This is Startup Pirate #116, a newsletter about technology, entrepreneurship, and startups every two weeks. Made in Greece. Here’s what we recently explored:
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From 0 to $20 million ARR
This was one of my favourite guest interviews to date. I had the pleasure to chat with Vangelis Mihalopoulos, CEO and co-founder of Yodeck, a global leader in digital signage technology used by 60,000 companies worldwide. We discussed the company’s journey since 2014:
Starting from Greece in the middle of the economic crisis
His biggest lessons in scaling from $0-$1m ARR
Growing lean with less than $500k funding in the first years, getting rejected by VCs, and raising a large growth round in 2020
Pros and cons of scaling a global industry leader from Greece
Studying human psychology to influence his team and customers
What he would have done differently about the Yodeck journey
Let’s get to it
Alex: Vangeli, super excited for this chat. You've built a global leader in your category from Greece in a very lean, sustainable way. How did you come up with the idea of Yodeck back in 2014? You also started in Greece in the middle of the economic crisis.
Vangelis: The seed was planted a few years earlier. I used to work for a software company, and at some point, we had a project to develop digital signage for pharmacies in Greece. Digital signage is using LED screens to showcase information, adverts, and multimedia content to public audiences. We had to plug every screen into a PC to serve the multimedia content, so the launch cost was significant.
Then, in 2012, Raspberry Pi came out. This credit card-sized minicomputer turns a monitor, TV, mouse, or keyboard into a full-fledged computing device. It was a breakthrough moment for digital signage, as suddenly, the hardware cost dropped significantly. You wouldn't need a large personal computer next to every screen. The launch of Raspberry Pi was certainly an aha moment for starting Yodeck.
Most importantly, founding a startup in Greece in 2014 was an act of “desperation”. Hard times force you to leave your comfort zone and take risks. We probably wouldn't have started Yodeck if we had a hefty salary hitting our bank accounts every month. It was an act of financial frustration. We had examples in our network, like Bugsense and Epignosis, that built global B2B SaaS products from Greece. If they could do it, why not us? That was the nudge we needed to follow in their footsteps.
We started with my co-founder Dimitris Tsingos, and two engineers joined us a few months later. It took us around 1.5 years to launch the first version of Yodeck to market — a digital signage online service coupled with a Raspberry Pi minicomputer to control any screen remotely through the Internet.
Alex: How did you get your first customers, and what are your biggest lessons in scaling from $0 to $1m in ARR?
Vangelis: We started with a self-serve model from day one. Our first customer was a diner in the middle of New York State who bought five screens, and we never had a single interaction. A community we tapped into to find early adopters was Raspberry Pi’s, and people looking for solutions built on top of such technology. They were all tech-savvy SMB owners, and most orders were a small handful of screens. While today, we even have orders for 1,000s screens!
If I can share a key lesson from the early days, it is never to sidetrack your business operations and strategy for one large customer or partner. During our first year of operations, we had one big customer that could potentially lead to an acquisition. To understand the scale of the opportunity at that moment, we had sold around 700 active screens in total (all SMB inbound leads) and that customer wanted to buy 55,000. We diverted our roadmap to meet their demands and spent a lot of company resources for over six months. That deal eventually fell through. Looking back, it was expected because our business was not built for that type of enterprise sales. It taught us how we should stick to our go-to-market motion and work for the long run.
Alex: If I'm not mistaken, you raised less than $500k in total in 2014 and 2018 before a growth equity round in 2020. All these years, you stayed lean and grew sustainably. Did you have options to raise more external capital in the first years and decided against it? Looking back, was this the right move?
Vangelis: We raised our first money in 2014 from Startech Ventures, the venture-building company Dimitris, my co-founder, has been running since 2012. Then, in 2016, less than a year after our first customer order, we started reaching out to investors to raise more capital. We had a few hundred customers but were not cashflow positive yet. We entered conversations with three VCs in Greece and, in the end, were rejected by all of them. A common feedback we got was that digital signage was not a "hot" tech industry. That hasn't changed since. We are talking about a 30-year-old industry.
