Party lovers, nocturnal animals, knowledgeable audiophiles, enthusiastic event-goers, festival freaks, and everybody in between – welcome home.
This new series under the name “The Story After” is where we’re going to be coming together and sharing the stories of the events that changed our lives.
Who is Yasmin Tezdjan?
I am a digital nomad who is currently working in marketing at a couple of really exciting startups (Evedo, Plentix, and Awera) where I do a plethora of things, but my role mostly revolves around copywriting and content. At the moment, I am based in beautiful Sri Lanka. So far I’ve lived in Bulgaria, England, Spain, Indonesia, and Mexico.
Between 2016 and 2019, I studied Business Design, a new kind of degree, at IED Barcelona, and then I went on to study Indonesian language and culture at Udayana University in Bali. The year I spent in Bali (2019-2020) was the best year of my adulthood so far, and it drove me much closer to my ultimate vision for myself and my future.
I like to think of myself as a storyteller who gets to create and write cool stuff for a living. Besides my work, I love traveling, dancing, surfing, laughing, spending time in nature, yoga, reading, having deep conversations with people from all corners of the world, eating tropical fruits, and documenting (or at least trying to) my adventures in photos, videos, and journals. And much more… I’m curious about many things!
I guess I’m a human being who wears many different hats while having a go at everything life has to offer. I’m passionate about personal growth (in which I include mental health and spirituality) and it feels like this topic has now spread all over my life. I love co-creating and attracting beauty, magic, and abundance. I believe in a better world and in our collective potential.
Describe living in the moment with 5 words.
“A state of complete flow.”
You are a digital nomad and work for Plentix from all around the world. What are 3 things that help you adapt fast to a new place?
Securing a comfortable home base is definitely the first step. As I work online full-time, I need a place with a good wifi connection and a comfy area for working (desk or table, proper chair, etc).
Secondly, I like to spend quite a bit of time researching and learning about the place and its local culture. I read articles, watch videos on Youtube, and look at stuff on Instagram. I do this both in advance and while I’m living there.
Lastly, going out there and exploring! That’s the best part. I try making new friends, asking loads of questions, and just seeing how everything works first-hand.
And a fourth one which is so essential anywhere I go – I always try to practice patience, open-mindedness, awareness, and courage.
Tell us about an event that changed your life.
In 2013, I attended a startup event in Sofia with some of my friends. Different people were pitching their ideas in front of a crowd. I didn’t know anyone from the local entrepreneurship scene back then.
Myself and 2 other ladies, Deni and Lora, were developing an idea at the time. We were in high school and we shared a vision to create a co-working cafe type of space where students could work a limited amount of hours (whatever was officially allowed for minors) after school and on the weekends. Besides making a bit of cash and getting that work experience, they would gather together to organize all sorts of interesting events! Workshops, seminars, concerts, all held and coordinated by fellow high schoolers. The main point was to cultivate and build a meaningful community for the local youth. I know it doesn’t sound that innovative but there wasn’t much like it in 2013 Bulgaria.
To be frank with you, we weren’t planning on pitching and we weren’t properly prepared for it. To be even more frank with you, I was wearing my outfit from last night as we had gone to a party with people from school and had stayed up until like 4am or something. After sleeping over at my friend’s house, I had apparently decided it was a good idea to get up and go pitch at some event… Younger Yasmin had a level of confidence and nonchalance which I’m not sure I still have.
We never brought that concept to life but a sweet young man, by the name of Vladi, came to introduce himself once we finished presenting. After what I imagine was a chaotic and noticeably improvised “pitch”, meeting Vladi turned out to be something that completely changed my life for the next decade.
Vladi told us to go meet someone. They told us to go meet someone else. My memory is playing tricks on me, so I’m afraid I can’t track back the entire chain of events, but what matters is that, in the end, we went to have a meeting with Start It Smart (SIS), the first entrepreneurship club in the country.
They were a group of bright, kind, clever, and open-minded folks, 5 to 10 years older than us. We quickly joined their organization where I spent the next 2 years helping with events, attending meetings, and learning about the world of startups from the inside… Everything was new and exciting and the people at SIS were always so encouraging and inspiring! I will be forever grateful for them.
Because of them, I got my first real job, at 17, working at one of the hottest European startups – Enhancv. I spent a couple of years on their amazing team and it 100% influenced the choice I made for my future education. It got me excited about moving to Spain to pursue a degree in Business Design which was a very entrepreneurship-oriented program. That actually turned out to be a bit of a disappointment but that’s a story for another time.
The biggest highlight of this chain reaction is that I am now a part of 2 growing and purpose-driven companies (Evedo & Awera) whose CEOs I initially met and worked with at Start It Smart years ago.
All of this because of an event I went to, feeling pretty clueless and slightly hungover, in the autumn of 2013.
What would your next destination be if you had to pick based on the Event & Entertainment scene?
The States, hands down!
I’ve grown up with American culture, like many of us have, and, even though I have always felt super drawn to Eastern cultures, I would absolutely love to go to The United States. I dream of living in NYC, California, and Hawaii one day for a period of time. There are many things I’d like to experience there that I wouldn’t be able to experience elsewhere.
I’d go to Coachella and Burning Man, watch Jimmy Fallon and other late-night shows live, go see plays on Broadway… I’d go to comedy clubs for standup nights and then dance my way through the tons of hip-hop and R’n’B places they have there. It would be so so fun! Oh, and I also imagine going to some proper old-school Blues bars in the Deep South.
If you had to go back to a country for a specific event, which one would it be?
Primavera Sound in Barcelona! I don’t have tons of festival experience under my belt, but I lived in the glorious Catalan capital for 3 years and I went every year.
As an avid music lover and a retired laptop DJ, Primavera Sound is my jam! If you aren’t familiar, this is an awesome annual music festival held in a place called Parc del Fòrum between the end of May and the beginning of June. The line-up is super spot on for my personal music taste and cool people from all over Europe come together to dance and sing under the warm Spanish sky.
Solange, ASAP Rocky, Tyler The Creator, Skepta, The XX, The Internet, Majid Jordan, and Miguel are some of the incredible artists we were lucky to see live in those couple of years. Oh, and Rosalía in 2019 just as I was graduating from uni! What a night… I cannot go without mentioning her. I couldn’t understand everything she was singing and saying (in Spanish and Catalan), but my face was covered in tears. I adore her artistry.
It felt special and even intimate, regardless of the big crowd, to see her perform in her own city – Barcelona. She’s now an international sensation who performs all over the globe, but I’m sure that performing in Spain, like she shared with all of us that night, will always carry a different significance for her.
Follow Yasmin on Instagram: island.yasmin
The list of people we’ve been eyeing for an interview is getting longer and longer, and you can also be a part of it! This is a space for anyone who’s ever attended an event (whether that’s a digital conference, a yoga retreat, a techno festival, or… you name it!) and has something to say about it.
How did it change your life? What did you learn? Who did you meet? What did you feel? We’ll talk about the connections we’ve made while we continue building new ones. Let’s co-create a memory book full of recollections we’d like to keep forever.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Linkedin and send us a DM with a story about an event that changed your life.
Don’t miss out on the rest of the series and read the previous interview here: The Story After with Vihra Shopova.
