Not moving away from Greece.
I was born and raised in Athens, Greece.
When I graduated, I had the chance to move to Sweden or the UK.
But I decided to stay.
I didn’t take this decision because I had a vision or knew what I was doing.
It was just the easiest thing for me . I was playing safe.
But, you would say that this was not the best decision.
In 2010, Greece was under a great recession. No jobs. No money. No opportunities.
Despite there were—and still are— great multimillion startups in Greece, I didn’t have a network back then.
To be honest, I haven’t even heard the term “startup.”
But, I stayed. With no plan.
When I graduated I worked as a bartender to make ends meet.
I wasn’t happy and wanted to do something else.
I started looking for a tech job.
Very few people called me for an interview. So, I decided to learn programming. I took some classes on Udacity and Coursera. I mastered databases and scripting languages, like Python.
8 months later a software company called me. After 2 tests and 3 interviews, they finally hired me.
Things I’ve lost
- I would have got a job faster
- Better salary
- Better network
- More opportunities
- Who knows what else?
Things I’ve won
- I met Theodoros Moulos . He was the CEO of the company and a great mentor to me
- Travelled to more than 6 countries in a single year
- Gained a ton of experience. I started as a junior consultant whose main task was support and documentation. Then I became the Product Lead for the marketing automation platform we were developing
3 years later, I left my job and co-founded a growth marketing agency and a venture-backed startup with customers all over the world. With Theodore 🙂
When you take a decision, you really don’t know if it’s the right one.
What would happen if I have moved abroad?
I might be a multimillionaire, or just broke.
No matter the choices you make, if you have a clear goal, you will get there.
Just do it.