2 months abroad, the fundraise was not yet done. This meant the company would seize to exist, I would have let down everybody involved.

Came home to my family to celebrate.

They were hoping for me to talk about the whole experience. However, all they got was an Iliya who was not speaking for days.

I had been pitching for 15 hours a day, every day. For 2 months.

I didn’t know what to say.

I couldn’t look my father in the eye.

I was trying to smile but it was not coming out well.


Read full story here: 
👉 https://lnkd.in/djeWRHPS

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

We like to wait and see what our competitors do.

This helps us solve the problems better than them, hopefully in the BEST way possible.

We know the problems our customers face.

Some call it stealing. 

It's actually called research.

Or more posh: second-mover advantage.

My top course is The Data Science Course: Complete Data Science Bootcamp.
It has 791,462 students and a rating of 4.5 by ~159,382 people.
We've now automated it with an agent.

Everything that was thought in this course (and many others) is now fully automated by the Juma agent. 

Our agent turns complex data into reports, charts, PDFs, and presentations - all in one chat.

In this video, we:
- analyze 90-day GA4 dataset
- create visualizations
- generate a website
- build a PDF
- make a PowerPoint deck. 

The data analysis agent is just one tiny bit of what the Juma superagent will be able to do.

Stay tuned!

We are building the place where 'anyone can market anything'. 
Marketers cringe when they hear it.
Mainly because they think marketing skills are hard.

But what makes a great marketer? Think: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Kim Kardashian, most recently even Timothee Chalamet..

I think it's: 
- strategic thinking
- 6th sense for what works
- curiosity and willingness to experiment
- understanding of marketing mix and multi-touch interactions (even on a subconcious level is enough)
- taste!!!


What most great marketers can't do:
- Run ads
- Edit videos
- Set-up Google Analytics
- Write SEO-optimized articles
- Know where to find stuff in HubSpot lol

Don't get me wrong- I have deep appreciation for marketing specialists who can do all these.

But keep in mind:

-> The first list will remain human
-> The second list is being automated as we speak

Some professions have it easier, when it comes to AI adoption:

- Developers work in repositories, which they unify through GitHub for instance. So it’s already super organized: you connect the repo and it has all the Context for the project at hand.

- Marketers work on campaigns, which often have a start and end date and must be executed rather fast, context is created at the start and evolves for each campaign

- Agencies collaborate on clients, ideally in the span of years, so they often have this stored somehow

More often than not, context is scattered across tools, drives, archives.

An absolute key step to adopting AI well for your organization is to cherry-pick the right context that the AI will be stepping on.

This is so important, that nowadays we often talk about Context Engineering as opposed to Prompt Engineering.

Context is King.

Full thoughts: https://lnkd.in/dsZvEe6t

How is it possible for a human or AI to create this ridiculous outbound message?

I made a Loom for Team-GPT with ideas on promoting "JUma marketing Super agent".

It's really, really hard to get it this wrong.

graphical user interface, text, application

I think ~200M people total will be needed for most work in 15 years.
After teaching AI to 1.5M people, founding a Silicon Valley-based marketing superagent (Juma), and helping 75K+ users across 500+ companies adopt AI for their work, here’s how I think people, organizations, and corporations should and will adopt AI.

---

I’ve been thinking a lot about the best path to AI adoption.

How do you learn it? How do you teach it? What does it mean to adopt ChatGPT well? What is stopping teams from adopting GPT? Where is the resistance coming from? Why are people achieving such wildly different results? Why does MIT state that 95% of all AI adoption projects fail?

Most humans will be left behind.

Since ChatGPT came out the world really changed. This technological leap is historically unmatched. The world economy is majorly, irreversably, and inevitably changing and technologically advanced nations and individuals will have much better outcomes in life on average.

The problem is that many people who I respect are denying or soft-denying (not using) AI. Maybe 1 in 5 of my friends use it passably well. 

Full article here:
👉 https://lnkd.in/dsZvEe6t

We just codified our values at Juma. 