However, investors’ appetite shifted after Yodeck reached a critical revenue size. We were no longer regarded as a "high-risk" early-stage startup in an unsexy field, but they evaluated us based on traction, revenue, and growth rate. Not raising more money in the early days led us to grow organically and build a solid foundation for the years to come. If you ask me, running a company like this also suits my personality type. I'm not the risky, growth-at-all-costs entrepreneur. Connecting the dots now, sustainable growth was probably the right path for Yodeck.
Alex: What changed in 2020? Why was then the right time to raise a larger growth round?
Vangelis: It was the right time for a couple of reasons:
We wanted to be more aggressive in spending. We had been running the company in a break-even mode for years and didn't have the resources to take more risks. Raising money would enable us to accelerate hiring and go after several opportunities we thought would establish Yodeck as a global industry leader.
COVID had just hit, and for the first time, we saw our annual recurring revenue (ARR) dropping 3% in a month, whereas until then, we were used to a 10% growth every month. That made us seriously consider raising additional capital for an extra cushion, as we didn't know how long the COVID effect would last. Luckily, the demand ramped up quickly, so cushion was never needed.
Alex: I did my stalking beforehand, and in one of your recent interviews, you said the company recently crossed $20m ARR with an impressive customer clientele. Where is Yodeck today?
Vangelis: We surpassed $20m ARR three months ago with a really strong YoY growth rate. We serve close to 60,000 businesses around the world. Half are paid users, and the rest use our freemium product. The majority are SMBs, so we have a large revenue distribution without overly relying on large customers. Our team is currently 140 members strong, and we plan to hire another 50 people this year. If you want to join us on this journey, check out our job openings.
Alex: You have a lean sales team for a $20m ARR company. What are the key pillars of your growth engine?
Vangelis: Until 2023, we focused exclusively on inbound sales and a self-serve model, where customers used our product without interacting with our team. We had a small sales team that contacted customers only if they submitted a form requesting to contact us.
However, inbound sales can only take you so far, and historically, companies typically face a plateau of around $40m-$60m in revenue. Therefore, a year ago, we started increasing our sales capacity to identify opportunities to expand existing customer accounts. We are thinking of outbound sales as more of a strategic channel. We approach accounts where a handful of sites already use our product and try to expand, perhaps at a global scale.
At the same time, we are building a branding team to drive more leads at the top of the funnel and a team to support our customers via phone calls. We ran our first customer summits (in the US and Greece) last year and are preparing more events in 2025.
Alex: Correct me if I'm wrong, I think most of the Yodeck team is based in Greece. What have been the main pros and cons of scaling a global industry leader from Greece?
Vangelis: Indeed, most of our functions are based in Greece, outside a small office in Cyprus (soon to reach 12 employees), and 2 executives based in the UK. We have great talent in Greece, and with the proper guidance and training, you can build a successful global company from here.
Compared to the US or most tech hubs in Europe, you can build a team you can count on staying for the long run, and that's very important because of the tacit knowledge that your team develops. Since the early days at Yodeck, only 11 employees have resigned and decided to leave the company, with just one in 2024. This highlights the great work environment we have developed, being recognised in the Top 10 of Best Place to Work for 3 consecutive years. Perhaps the global job market also plays a role, or it might be just a cultural thing. At the same time, the cost structure in Greece is more efficient compared to the US or other tech hubs, which is our “unfair” advantage against others and allows us to remain price-affordable and competitive globally.
The decision is also emotional. Having almost the entire team based in Greece is like giving back to our country. We were born and raised here; this is where we live. We want to support the local community and tech industry.
On the other hand, very few people in Greece have experience selling technology products to the global market or witnessed first-hand companies scaling to tens of millions of revenue. Therefore, we train and mentor our employees to keep up with the company's ambitions. We have been doing this for years, and we aim to allocate more time and resources to it. People do their best when they work for someone they admire and appreciate, as they get inspired and feel they can learn from them. This is why we train our best individual contributors to become people managers. These are capable and skilled people who can grow into great leaders with the proper guidance and due time.
