In this episode of the TechIsland podcast powered by payabl., Tanya Romanyukha and Artemis Pnevmatikou speak with Michael Economou and Argyris Argyrou, the founders behind Foody, one of Cyprus' most influential startup success stories.

Where it really began

Before Foody, there was AtYourService, a small marketplace for local services launched in 2012. Michael and Argyris didn’t even realise they were building a “startup”. They were simply trying to solve a problem. But after expanding to Greece and struggling to find product-market fit, they learned their first major lesson: traction matters more than ideas.

The moment everything changed

After yet another investor rejection, an idea came up to  turn to food delivery, a category exploding abroad but still undeveloped in Cyprus. The founders  had one month to convince twenty restaurants to join a platform that didn’t exist yet. Ten said yes on the very first night.

Foody was born.

Winning by doing the unscalable

While competitors had systems and technology , Foody had something more powerful: people. In the early days, every order triggered an SMS to the founders, who then manually called restaurants and customers to ensure nothing went wrong.

That “obsessive” focus on customer experience helped Foody capture 70 percent of the market in just six months, despite having  many competitors at launch.

From Cyprus to Delivery Hero

By 2018, Foody was one of the few profitable players in the sector globally. When Delivery Hero began acquiring smaller companies, Foody was suddenly on the map. Joining the group gave the team access to global knowledge while keeping control of local operations, a combination that became crucial during COVID, when Foody rolled out new services at a speed larger countries couldn’t match.

What Foody changed for Cyprus

For Michael and Argyris, the biggest impact is not the exit but the mindset shift. Foody proved that:

• world-class digital products can be built in Cyprus

   

• small teams can outpace global competitors

   

• the island is a powerful testing ground for tech

   

• you don’t need to leave Cyprus to make something big

   

Today, Michael is building  Exyde, a marketplace for experiences, while Argyris is exploring new ideas in tech and AI. Both continue to support young founders and remain advocates for building and scaling from Cyprus.

To hear the full story, the hard lessons, and the behind-the-scenes moments that didn’t make it into this summary, watch the full conversation on the podcast.