Nathaniel T (Interviewer): Introduce yourself here today.

 

Elias Tefarikis: Yes, my name is Elias Tefarikis, I’m the founder and CEO of the company Smyrna Labs. 

 

Nathaniel T: All right, so what is your current profession, and what does it look like day to day? 

 

Elias Tefarikis: Well, my current profession, I would say, well, my position is, you know, the CEO of the company. My profession is, I have a bachelor's in education. I got a master's degree in education and also a master's degree in technology entrepreneurship. My work is basically working with technology startups that are looking to, you know, work with big corporations, and on the other side, big corporations are looking to innovate, you know, along with these startups in different types of technologies. I work with startups in the electromobility industry, startups that are having new solutions for the health tech industry, some fintechs (financial technology) as well. So it doesn't matter which industry I work with, the basic focus is to help the corporations, which are my clients, to find technologies that can help them to innovate, that's my main work.

 

Nathaniel T: What do you enjoy most about your work? 

 

Elias Tefarikis: Oh nice, well what I enjoy the most is like I'm able to see different types of challenges, you know, if you work with, I'm not just working in one specific thing all the time, because sometimes I work, let me give you like maybe specific examples. I work with the electromobility startup that was trying to, you know, bring their solution to convert engines to hybrid engines, you know, half gasoline and half electric. And on the other side, I have a client, a big corporation in the cement industry, that was looking to have that technology for the trucks they used to, you know, shipping, and do the deliveries. So if you don't have all the money, I mean if you have all the money in the world, obviously you can go and buy like trucks for $120,000 or $150,000, hundred percent fully electrical, etc. but if you're not able to do that, you need to come up with a solution that is a midpoint if we can put it in those words. So I helped to design all of these types of things in order to, for one side, the startup was able to get this new client, scale up, you know, be in business, growth, and on the other side, the big corporation was able to reduce their CO2 emissions and also to bring this new technology. So that was the type of project that's something that I never, you know, done before. So it’s very flexible, it’s very interesting, you know, so that was one of the specific things, and also now another project that I'm working with, it's a coincidence, it’s a cement industry as well. I met a professor in a specific university that is trying to create a new, I would say like, additive for cement that helps the cement to not break so easily in specific conditions, you know. So in this case, I'm helping to connect them to the industry a little bit as well, but also, I'm helping the researcher who has, you know, great skills in doing research, but not all the skills to go to the market. So that's another type of project that I'm working with, just to give it to you, so flexibility for me is one of the most interesting parts. 

 

Nathaniel T: So, after college and high school, what has your career path looked like to get to where you are today? 

 

Elias Tefarikis: Well I, to be honest, I didn't know what to do. I wasn't very, I wasn't very clear of what to do, but maybe I started a little bit differently than the usual. With a big friend of mine, we decided to have our own business. So I founded a company when I was 24 years old, or 23 I guess, you know, with a focus on education, entrepreneurship, and innovation, trying to teach young people from high school, actually, with different tools, you know, to help them develop their entrepreneurial and innovation skills. I was the partner of that business for more than ten years, and we did different things, like we created magazines, we did workshops, we did consultancy, then we created the games that I mentioned to you before. But everything was related with that, try to teach, facilitate the process to get those new skills in high school. After that, I decided that, I was living at that time, I was living in South America, in Chile specifically, and I decided that I wanted to do something more international to help me maybe in other industries and countries, so I moved to live in the US, almost 9 years ago. At the beginning, and I was 30-something at that time, so that was the first time I applied for a job in a big corporation, and I started working for a big corporation, that is called the Inter-American Development Bank. And with that, I was more in the public side, I'm sorry, in the public policy side of entrepreneurship and innovation, so I was working with 12, 13 countries, developing countries, that were trying to have better policies in order to create more entrepreneurs and innovators in their country. I worked with them for a couple of years, and then I moved to another corporation that is called Telefonica, which is like T-Mobile or AT&T in the US., the Telefonica i's based in Spain. So with them, I was working specifically in an area that’s called corporate venture capital. I worked with them a couple years doing kinda the same thing in terms of connecting big corporations with startups and helping corporations with how to innovate. When I finished that work, I decided to found two, sorry to found again, this, my company that’s called Smyrna Labs, and that's where I work in now.

 

Nathaniel T: All right, so through that path, what like connections, internships, programs, or even your work experiences, have helped to get to where you are today.