Alex: You have been leading Yodeck for over 10 years now. What's an example where you had to grow as a leader, and what was the impact on the company?
Vangelis: Where should I start?? A lot has changed in the 12 years of building Yodeck. Today, I act mainly as the "CPPO", the company's Chief Product & People Officer. The psychology of our people (how they think and make decisions) and the psychology of our buyers (how they scan the market, make purchasing decisions and actually use the product) are tremendously vital for our success. Before starting Yodeck, I would never have imagined that I would spend so much time thinking about human psychology. Understanding what drives human behaviour and being authentic have helped me win people's trust all these years.
Alex: Knowing all you do today, what would he have done differently about the Yodeck journey?
Vangelis: I would have doubled down much earlier on learning and development. I would have worked more actively preparing the ground for our best people to become people managers and rise in the managerial ladder. We saw that the organisation was growing fast, and we would need to build our leadership team to support the next growth stage. Yet, we allocated proper resources only when necessary instead of planning a lot in advance. That’s probably the main thing I would change if I could go back in time.
Alex: Thanks a ton, Vangeli, that was fantastic!
Vangelis: I hope that was insightful.
Jobs
A list of over 400 startup jobs in Greece from 100 companies hiring! Check it out here.
News
ReflectionAI (superintelligent autonomous systems) launched with $130m in funding from Sequoia, CRV, and Lightspeed. Stay tuned as I have the founder on Startup Pirate soon to share his journey from founding engineer at DeepMind to building ReflectionAI.
Axelera AI (hardware & software for edge AI) announced a €61.6m raise.
TurinTech (AI-generated code) announced $20m in funding.
Lastmily (last-mile delivery software) raised €1m from Unifund.
ORamaVR (VR medical training) raised funding from Evercurious.
Expand network (API connection for DeFi) was acquired by Blockdaemon.
Nvidia set up shop in Greece, already having a small photonics R&D team in the country.
Resources
Reindustrialisation led by defense technology by Panos Papadopoulos, Partner at Marathon VC.
The journey of Taxibeat from 0 to $43m exit with Nikos Drandakis, founder of Taxibeat.
Building a new type of defense prime in Europe with Dimitrios Kottas, founder & CEO of Delian Alliance Industries.
From a passion project to a cybersecurity industry leader with Haris Pylarinos, founder & CEO of Hack The Box.
Choosing the right startup exit timing by Dimitris Glezos, founder of Transifex.
Reviving "Made in EU" by The Greek Analyst.
The real role of a Data Engineer with Konstantinos Siaterlis, Senior Cloud Engineering Tech Lead at Mondelēz.
Web & google analytics, data stacks, and more with Charis Maragkakis, BI Analyst at Welcome Pickups.
Productivity tips & tricks by Christos Chatzis, Sr Technology Manager at Kaizen Gaming.
Events
Open Coffee Athens #122, join us on Apr 4!
DevOps Strategies for Power BI by Athens Power BI User Group on Mar 21
Kubernetes Athens vol26 on Mar 21
SuiSocial - Athens Suihub Community Meetup on Mar 24
AbZorba Games: From inception to scaling, then to exit and beyond by Scaleup Greece Meetup on Mar 27
GraphQL: One API to rule them all by Thessaloniki not-only Java Meetup on Mar 27
The robots are coming: special topic Superintelligence on Mar 29
Ask the CTO by Leadership Conversations in Tech on Apr 3
Beyond Tomorrow Startup Village | Beyond Expo on Apr 4-6
Entrepreneurship and ML by Patras Tech Talk on Apr 8
Take Back the City # 6 - SKG by Astylab on Apr 10
Devoxx Greece on Apr 10-12
Panathēnea Festival on May 7-9
Greeks in AI 2025 on Jul 19-20
That’s all for this week. Tap the heart ❤️ below if you liked this piece—it helps me understand which themes you like best and what I should do more.
Thanks for reading,
Alex
Another great post!
Loved Vangelis's answer on what he'd change, namely the regret about investing in people-manager development only once the organisation forced it. I've watched that exact pattern from the operating side: the leadership bench becomes the constraint everyone feels late. Great get, Alex.