Randomness in my life gave birth to the most conscious education venture.

I had performed over 100 surgeries on chicken cadavers by the time I had reached Grade 10. I kid you not.

A bit weird; I know. Let me clarify. I grew up in the sun-drenched island of Crete in a family of doctors and lawyers. With plans to follow in the preordained family path of becoming a doctor– and because the only way to get better at a trade is with practice, I exercised my surgery talents on anything that was about to become part of the family lunch menu.

But alas, like with most of the best-laid plans you make when you are young, life happens and dreams change. By my last years of high school, I discovered my love for numbers. I ran into this inspirational economics teacher, named Sophocles, and the first family shock came when I decided to deviate from the family plan & move to Athens to study economics & business. I was a good student. I earned seven scholarships to pursue post-graduate studies abroad.

Over the next years, I treated my schooling and early professional life like a travelling journey — learning and absorbing as much insight as I could from people along the way. Taking steps forward in my professional life opened up new worlds of opportunity, and being open to serendipity provided me with experiences at every stop along the way; Beijing, Columbus, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Madrid, London & again New York. At my 28 I finally had to leave the US and come back to my country to serve the army & my Fulbright 2-year requirement. Once again life itself brought me in front of a new reality. It was though the first time that I had the time to take some distance from my adventurous but “noisy” journey. I was called to fully shape the conditions by myself and make a clear decision about what makes me tick, without having to pursue a pre-designed career status path.

My time in the army was an obligatory “pause” moment, which made me think: I was taking my most critical decisions at important junctures in the journey quite randomly. Most times, it was luck that brought me to the people who acted as authentic role models, walking me through the next stages of my life, which I considered milestones toward accomplishing success, as my end goal.

On Success and Conscientiousness

Here’s the thing: success requires mentors. Now, I don’t mean this in a cliche, self-help type of way.

To the best of our scientific knowledge, human life has no meaning. The hard fact is that people need inspiration to have any sort of meaningful direction to their personal and professional lives.

But first, before we dive into my core philosophy of why mentorship and success are tied so closely together, let’s define success. In this day and age – a world filled with trite “millennial/Gen X,Y,Z in the workplace” articles and “take charge of your life” blog posts – success is a frequently referenced end goal but rarely defined. Why? Because at the core of it, success means something different to every person.

To me, success means you are mindfully embarking on your own personal mission. My core belief is that success is directly attributed to having high levels of consciousness in what you do every day. And no, “consciousness” does not mean “live in the moment” or just showing up. “Consciousness” means being aware of your environment and all the choices available to you, so that you can make the responsible decision ... which, let’s face it, most of the times it is not the “right way” that the pack follows, or the way that is preached to you in traditional frameworks of education and society. Conscious means authentic. Your inner world aligns to your outside one; your attitude to the others. And you become more humble & open to the world.

Now, how does mentorship play into all this?

Well, it is simple; you have greater chances to break your “bubbles” and become more humble as you get to work with leaders from the other side of the ocean or craftsmen from the village nearby, carrying their own backgrounds, traditions & absolute truths.

Once you reach this prerequisite, you then have good chances to clearly see what makes you dream, setting aside all stereotypes that confuse you. And this is the starting point for building a bold mission which you will religiously pursue, no matter what the circumstances are. Mentors are the raw material of our faith.

Often times, we must not only be mentored by inspiring role models but also act as a mentor to others. In mentoring others, we rebuild our history, by narrating & sharing our experiences. It allows us to retrace our steps and relive the story we have created for stories, understanding that success was not as objective or linear as we once thought it to be.

Perhaps “success” is not the best term anymore to express high levels of intellectual humility.

The language itself has to change.

Where better to start the world’s most conscious business than...

In 2014 Greece was sinking into endless economic despair and social confusion. Without great opportunities in the corporate world, I did not have any objective measures of success like salary or status to distract me. So, I seized the opportunity to define the kind of man I wanted to be.

After 28 years of journeying across the world – learning by way of academic programs, various jobs, and creating communities – to eliminate the randomness in my life decisions, the mission became clear. Empower students to consciously take their once-in-a-lifetime decisions. My goal was to build the tool I wished I had when I was younger, to enable the world’s youth - those whose shoes I have been in many times before- to embark on their own journeys to self-discovery, in a safe, non-intimidating environment.

My team & I made a draft business model of 100mentors and started involving the first group of educators & students.

The 100mentors Journey

We started out by connecting individuals with mentors, providing a tool to parents, students, and individuals (B2C) who would subscribe and gain access to the mentor network. Eventually, we realized that this model was only available to the world’s elite, the people who could afford it on an individual basis. So, we shifted our model to connecting schools with mentors. This turned the business into a B2B SaaS model, allowing us to sell directly to schools rather than individuals, significantly reducing the cost to each student.

