the Zorba who sleeps on seaweed Every once
Paul Efmorfidis, founder
in a while you meet someone who is truly inspiring, authentic and innovative. I was lucky enough while writing and researching this article to meet such a man. My objective was to write an article on a “Greek Success Story” partly because I wanted to write about something different to what we have been reading the past two years about Greece and partly because I always prefer writing about positive stories. So I chose to write about Coco-Mat. With the motto “Sleep on Nature” Coco-mat has established itself as one of the world’s largest eco-friendly mattress companies. Their first store opened in 1989 in Athens and today Coco-Mat has 60 stores in 11 different countries. Paul Efmorfidis is the brain, the muscle and the heart behind the phenomenal success of Coco-Mat. Reading about this success story really got me interested in its creator so I requested an interview. The meeting was set up at his hotel and it turned out to be a Coco-Mat brainstorming meeting with about 30 employees, partners and colleagues. Everyone was seated at a large wooden, monastery meal type table discussing the name of the new concept store the company was opening in Berlin. Various names were being thrown on the table. Suddenly Efmorfidis interrupted everyone and said in a loud commanding voice “I don’t care about the bloody name – I care about how we are going to make people feel – that is what has significance for me and that is what we should be talking about.” He was born 55 years ago in Sparta in Southern Greece. He left Greece when he was 19 to study and travel the world. He came back when he was 30 speaking 9 languages. In the early 80’s he was working as a teacher barely making ends meet. He studied languages, and business, worked as a teacher and a reporter before coming up with the idea to make wireless mattresses from coconut palm, seaweed, horsehair and eucalyptus. He also decided that all his products would have zippers so that nothing was secret and anyone who bought them would know exactly what was in them.