Anton Lenke: “Bulgaria Innovation Hub is about paying it forward.”

As season four of Bulgaria Innovation Hub’s accelerator program is approaching, we decided it’s time to meet the startup founders in our audience with some of the renowned mentors who would join us this fall.

Today, we introduce you to Anton Lenke. Lenke is a serial entrepreneur and sales development executive. He has over 10 years of experience with the US entrepreneurial ecosystem, including his position as Senior Director of Global Sales Development at Appen. 

Lenke has been mentoring the startup founders from our portfolio for 3 years. Here is his reflection on his professional and mentoring experience and a handful of advice for those who’d participate in the BIH program starting on September in San Francisco.

For how long have you been in the tech industry and how has your journey been so far?

Anton Lenke: I've been inside the entrepreneurial ecosystem for about 12 years. Before that, I was an assistant professor of studio photography. I've lived a few different lives. I grew up in the Bay Area, which is ground zero for tech. My dad was also in technology, so for me, it was something that all of the people that I knew were doing and I fell into it. Once in, it was really exciting.

I specialize in Sales Development. This is kind of the liaison between marketing and sales. I've led about half a dozen different teams and had two acquisitions. Until recently, I was Director of Global Sales Development at Appen. My job included managing the sales development team of the company, located across 4 different continents. The team was as large as 68 people, with some of our teams in the Philippines. It was a wonderful experience to really work for a public company and be the global head of a lot of different teams. As of now, I am the Vice President of Sales Development at SKAEL - an emerging company at its seed stage. For me, starting over is part of the excitement of working with technological companies. To use an analogy, developing these teams is a bit like building a Lego set -  the fun for me is in putting them together more so than playing with it once its constructed.

Why did you choose to specialize in Sales Development and what value does it bring to emerging companies?

Sales development is one of the most process-driven sides of go-to-market strategies; it is really quick to iterate. The traditional VP of sales may have a six-month sales cycle or more, where they might make some changes to see the downstream impacts and be able to make a decision on that for a year, maybe longer. With sales development, you can do something in a matter of days and see if there's a difference. It is amazing to help young people in their careers. And it's very interesting to see how this profession is changing, as it has become much more prominent and continues to evolve, especially with COVID. 

How did you become acquainted with Bulgaria Innovation Hub? What motivated you to join as a mentor?

I've been working with the Bulgaria Innovation Hub for three years now. I met Bogomil Balkansky through a former coworker of his at VMWare, and bonded over tech startups and photography. He was the one to introduce me to the organization.

I believe that Bulgaria Innovation Hub is about paying forward. It was an opportunity to repay some of the lessons I've learned from Bogomil, other mentors, and my own experience. I was excited to do that. I love being a mentor and a teacher. It's helpful both personally and professionally. The wonderful thing about teaching is that it reinforces your knowledge because, in order to teach others, you need to have a clear understanding of the subject material yourself. It is a great opportunity to communicate with people from different ecosystems. If you work at a company that makes $500M in revenue and you are the only VP of Sales Development, it can be a little bit of an echo chamber, where you're alone with your thoughts. Outside conversations become even more important. It's really gratifying to pay it forward. It's an opportunity to make sure that I continue to be clear about what we do and why we do it, and how it helps. I'm grateful to have Bogomil and Pavlina in my network and I'm excited to help them anytime I can.

What do you teach founders who are part of the BIH accelerator?

The main question I try to answer is - when is the right time to start a sales development team? At the onset, we start from the value a sales development team adds to a company. During the course of the program, we talk about what founders should be looking for when setting the team up, at which point on their maturity curve they should be thinking about it, and how a startup can position itself in a way to best leverage a sales development team.

What are the repeatable behaviors or patterns that successful founders follow? 

Successful founders are ones that are leveraging a network of peers. They continue to use Bulgaria Innovation Hub to compare and contrast what they're doing. They also take the lead on asking additional questions, both after our mentoring sessions and after the program is over. Such founders develop much more quickly. If they're communicating with each other as peers and understand what that looks like. They are also willing to communicate outside their startup when they have a challenge. They have the humility to come out and say: “Hey, this is a challenge that we're struggling with,” and they tend to solve it a lot faster than the ones that are hiding behind their wall.

How have Bulgarian founders changed over the years?

There's definitely broader interest, especially in this latest cohort, than there was previously.

The questions that I am getting are less theoretical and more applied, which is very good. 

There is certainly more familiarity around sales development as a concept, even before startup founders come into the room. For example, I've gotten a lot more questions lately about ideal personas. I'm seeing more invested founders who reach out for my opinion, fulfilling the purpose as mentors: to share our experiences and expertise.

What advice would you give to the startups from the next BIH cohort?

There is a lot that comes with BIH in terms of innovation, exposure, and experience. It is really important for founders to understand what they're looking to get out of the program. For a startup team, there usually are a couple of major priorities, spheres in which it wants to develop. Be intentional about those priorities prior to the start of the program and prioritize them once you enter the program. Otherwise, you might get overwhelmed and miss some of the things that you really want to dive into and the people you want to interact with at that moment. The program has mentors with wide ranges of experience -- seek to understand the context of the experience to get a sense of how applicable specific advice is for your company. Be as spongy as possible, but do not convince yourself that everything in the curriculum has equal weight for you. Expose yourself to other folks and other businesses, both before and after the program.

Try to engage with mentors as much as you can apart from lectures. Ask additional questions, reach out for idea validation and see what your mentors think about the strategies you have come up with.

Lastly, when it comes to sales development, do not expect immediate results. There are ways to incrementally measure progress, but a lot of that early progress is not going to be ROI, right? You are not going to create booked calls that turned into revenue in the first couple of months. Making the financial conversation to ensure that you can afford the creation of the team. Understand the prerequisites and conditions that we'll cover to make sure you're best leveraging your resources in building your company.

You can apply for the upcoming season of BIH’s go-to-market program here.