It’s our pleasure to introduce our next lady in our professional women series and give you the scoop on how she built her professional career. She and her partners are making a serious impact on various industries with.

Meet Bea Borzási one of the co-founders of 6:20 chili nights. Born and raised in Transylvania, Romania where she experienced the Eastern culture of Hungary. Bea moved to Budapest about 10 years ago in pursuit of her studies in data science and it is also the field she works in today.

Q. What Did you have for breakfast?

“I did not have breakfast because tomorrow I would be leaving for the United States and I currently have so many things on my To Do List to accomplish, so I just grab my cup of coffee and moved on.”

It was a very fun and interesting interviewing Bea cause after we started off about breakfast and how she missed hers on that day we got into how important this meal is to have even when your schedule is busy. Our little breakfast chat turned into a small confession segment When I admitted to missing breakfast on most days which is not a good way on starting a productive day knowing it’s significant importance.

We kept the interview flowing what the next question where Bea shared with us how she started her own business with her friend after University.

Q. When did entrepreneurial bug first bit you?

“Well, it is a bit of a complex question because the business part of course started at University when I was studying IT for business. There I attended case study competitions and I had to understand the whole process of how a company makes money and the connection between departments, different business models, and where IT and data are connected. When I came home from the United States, I realize how different the entrepreneurial mindset is in Hungary, so I had a conversation with a friend, a fellow alumnus, we started talking about the difference is that we have noticed and decided to do something about it. That’s the first time we decided that we have to bring and teach the different business cultures here in Hungary from what we have learned at University and from our time in the United States.”

We continue talking about the business plan and the impact they wanted to have when it all started in 2015. We went into the conflicts Hungry has had over the years with its neighbors and some of the things that were taught when she was younger.

“One off the things I remember from growing up is that some parents would teach their kids to keep their failures and successes to themselves, because if we are successful there are people out there that would try to jeopardize our accomplishments and with hiding our failures, we are protecting our reputation and image from those outside,”  Bea said this to show how most of the mindset of young people in Hungary was different from those in the United States who are proud of both success and failure because it is a learning factor especially when you share them with others, and this is something I strongly agree on. She and her friend then went on to create a community to support each other in these business areas and connect entrepreneurs with industry experts and investors where they can ask questions and learn from each other. That’s how 6:20 Chili Night was formed.

Q. How was the process when creating 6:20 Chili Night and the name?

“We decided on the structure first that the speaker would have 6 minutes to present their idea or product of service and in the next 20 minutes, they would receive feedback. We knew that probably among the feedback there would be some hard criticisms that could hurt a little bit just like chili which hurts a bit but a pleasure because of the flavor it adds.”

Q. What do you do to keep motivated on working your business?

“Seeing the direct impact made is already motivational and helps us keep going and working on the next Chili Night event. Also, hearing feedback whether positive or negative shows that people care and are interested and want to make it better and that’s already something to help us improve on our own business model. Even though that we might be tired at times from our full-time jobs, these are just some of the things that keep us going.”

As the time passed in the interview, we discussed a bit more about her full-time job as a Data Mining Analyst for the Chicago based company, boberdoo.com. I ended our interview with the following question:

Q. What are some of the things your spare time?

“Cooking relaxes me, I like hiking and cycling.”

She also gave me some tips on learning how to cycle; yes, I am still learning J, which I would use in the Spring season.

Ps. The first tip was to have some Palinka before I start. You got to love #Hungary.

Advice for readers who are looking to start a business of their own from Bea:

“Find something that makes you happy and you enjoy spending time on it. Keep doing it even if in the beginning it doesn’t provide the kind of income or revenue that you hope for, it is also good to have a job before to help build some financial security. Keep doing and keep improving to be the best in the market then never be cheap. Once you at the level you have clients put a price tag on it because people would see and appreciate the service/product you are providing. This is what happened with Chili Nights, we invested in our business from our own pockets and keep pushing forward and now, we have a grant.”

#womenentrepreneurs #620chilinights #makinganimpact #impacthubBudapest

https://www.linkedin.com/in/beataborzasi/?originalSubdomain=hu

https://www.620chilinights.com/

https://budapest.impacthub.net/