Founding Story

Steve grew up in a poor family in South Africa. His father left them when Steve was 2. Steve’s mom worked 2 jobs to bring up 4 boys.

At the age of 18, through a stroke of serendipity, Steve had the opportunity to work next to a leading South African entrepreneur. As his “bag carrier” Steve would say. Little by little, Steve got more responsibility. After 2 years, he had built the confidence and ambition to start his own business.

Fast forward 33 years later, Steve is one of the leading entrepreneurs of South Africa.

George Hadjigeorgiou (founder of e-food.gr and zoe.com) is a friend of Steve. When he heard his story, it viscerally touched him. George wished that he as well had the opportunity as a young child to work next to such an entrepreneur and to build the confidence and ambition that his conservative Greek upbringing was lacking.

George tried the concept in practice at ZOE in 2020 with Abu and that worked great in - it was 9 months in total and by month 3 Abu was running their Zoe Covid app with more than 5 million users.

In 2024, George decided to pilot this initiative in his native in Greece with the kind support of SEV’s Innovative Greeks and 5 leading tech entrepreneurs.