Stefan is only 28 but has already had a whirlwind of a life. Ever since he finished Sofia’s Spanish-language high school, he’s lived in three countries, earned a university degree, discovered his vocation, helped build a company, and gone through the intense experience of looking for funding in California for his startup, Swipes. He spent his early 20s believing that a person is the sole factor for his own success; he looked up to the individualism of English-speaking countries. He was convinced he’d leave Bulgaria and would never come back.
A decade later, after the wind subsided and the dust settled, he knows one thing: no one is really self-made. Over the years, Stefan understood he owed much of what he is to the people who nurtured, educated, and supported him, to the place where he grew up. And he really missed Bulgaria. This is why, in 2015, he decided to abandon expat life and moved back to his hometown, Sofia. Ever since, he has dedicated himself to giving back to the country that helped make him—and to showing young people that Bulgaria is worth coming back to.
For the past three years, Stefan has actively worked with youth to provide them with the tools and knowledge “to find their place sooner than I did. I want them to make the journey I completed in ten years in half this time,” he says. He lectures on design and generously offers education and career advice to teenagers. Two years ago, he signed up to mentor high schoolers in the largest one-on-one mentoring program in Bulgaria, ABLE Mentor. The program pairs high school students with professionals to work, in teams of two, on projects of the students’ choosing. Some of the projects to come out of the program are a documentary short, a clothes boutique, a DNA study, and a mentorship platform for orphans.
Stefan has taken part in every ABLE Mentor season since 2016, helping one student create a food blog, and another tell the stories of buskers on video, while a third student worked on her first animated short film under his mentorship. When one mentee dropped out of the program, he was not disheartened. Instead, he said he was happy the student learned what it takes to work on a real-life project and made the grown-up decision to pull out after realizing that she would not be able to juggle schoolwork and an extracurricular activity. “It is important to set the right expectations. I sometimes let them set very high expectations because I forget what it is like to be a beginner,” Stefan says.
Although doing mentoring right takes time and work, Stefan thinks that helping those who are just starting out is the only worthwhile thing in the long run. “This is the least our generation can do. We have unprecedented access to information, resources, and freedom to act. We are responsible to ourselves, our parents, and the next generations for building a better Bulgaria,” Stefan says. “I believe our country can be a wonderful place for its people.”
ABLE Mentor is also rebranding with Stefan’s help. He not only counseled the ABLE Mentor team in the process but also helped design the new logo and other visual elements. “For me ABLE Mentor is more than a mentoring program; it is a movement, and a vision for a better Bulgaria applied in practice. This is why it needed a symbol and not just a logo,” Stefan says.
Swipes offers time management solutions to busy professionals. The Swipes app has been downloaded more than a million times all over the world and has earned its creators numerous awards and distinctions such as #1 App in the Apple App Store with an average rating of 4.6 out of 5. Evernote named the company best new startup of 2014, and in 2015 Swipes was nominated for a Webby award.