Oliver Yonchev

Yonchev began his career on a BBCBBCThe BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is the United Kingdom’s public broadcaster. Its predecessor was the British Broadcasting Company, formed in 1922, and since 1927 it has been established under a Royal Charter. It provides television, radio, and online services in the UK, is funded mainly by the television licence fee, and broadcasts worldwide in multiple languages through BBC World Service.Open the full entry graduate programme before moving to Bauer Media. In the program he said he grew up in Barnsley and that his first business sold light bulbs online, with the aim of learning the fundamentals of selling on the internet, though he admitted the business was not a success and he had no passion for it.⁠[1][2][2][2]

He joined Social Chain, the Manchester social media marketing company co-founded by Steven Bartlett and Dominic McGregor, when it had about 30 people; about 18 months later he was heading up its UK commercial work, and he then moved to New York to support US growth, spending three years there; he has said that by the time he left, the US was the largest part of Social Chain’s business. He served as managing director of Social Chain.⁠[1][1][1][1][3]

In October 2021 Yonchev left Social Chain to co-found the marketing and communications company Flight Story with Steven Bartlett. He has recalled that the two sat down on August 1, 2021, to discuss what the company could be, initially aiming to change the way companies approach IPOs and communicate with an increasingly influential retail investor base; the company later positioned itself as a global marketing and communications company providing strategy, creative, communications, and performance media services.⁠[1][1][1][1]

In May 2023 Flight Story entered the US market by acquiring Mint Performance Marketing; the US business was renamed Flight Performance and led from its Los Angeles headquarters by Mint’s founder, Daniel James.⁠[3][3][3]

On August 1, 2024, Yonchev announced on LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry that he was closing his chapter at Flight Story, and he formally left in September. He noted that over three years the company had served 213 clients, built teams across four continents, and developed and launched nine products and services, and he thanked Bartlett, with whom he had worked for nearly a decade. When he left, Bartlett bought his 150,000 shares in Flight Story.⁠[1][1][4][1][1][1][5]

In November 2024 Yonchev, together with former Social Chain board member Paul Stevens, G-Force Media founder and CEO James Lawson Baker, and others, launched cocreatd, a venture studio for the marketing and creative industries that co-founds and incubates start-ups from day zero. By November 2024 cocreatd had made two investments and planned to invest in ten more companies before the end of 2025.⁠[4][5][6][6][6][4]

In July 2025 cocreatd’s first venture, System7.ai, which helps marketing and sales teams use AI, was acquired by Vault PLC for a seven-figure sum. Yonchev believes that giving top talent a worthy mission, providing true co-founder support rather than just investment, and backing it with a community of like-minded people can achieve unthinkable results.⁠[5][5][5]

On February 22, 2026, The Venture RoomThe Venture RoomThe Venture Room is a UK entrepreneurial media brand centered on the YouTube channel @theventureroom. Through long-form interviews with founders and street interviews such as “Asking Millionaires How They Got Rich?”, it presents entrepreneurs’ stories and advice to aspiring business owners, and runs an entrepreneur community and brand partnerships.Open the full entry released a street interview filmed in Marylebone, London. Yonchev said his first million came from about a decade of hard work building skills, with his eventual break coming from building a business; he recalled joining Social Chain, moving to the US with the company and going through its IPO, and starting a company with Bartlett, and said he now incubates new companies with several new partners, being “in the business of starting new businesses.”⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2]

“Learn AI and automation, and offer your work for free at first.” He believes every business is thinking about how to embrace AI, that anyone can learn to build automations from YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry in a few weeks, then reach out to businesses and offer the work for free; even if it cannot be monetized right away, you will have built something someone wanted (at 15:22 in the video).⁠[2][2][2][2]

“Learn how to prompt.” He believes prompts embody human ingenuity and that a growing share of online content starts with a prompt, making prompting a valuable skill (at 17:26 in the video).⁠[2][2]

“What you work hard on is more consequential than how hard you work.” He said some of his biggest outcomes did not come from his hardest work but from leverage built up over his career through time, resources, and network; his hardest work was at the beginning, when he worked on himself and his own skills (at 17:32 in the video).⁠[2][2][2]

cocreatd: Official website: https://cocreatd.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[6]