How mentoring built me … and my business

I’ve always been interested in real estate, starting in college when I worked with my mom, a real estate agent, through today, as the CEO and co-founder of Compass, a New York City-based technology-powered real estate brokerage platform. While Compass’ expansion has been exhilarating — we’re in 22 cities now and have plans to be in the 50 largest cities in the world — my personal journey has been longer and winding.

Starting as far back as high school in San Francisco I realized I needed help to grow: as a teenager, I wasn’t particularly focused on my future and didn’t see entrepreneurship as a possibility. Thankfully, I discovered several organizations geared towards kids like me — among them, Summer Search, a youth development nonprofit providing year-round mentoring and summer trips. It would be an understatement to say that the professional mentor I was matched with challenged my worldview.

For example, as a “Summer Searcher,” I participated in a National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) backpacking excursion in Wyoming. I was dropped in the middle of open wilderness and taught to find my way back to camp. This experience instilled an entrepreneurial spirit in me by literally and figuratively forcing me to navigate my own path to success in a new environment. Since then, I haven’t looked back.

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