I left home at 19 and moved to another country with no money, no safety net, and no plan.
What I had was an inner certainty that I was meant to build something meaningful.

Since then, I have navigated reinvention many times, across leadership roles, entrepreneurship, personal loss, burnout, and rebuilding from scratch. Those experiences shaped how I lead, how I listen, and how I guide others through change.

Today, I work at the intersection of leadership, human dynamics, and artificial intelligence.

I help leaders and organizations navigate transformation without losing trust, clarity, or their humanity.

I am the CEO of APEK.ai, where we build secure, enterprise-grade Agentic AI and voice solutions that modernize operations while humanizing communication. My work focuses on helping organizations adopt AI in ways that feel intelligent, responsible, and deeply human.

With over 20 years in enterprise transformation, leadership strategy, and reinvention, I bring a perspective that blends technology, psychology, and real-world leadership experience.

⸻

Who I Work With

• Executives and boards navigating AI-driven change
• Leaders in transition who look successful on paper but feel misaligned inside
• Organizations ready to evolve beyond legacy thinking and systems
• Founders and senior leaders preparing for their next chapter of impact

People usually come to me when change stops being theoretical and becomes personal.

⸻

What I Believe

AI will not replace leadership.
But it will expose it.

The future belongs to leaders who can combine intelligence with clarity, technology with trust, and innovation with humanity.

If my work resonates, explore my writing, talks, and leadership resources.
Or reach out if you are looking for a trusted advisor, speaker, or strategic partner during moments of transformation.

Eva Karnaukh

Fractional CFO | Helping Founders Scale Beyond $2M ARR with Strategic Finance & OKRs | Founder @ FounderFirst

There's a point where you just can't wing it anymore.

Usually around $2M ARR.

When growth is real, but messy. When the business works (but the numbers don't fully add up). When pricing gets risky, hiring gets heavy, and suddenly every "quick decision" starts showing up in your burn.

That's where I come in.

I step in as your Fractional CFO to help turn momentum into structure.

We build pricing, capital allocation, operating constraints, and targets the team actually runs on.

Over the last decade, I've worked with 20+ early and growth-stage companies, both VC-backed and bootstrapped, across SaaS, fintech, edtech, and agencies. I've helped scale revenue from $500K to $20M, grow teams from 10 to 200+, and build finance and ops foundations from scratch.

I've been in the room for pivots, layoffs, down rounds, near-bankruptcies, and exits - not as an observer, but owning the financial logic behind what happened next.

In 2024, I founded FounderFirst to go deeper with this work, helping teams build finance that actually supports growth, long before they're ready for a full-time CFO. Since then, we've partnered with 70+ founder-led startups and SMBs, including leading accelerators and venture studios.

That's the professional story. Here's the real one.

I grew up in Dimitrovgrad, Bulgaria - no English, no tech exposure, no obvious path.

At 17, I taught myself English.
At 19, I earned a scholarship to study in the U.S.

I arrived with a suitcase, less than $300, and no backup plan, and did whatever scrappy thing it took to stay afloat.

Eventually, I found my way into startups. The chaos, the ownership, the pressure, for the first time, I felt like I fit.

What started as survival became a decade of building behind the scenes.

Now I bring all of it - the scrappiness, the strategy, and the systems - to founders who are ready for real financial leadership.

When I'm not deep in spreadsheets or board decks, you'll find me hiking a national park or nose-deep in a book. (Always open to recommendations.)

If the next set of decisions actually matters, let's talk: https://bit.ly/3NEYTqT

Mariya Valeva

He was born in one of the poorest countries in the world.
And he built a $9.5 billion company…
and made his product free.

Luis von Ahn grew up in Guatemala, a country where most kids drop out of school by age 12.
Where learning English could change your life,
if you could afford it.
His mother was a single parent. A doctor.
She spent everything she had on him.
When he was 8, she bought him a computer instead of a vacation.
He started coding. And dreaming.
But dreaming wasn’t enough.

To get into college in the U.S., he needed to take the TOEFL exam,
but it wasn’t even offered in Guatemala.
So he crossed the border. Paid in foreign currency.
Took a test that said, “prove you're good enough… if you can afford it.”

He never forgot that moment.
He made it. Barely.

Graduated summa cum laude. 
Got a PhD. 
Invented CAPTCHA. 
Sold reCAPTCHA to Google.

He could’ve stayed in Silicon Valley forever.
Instead, he built Duolingo.
Not as a product.
As revenge on a system that made kids feel small for being poor.

He poured years into it. The early versions flopped.
Gamification was a desperate pivot. Investors pulled out.
People laughed at the idea of making it free.
But he didn’t stop.
He hired people smarter than him.
He fought for funding.
He spent sleepless nights tweaking tiny things - the streak, the owl, the sound a notification makes.
Because every time he wanted to give up, he remembered 16-year-old Luis.
On a bus to another country.
Trying to take a test he could barely afford… just to be seen.

Today, that same boy runs one of the most powerful education companies in the world:
📱 500M+ users
🌍 Courses in 40+ languages
📈 $9.5B valuation
💸 Still free
But the numbers aren’t the win.
The win is this:
A kid in rural India is learning English - for free.
A refugee in Germany is learning the local language - for free.
A girl in Guatemala doesn’t have to leave her country to chase her dreams.
Because Luis already did that for her.

This isn’t just a story about a startup.
It’s a story about a man who turned every closed door into an open platform.
An empire, built not on profit,
but on principle.

Fractional CFO for B2B SaaS ($2M+ ARR) | Founder @FounderFirst

Ever had a “brilliant idea”…
that never turned into anything?

Ideas are exciting.
They come with clarity, momentum, and that rush of this could really work.

But turning an idea into something real?
That’s the part no one prepares you for.
Because between idea and execution lives a messy middle:
• Trade-offs you didn’t expect
• Constraints that aren’t in the slide deck
• Systems that don’t talk to each other
• Models that work beautifully… until they meet real customers
• People problems, tech problems, money problems, all at once

Execution is rarely a straight line.
It’s craftsmanship.
And that means rethinking, rewriting, rebuilding - again and again.

The idea is just the spark.
But building? That’s the fire you have to keep feeding.
So if you’re in the weeds right now, keep going.
This is the part where the real product - and the real company - gets made.

*video credits: growasentrepreneurs insta

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The Battle

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