 

Elias Tefarikis: That's a good question, you know, you never, you never know, I think my mindset was I want to learn things from different types of people from different types of experiences, and I always pushed myself, and I think that's a great part when you decide to be an entrepreneur to have your own business, you know. I'm not saying that working for a corporation, to an office, government, or something like that is bad, of course it is not. It depends on what you wanna do. But when you work, let's say in a company, and just to give you an example, let's say like you are an analyst or you a program analyst, it is perfect. I mean if the company is good, you are gonna be able to grow to, you know, get money to do a lot of things, but to put it in these words, the court where you're gonna play is gonna be very specific, you know, because you are an analyst in this particular thing. When you are an entrepreneur and you're on the other side, especially at the beginning, you get to do everything, you know, different things. Because obviously you don't have the money, so if you have to code, you gotta code; if you gotta sell, you gotta sell; if you got to go to your workshop and facilitate that experience to use your technology, you gotta do that. You gotta be an accountant a little bit, also. So there are so many different types of skills that, in general, in a big corporation or a company, you got people with specific names doing that. Here, it's probably you and your partners, one, two, three, depending on how many you got. So for me, that was a key experience because that was my mindset, I was very focused on learn, from all this different stuff. Obviously, I wasn't good at all of those ones, of course, you know, finally, you find better people to do that job. But at the beginning, that gave me, I would say, the strength, you know, and the confidence to say OK, I'm gonna do this business, I'm gonna have to do something that nobody taught me before, you know, when I went to college nobody told me this, but I think I have the tools to try to, how to do it, you know. And nobody in college told me how to do magazines, for example, I wasn't studying communication. Nobody told me also how to do like board games and then digital games. I mean, I had to learn by myself, I had to bring people aboard to do it, you know, I would say that is, in my point of view, a key element for professional success, and professional success in life as well. 

 

Nathaniel T: So, back in high school, what were your career aspirations, and at that point, were you interested in STEM? 

 

Elias Tefarikis: Oof, to be honest, I was very lost. I didn't know what to do, but I guess it was one of the, I think one of the key elements for me in high school that helped me to have at least a discipline to find my path was that I was a very, very big athlete, you know, I was an athlete. I was a basketball player, and I was very disciplined, you know, I used to practice every day, even if I wasn't the best, you know. For basketball, I'm very short, you know, 5’8, 5’9, which is very short for basketball, but in the team that I was playing with, I had, you know, some chances to play, and it was very decisive to get those chances, so I was very disciplined. That helped me a lot, you know, even if I didn't know what to do, you know, I wasn't very, also, because I didn't finish my high school here, so in the country that was I was living in, which was Chile, it's a little bit different, you know. Here in the US, you are able to start to find that part before, you know, doesn't mean that you're gonna find it, but you can do it before, you know. Back home, especially like more than 20-something years ago, it was more difficult, you know, to do that. You have to decide OK, I'm gonna be an engineer, all right, I'm gonna be this or that, you know. Here, you got more flexibility, you are able to do different things, so for someone like me who wasn’t very clear of what to study, what to do, you know, this being an athlete helped me a lot with my discipline.

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Nathaniel T: All right, so, like, I mean, you said you were kind of lost back then in high school, and do you think you had done any STEM-related activities, classes, or internships? 

 

Elias Tefarikis: If I did if or If I would? 

 

Nathaniel T: If you had.

 

Elias Tefarikis: I didn't have to do any of those things to be honest. I was very, you know, I love sports, but I love technology, so I used to, you know, like look for, you know, understand how to, how do you say, how to build things or how to connect things, with my brother we used to do that as well. So I was kind of in the tech side, more like a practitioner who was trying to fix things, but I guess that helped me with some knowledge. At that time, there was a very famous magazine. I forgot the name, it was like something like mechanics or, well something like that, I forgot the name. I'm sorry it was like a long time ago, but it was like engineering and mechanics or mechanics something, and I used to buy that magazine, you know. I remember that I used to buy like the NBA magazine and also this like technology magazine, you know. And from that I was able to understand, you know, some concepts or, you know, if you wanna fix this, try doing that, you know, that time it was like the YouTube at that time, you know, and that helped me, you know. And then well, I would say that was pretty much what I did that helped me a lot, like practicing things, you know, like being very practical in terms of, you know, grab a, I don't know, like a walkie-talkie that wasn't working, I'll try to fix them, you know, those things gave me some skills.

 

Nathaniel T: So if you could go back to high school, would you have done anything differently to prepare yourself for what you're doing now, or maybe wish somebody had told you something specific? 

 

Elias Tefarikis: Yeah, that's a good question, you know, I would be, to be honest, more decisive in terms of deciding a discipline in terms of what to pursue in terms of a good mix of what the market needs and what do I like. I think, finally, I don't regret nothing like that. But if I had more information in terms of what the market needs, so on, what are my skills, I would probably, you know, pick something different in terms of my bachelor's. I would do something different, you know, sometimes I think about it, but after that, I say, look, now I have these skills, what can I do with these skills in order to add some value, you know, but definitely I would do that differently. 

 

Nathaniel T: So obviously again you said you had been lost in high school, but did you ever expect to be where you are now, or back then, or maybe college? 

 

Elias Tefarikis: If I expected to be where I am now? 

 

Nathaniel T: Yeah.