From here, our impact increased, but it was still not the reach we were hoping for. After various pivots to our business model, 100mentors finally became the go-to-SaaS education technology for hundreds of schools, currently across 17 countries. In the final iteration, we changed our model so that students – no matter where they are or what their resources are – can open up their perspectives far beyond their pre-existing inner circles of role models.

Today, we see educators bringing inspiring mentors into their classrooms every day. Whether it is...

• a NASA engineer explaining the practical applications of physics to a science class,
• a museum director in Rome exploring ancient architecture with a history class,
• a jazz virtuoso sharing his techniques with a music class, or even
• a TED speaker with millions of views giving life advice

Students, in Namibia or the Maldives, are engaging with mentors that they never before dreamed of meeting.

Of course, even for such an inspiration-driven product, it was not all empowering and serendipitous moments starting out. For a period time, we actually had more mentors than mentees – I gave myself a deadline; if mentors still outnumbered mentees in three months, I would stop the business.

Now, we have over 2,500 vetted mentors for 21,000 registered students, and we are working hard to hit our next milestone: 100K students. We want every young mind, whether they’re located in the most remote Asian island or African village, to be able to leverage the 100mentors technology and network to design their own learning journeys.

In practice the students:

1. select their target industries/fields of interest/organisations/research centres
2. choose mentors or alumni per organisation and per session-topic
3. pre-set the agenda of the sessions taking place in their classroom
4. participate live in the session & ask the mentor questions on the spot
5. measure the impact of the session & shape the next sessions by reviewing the experience and by enriching the pool of mentors per school, based on the data dashboard.

Why Greece?

Let me clarify; our educators and our EdTech leaders & advisors are scattered around the best universities & learning organisations worldwide. Our mentors come from 44 countries and follow 15 different Gods/religions or spiritual alternatives.

But we selected to develop our operations & engineering base in my country, Greece.

Many people ask me why. The question is a common one because Greece is now coming out of an economic crisis worse than the Great Depression, GDP-wise.

But, in spite of all this, and perhaps, at times, because of all this... there are some real advantages that need mentioning. Here are a few facts about Greece that may surprise you.

1. Great entry-level talent pool. Greek universities are powerhouses for engineering and business talent. In Greece, university graduates crave international business experience and are armed with a skillset and thirst for taking ownership. 100mentors is three years old now, and we are already an employer of choice for the best students and graduates from the top Greek universities.
2. Unbeatable weather, food, and lifestyle. What else is there to say? When it comes to quality of life, Greece has every other country beat. Greece is affordable and safe, with excellent weather and warm people. People help each other here. It’s informal and human.

Of course, I’m not blind to the problems here either. There are some great difficulties when it comes to doing business in Greece, and solving them is going to be a massive effort between government and society.

Greece is an amazing place to launch a business, but a challenging environment to grow it. Here are some key reasons why.

1. Bureaucracy. The legal framework is not optimal – and in many instances, directly works against – companies trying to generate profit and reinvest their capital into new talent. It’s sad, and relies far too heavily on informal rules and a silo mentality.
2. Taxation. It comes as no surprise that the economic climate also poses great obstacles to burgeoning businesses. Capital controls prevent cash flow and investment in international growth, while taxation laws are extremely fickle, changing year over year. Taxation is high, which under certain macroeconomic assumptions, makes sense in the middle of such a depression, but it is not rewarding in terms of social goods, without offering incentives to low and medium incomes & the youth to create value.
3. Lack of senior talent. Top managers, scientists and thinkers have left the country to make a bigger paycheck elsewhere or more efficiently focus on their fields of interest.
4. Brain drain. Relatedly, brain drain is a massive problem. Greeks want to stay but the conditions force far too much talent abroad. It’s not only the salary but also the general sense of fairness and justice. Do people feel their talent and hard work are being rewarded here? Often not. Does playing by the books & focusing on your business get you further? Not always. And this is a big, ugly problem.

Lessons Learned

From operating on dead poultry on a Greek island, to building a global EdTech company ... I would be remiss if I didn’t share a few of the lessons I’ve learned along the way. In the spirit of mentorship here they are.

1. Listen, but sort. I am not quite talented, but I am a persistent listener. I give great attention to everyone I work with – my team, my peers, my mentors, and primarily, our end-users (educators and students). Although I pay close attention to everyone I speak to, it does not mean I give the same amount of time to everyone :)
2. Work with smarter people than you. That quote about never being the smartest person in the room? Intellectual humility is the number one trait at 100mentors. Be bold in accepting your weaknesses and create space for others to thrive. When you manage your ego, miracles are on the way!
3. Take people under your wing. Well, mentoring people is our guiding principle at 100mentors! We empower our peers so that they feel confident enough to ultimately go beyond any comfort zones and discover their real inclinations, what makes them tick & thrive.

We provide the most forward-thinking schools with the tools to prepare their students for the workplace of tomorrow and we, ourselves, in 100mentors, strive to apply the above principles to offer such a workplace for our growing team.

This article is part of a series highlighting Greek entrepreneurs defying the financial crisis. To read more stories, click here.