Building for the Long Game: Meet Our Guest Speaker

In the build-up of every event at Founders Circle Athens, we look at trends we see emerging within the ecosystem. And 2025 was, without question, a pivotal year for the Greek tech ecosystem.

Based on the funding data we tracked, startups operating in Greece and startups of Greek descent abroad raised more than €1.5 billion. More importantly, over 60% of this capital went into early-stage companies, primarily at the pre-seed and seed level. This confirms what many of us already feel. The ecosystem has talent, ambition, and momentum.

Yet as the year came to a close, one question kept surfacing, and it still does today.

Where are the exits?

This question became the foundation of the 2nd edition. Not because exits are the only measure of success, but because they complete the cycle. Exits validate years of risk and persistence. They create experienced founders, early operators with capital, and the next generation of investors. Without them, ecosystems struggle to compound.

So we set out to find a guest speaker who had lived this journey. Someone who had built from the ground up, navigated uncertainty, scaled internationally, and ultimately exited.

That search led us to John Papadakis.

John embodies everything we were looking for. Not just because he is a successful founder, but because of how he shows up as a human being. He is humble, thoughtful, and deeply respected across the ecosystem. His journey reflects curiosity, resilience, and an openness to learning through hard moments.

At the event, John will share with founders the 12 building blocks that an early-stage company should develop to meaningfully increase its chances of an exit.

About John Papadakis

Born in Athens and spent part of his early childhood in Germany before returning to Greece. He later studied Computer Engineering and Informatics at the University of Patras, driven by an early passion for programming.

After graduating, John worked as a software developer and contractor, collaborating with various companies, including US-based firms such as Box. During this period, he also built some of the earliest regional mobile applications in Greece.

Entrepreneurship quickly became his true focus. His first venture, Pajap, a self-service mobile app creation platform, did not succeed commercially, but it laid critical foundations. It taught him how to build products, test assumptions, and learn quickly from failure.

In 2013, John co-founded Pollfish with Andreas Vourkos, Giannis Zaoudis, and Zissis Bellas.

The early years were difficult. For almost 3 years, Pollfish generated little to no revenue. The company set out to reinvent market research by delivering surveys directly through mobile apps, an idea that was widely questioned at the time. Mobile surveys were seen as unreliable and unsuitable for serious research.

Yet users engaged. Responses came in at scale. The challenge was not demand, but market readiness.

John and the team stayed committed.

Over time, Pollfish evolved into a global market research platform, enabling organizations to reach nearly one billion consumers through more than 200,000 mobile applications worldwide. By combining randomized in-app invitations with machine learning-based quality controls, Pollfish delivered speed without sacrificing data integrity.

Headquartered in New York, Pollfish grew to serve more than 2,500 customers, including governments, global enterprises, streaming platforms, and technology companies. Along the way, the company raised a total of $17 million in funding and expanded internationally, all while maintaining a relatively lean and disciplined team.

His leadership stands out for its honesty. He has openly shared lessons from failed sales models, incorrect assumptions, and difficult restructurings. These moments did not weaken the company. They refined it.

In 2022, Pollfish was acquired by Prodege for reportedly between $70 - 85 million marking a significant milestone for both the company and the tech ecosystem. It was a clear signal that globally relevant, high-quality technology companies can be built by Greek founders.

Today, Pollfish continues to grow within the Prodege group, expanding the way organizations gather insights and make decisions.

Join Us on Thursday the 5th at Point124

We are delighted to welcome John Papadakis as our guest speaker, as he shares a journey that began with zero revenue, moved through uncertainty and international expansion, and ultimately led to a meaningful exit.

At a time when early-stage funding is strong but exits remain rare, John’s perspective is both timely and necessary. His 12 building blocks of wisdom are not theory. They are lived lessons shaped by years of building, failing, adapting, and enduring.