 

Elias Tefarikis: To be honest, yes, I think, but not in terms of, you know, how rich can you be, how much money you can get, you know, because those kinds of things, you know, there are people with high skills in that, and obviously it's great if you have them. But I wasn't very clear in that, I was more clear that I'm able to do things now that [back then] I don't think that I can do, and always that was my mindset, always was, and still is that, OK, I don't know how to do this, but I can learn. And that was my mindset, even now, there is a very famous psychologist, her name is Carol Dweck. She's a professor at Stanford, and she has this concept which is very famous. She has wrote like a couple of books about this that is called the mentality, and they're like two types of mentality that she calls: one is growth mindset, and the other one is fixed mindset. Fix mindset, for example, if you had to solve a mathematical problem and you don't know how to do it, your answer will be, “I don't know how to do it,” OK? And if you are in a growth mindset, or if you have that, for the same problem, you will say, “I don't know how to do it, yet,” and that's the key. And I think with that information now of the psychologist that I didn't have before, I feel that I've been living my life always in a growth mindset stage, you know. I don't know how to do this yet, I can learn, or I don't know how to do it, I'm not gonna learn it because I can't or whatever the reason is, I'm gonna find someone who knows how to do it, you know, So I've been, I believe that brought me here, And also, I think the second part that brought me here in terms of what I do is that always, I guess in my case, because my parents, my grandparents were immigrants, you know, Greek immigrants. For me, that helped me to like, try to see the world, always. So today I got clients from, you know, European, different countries in Europe, from the U.S., from many countries in Latin America, and I'm even working with several projects in different things, not just here in the US but internationally, and that, I love that, because I'm able to see myself, you know, helping in the things that I do in different countries. 

 

Nathaniel T: So we've already been kind of leading into this, but what are some tips or things that a high school student could do right now to explore your profession or your discipline? 

 

Elias Tefarikis: That's a good question. I will say a couple of things. First, don't waste your time the whole day on your phone, you know, obviously internet, social networks are things that are incredible, but not everything is there. That's one of the things, you know, the second one I would say is just implement things, you know, take the things and put it on the field, you know. In theory, everybody can do anything, you know, but go to the field, whatever the field you are, like sports, mathematics, engineering, you know, biology, whatever the thing is that you like and go for and try to test what you're doing in the field. The third one, you gotta envision what you wanna do, and this is very difficult because you have a vision of someone, of this person you wanna be, it takes time. And I think that's important to, and, you know, try to do things, right? To learn new things. Today, it is very different than my time, you know, you got YouTube, you got so many things that you can learn online, and do it, you know. I would say that, and sometimes also you gotta have like flexibility, flexibility in terms of sometimes you want one path, let's say you're in high school and you say OK, I wanna be a doctor. All right, perfect, OK, just go for it. But if something happened in the middle, you can choose another thing, you know, because of whatever the reason. And, I don't know if this is number four or number five, in order to do this, you gotta work very, very, very hard. Nothing is gonna be easy. I know that's not the best news for everybody, you know. But it's not gonna be easy, if you're gonna, if you wanna get something in your life, you're gotta work very hard.

 

Nathaniel T: So, for my last question, what do you think are, some advice, pieces of advice that you’d give for somebody that's already started working on your profession, or maybe entering the workforce, in college, but basically already set on their path? What do you think are some things that they could do to really tone down and get like, specific? 

 

Elias Tefarikis: Sure, I think there are several, and for different things, you know. One, in terms of you need to find challenges and problems to solve, you know, that's if you wanna work with a corporation, it doesn't matter the technology, doesn't matter like super fast, it’s AI or whatever, yeah that's perfect, but what's the problem you are solving with this, what's the problem? Do you really know the problem you are solving in a company? What is the problem? Is it productivity, is it efficiency, whatever the problem they have. Ask for the problem and try to understand the problem, because if you understand the problem, you're gonna be able to bring a potential solution for that customer. And that took me years, years, to understand that, you know. It seems easy, but it wasn't very easy for me at least, so that's one of the things in terms of the problem. The second one, I would say, like iterate fast, I mean, if you go there, if you try to sell something, and if you create something. For whatever the reason, you don't see that it's advancing, you know, ask the right question, gather all the information you can get, but if that is not gonna work, OK, shift, period. Try to go, I'm not saying just do that, like one day after you try, of course not, the time, you never know the time, could be one month, six months, one year. It doesn't, it's not specific, but you can iterate, and in those iterations, you're gonna maybe find another solution, and that's I think a very important element. The third one I would say is communication, selling skills, is something that you need to learn. People think that sales skills are like, “Oh, you're gonna try to sell me everything, you know, even if it doesn't work, you're a scam” or something like that. No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about like when you have like good communication skills, selling skills, you are able to influence other people. For a transactional sell, yeah, “it's $9.99, it's $1,000”, I don't know, “it's 10,000”, OK. Yeah, that's their transaction over there. But then also you are able to influence people, and I think that is very important too, because that can give you opportunities in life. Either if you are applying for a new position in the company you're working with, or if you are selling because you already have your own business, you know, you can try to, you know, get or close more deals with those skills, and I think that is very important as well.

 

Nathaniel T: Alright, that's all that I have for today. Thanks so much for your time. 

 

Elias Tefarikis: Absolutely Nathaniel, thank you.