Not because we like being corporate. But because culture wins in the long run.

Here's what we stand for and what we reward:

1. Default to Open
- Share publicly
- Admit mistakes early
- Challenge ideas, not people

2. Own it End-to-End
- Finish what you start
- Deliver on commitments
- Escalate early with a plan
- Choose company wins over local wins

3. Build Great Stuff
- Start with user problems AND business value
- Measure impact 
- Hold a high bar, but ship anyway
- Sweat the details
- Deliver in short term but build for the long term

4. Learn Fast, Ship Smart
- Prioritize ruthlessly
- Test assumptions early
- Learn from mistakes
- Adapt fast

5. Earn Your Spot
- Results over politics
- Same standards for everyone
- Give honest feedback
- Be coachable

6. Set the Standard
- Represent Juma with pride
- Set the bar for the AI ecosystem
- Show up for each other as people


Note:  
This is not wishful thinking. 
It's literally what our culture is- we just wrote it down.

Same expectations. Same standards. For everyone.

Vision Bank

As the Senior Manager of ERM and Operational Risk, I report directly to the Chief Risk Officer (CRO) and ensure the implementation and robustness of the Bank’s risk management framework. 

Key Responsibilities:
• Risk and Compliance Committee Member. Further reporting to BRCC and Board. 
• Implementation of Enterprise Risk Management Framework : Leading the implementation of the ERMF across the Bank.
• Risk Appetite Statement Metrics: Conduct monthly monitoring and reporting of RAS metrics to the RCC, Board Risk and Compliance Committee and Board.
• Business Continuity Planning: Worked on the BCP document and Business Impact Analysis for the Bank. Conducted business continuity testing to ensure operational resilience during disruptions.
• Drafting Terms of Reference: Developed ToRs for various management and board-level committees. Performed reviews with Management Committee and Board members to ensure alignment on key roles and responsibilities. 
• Risk Event Reporting System: Created an event reporting framework, including reporting templates and tracking of open points and events.
• Risk Control Self Assessment: Spearheaded the Bank’s effort on RCSA by updating the existing templates, restructuring the impact assessment matrices and control efficiency ratings. Performed the RCSA across all Bank functions. 
• Model Governance Framework: Designed and implemented the model governance framework for the entire bank based on the CB UAE standards.
• Policy Development: Contributed to the development and refinement of risk management policies and procedures (Operational Risk Policy, RCSA Policy, Risk Appetite Statement etc.).
• Regulatory Reporting: Lead the effort on the Bank’s IRAP and actively participated in the ICAAP and ILAAP development.
• Training and Awareness: Conducted ERM and Operational Risk training sessions to enhance risk awareness and understanding among the Bank’s staff.

Senior Manager – Enterprise Risk and Operational Risk

SHUAA Capital

Key Areas of Accountability:
• Most senior Risk Officer in the Group, covering Enterprise Risk Management for the Company and its subsidiaries across all departments. Regular and ad-hoc reporting to Group and subsidiary Boards and Committees.
• Member of the Group's Assets and Liabilities Committee (ALCO) and Operating Committee (OPCO)
• Risk Officer for the FSRA regulated ADGM based entity.
• Developing and implementing comprehensive risk management systems, policies, and procedures across the Group and all departments.
• Monitoring the Group's risk exposure through analyzing risk metrics such as stress testing, VaR, and liquidity metrics. Reviewing and recommending risk limits based on business needs. Monitoring equity, credit, and asset management trading activities for anomalies. Monitoring LTV ratios on facilities and issuing margin calls as necessary.
• Conducting regular risk assessments to identify potential high risk areas and assess the Group's exposure. Preparing and sharing reports with stakeholders, working together to mitigate risks and minimize their impact.
• Managing risk events by coordinating with departments to investigate and resolve issues promptly.
• Ensuring compliance with regulations and policies, including reporting obligations. Maintaining a comprehensive understanding of the regulatory environment and governance framework.
• Building and maintaining strong relationships across the organization, ensuring collaboration and communication regarding risk management strategies.
• Generating reports and analysis on risk levels, market exposures, and KPIs to support decision-making by senior management and stakeholders.
• Managing the operational control framework, including conducting RSCAs and reporting risk events.
• Conducting ad hoc reviews to identify operational risks and proposing action plans to the relevant committees.

Vice President, Risk Management | Enterprise Risk Management

3veta

SHUAA Capital psc

Managing market, credit and operational risk and ensuring they are always within risk parameters set by management. This includes overseeing risk in all businesses including Trading, Investment Management, Asset Management, Investment Banking and all support functions. This is achieved by:

•	Monitoring market and counterparty risk exposures on an enterprise wide basis;
•	Ensuring businesses are within approved risk limits, risk policy rules and guidelines;
•	Recommending changes to improve optimisation of risk v return;
•	Monitoring trading desks intraday to identify pricing and operational anomalies;
•	Undertaking stress testing and scenarios analysis to identify any material exposures and trends; 
•	Ensuing senior management are aware of risk levels and issues on a daily basis;
•	Creating reports and presentations including KPIs and KRIs to aide decision making;
•	Managing the operational control framework including RSCAs and event reporting;
•	Undertaking adhoc reviews to identify operational risks and propose action plans to the relevant committee;
•	Overseeing risk around all new products, services and business changes.

Risk Management Associate

Beside Group

Part of a Strategy and Planning department of a leading Retail and Wholesale company based in the Middle East. Working on a wide range of areas including:
• Working closely with the COO of the Company and providing any type of analysis requested. 
• Preparing the Budget for the entire Company and all the related entities including Sales Projections and Departmental Budgets. Making sure Department heads adhere to the Budgets given. Performing quarterly analysis and Budget adjustments.
• Analyzing historic Sales trend and producing Revenue forecasts. In charge of Sales phasing (splitting yearly Sales into Monthly, Weekly and Daily targets) for all stores in the Group. 
• Financial reporting and Performance analysis, performed on quarterly, and yearly data. Analyzing P&L, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow statements. Preparing presentations based on the performance analysis and presenting them to the key people in the Company (CEO, CFO, COO). 
• Preparing 3Y, 5Y, 10Y Business Plans for the Group, for both internal and external needs (obtaining bank loans, meetings with distributors/investors etc.).
• Determining Buying Budgets i.e. Store-wise amount to be spent on new product purchase per season. 
• Improving retail stores’ performance through KPI analysis. Identifying critical stores and suggesting ways of improvement. 
• Preparing files for Rent negotiations for the COO. 
• Working on store and Head Office staffing issues, as well as new proposal for Sales Commission for store employees. 
• Preparing Buying files for the Head of Buying which are used as basics for the Budget split and product purchase. Making Size Curve analysis for new collection orders.  
• Preparing and sending Store Sales and KPI targets for each month. 
• Market studies and scouting new brands which would be added to the Company portfolio.

Business Analyst

UniCredit Bank Austria AG

Managing activities closely related to customer satisfaction in 12 CEE countries.

Intern

Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank ad Banja Luka

Internship Training focused on Retail Risk Management, Corporate Risk Management and financial analysis

As the Vice President of Enterprise Risk Management at SHUAA Capital, I oversee the risk management function for the Group and its subsidiaries across all departments. With over five years of experience in the financial services industry, I have developed and implemented comprehensive risk management systems, policies, and procedures that align with the Group's strategy, governance, and regulatory requirements.

I am passionate about delivering value-added risk management solutions that optimize risk-return trade-offs, enhance business performance, and protect shareholder interests. I leverage my strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills to monitor, measure, and report on the Group's risk exposure, using various risk metrics and tools such as stress testing, VaR, and liquidity metrics. I also collaborate with senior management, business units, and external stakeholders to provide risk advice, guidance, and recommendations.

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Iliya Valchanov

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