“The essence of e-commerce is to own your customers and make sure they come back again and again directly to your own webshop. All major take-away sites, such as Dominos, have already developed their own online booking. OrderYOYO allows small takeaway restaurants to get their own setup and meet customers’ desire for online booking.” says Thor Angelo to Techsavvy

The startup was funded by serial entrepreneurs Thor Angelo, who in 2012 left his former startup, Languagewire.

The startup, which reports that it’s revenue has tripled revenue over the last year, will use the funding to expand further in Europe. Today, Orderyoyo is present in Denmark, England, Ireland and Germany with more than 2 000 takeaway restaurants as customers. The series A round included VF Venture, together with the existing investors SEED Capital, Preben Damgaard and Jesper Johansen.

You can read more over at Techsavvy (in danish)

The post OrderYOYO raised series A round appeared first on Øresund Startups.

The atmosphere was relaxed and cozy and the invited speakers alternately made the crowd laugh and listen intensely.

The first of the four speakers on stage was CMO at Airtame, Steffen Hedebrandt. He introduced ’the review economy’ where the users’ online reviews have a direct effect on sales. Steffen explained how Airtame use a mix of ”hyggemails” and automated e-mail in connection with follow-ups on customer experiences, and when the customers are endorsed to write reviews. Especially reviews on Amazon have a big impact on sales at Airtame.

Profit is king, execution is queen

Steffen was followed by Bo Møller from Easypractice and HTML24 (and who is now at Alunta.com and Anyhoa.com). Bo had a clear message – profit is king, execution is queen, and gave a number of examples on how this message is the philosophy behind the majority of Easypratice’s strategic decisions. As an example Easypractice uses Google Translate when a new market is tested. Several of Bo’s examples was delivered with a lot of humor and self-irony – the crowded room repaid with sincere and loud laughter.

The panel discussions had been hacked

The participants were encouraged to ask questions to the four speakers in connection with two panel discussions. Compared to previous Nordic Growth Hack events, the setup had been hacked, and the panels only consisted of two speakers at a time. A minor hack which apparently created more dynamic discussions. The participants were eager to ask questions, and several discussions was started, such as the connection between motivation and salary and the importance of get moving combined with waiting for the right time.

Trend is your friend

After the break, where a lot of networking was done, the experienced entrepreneur, writer and investor, Michael Moesgaard Andersen, took the stage. Besides praising Morten Elk for initiating Nordic Growth Hackers, Michael shared his experiences from CBB Mobil and Configit. The presentation’s most important takeaway was ’trend is your friend’, which revolves around detecting and following tendencies among the consumers and in the technological advances – a takeaway that Thor Angelo, the founder of OrderYOYO, agreed with.

Where there is a will, there’s a hack

Besides emphasizing the importance of timing, Thor shared three specific hacks from OrderYOYO – the hire hack, the startup hack and the growth hack. Especially the hire hack was questioned further in the following panel discussion.

According to Thor, the hire hack, like the one that utilizes an rpo process, emerged in connection with OrderYOYO’s increasing growth during the past 12 months, where the company has gone from two employees to 70. Thor experienced that the employees didn’t have enough time to execute on their tasks, and the challenge was immediate.

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Today OrderYOYO hires numerous of interns and the hiring process takes a minimum of efforts. Thor gave the following example:

An employee needs a set of extra hands right now. Thor creates a post about OrderYOYO needing interns and posts it on Facebook the same night. The interviews are held the following day – four interviews of 20 minutes. The interviews are booked by a first-served basis.

Out the four applicants there are usually one with potential, who gets employed and starts the following day. If the new intern does well, he gets promoted within weeks.

Discussion about the hire hack

A number of the participants were skeptical towards ’the hire hack’, because how can you be sure to hire the right person based on a 20 minutes interview? According to Thor, the most important thing at OrderYOYO is that the employees have the right drive, and up until now, ‘the hire hack’ hasn’t failed.

The evening ended with informal networking in the charming halls at Founders House, and plenty of pizzas and lots of cold beers and sodas.

Nordic Growth Hackers turns two years

The first Nordic Growth Hackers event was launched in 2014 and ever since the interest and support has increased. The initiator and founder is serial entrepreneur Morten Elk. Morten is founder and CEO at SimpleSite and has previously been involved in several startups.

The objective with Nordic Growth Hackers is to offer Founders, CEOs, CMOs and other fiery souls an opportunity to share experiences of different growth hacking techniques. The events are especially focused on online marketing and concepts such as customer acquisition cost (CAC) and customer lifetime value (LTV).

The post Founders shared their greatest growth hacks appeared first on Øresund Startups.

“Preben and Jesper have previously helped other companies to get started. We are early but on the same track as for example Vivino and Trustpilot. Preben and Jesper both have extensive experience scaling companies in growth and this can prove useful for OrderYOYO,” says Thor Angelo, CEO and founder of OrderYOYO.

OrderYOYO is a service that offers takeaway restaurants their own complete online ordering system. Each platform uniquely built for the specific customer.

Acquiring their first customer in the summer of 2015, the company has seen a massive growth during the last year. They now have 650 Danish customers and have received their third round of investment from the investment fund, SEED Capital.

“OrderYOYO has created a wonderful product that their customers love. They have hit a sweet spot and have managed to solve an actual problem that their customers who lack the skills and budget to build their own system. They are making great progress and I am looking forward to seeing where it will lead,” says Preben Damgaard.

Thor Angelo is well versed in building companies from the ground up. He started the company Languagewire back in 2000, which is now one of the leading providers of translations. He has since been actively involved in a broad spectrum of startups both as an investor and as an entrepreneur.

The post OrderYOYO attracts capital and experienced partners appeared first on Øresund Startups.

A big challenger to Just Eat

Thor Angelo says that 80 percent of the sales Just Eat pushes out to restaurants comes from repeat customers. Therefore, he has created a concept that lets take-away restaurants own their own customers. According Orderyoyos research Just Eat takes well over 20% of their customers turnover. Orderyoyo can all go and erode Just Eats earnings tremendously.

“Just Eat makes sense as a lead generator, but that customers must pay a quarter of their turnover is wrong. The first lead is allowed to be expensive, but not the next 20. Orderyoyo gives restaurants the power back. ” says Thor Angelo.

E-commerce expert and partner in In2media Tim Frank Andersen also questions the Just Eat model:

“When you look at e-commerce in general it is normal to use online marketing in search of leads. Then you get customers to do repeat business from your own platform. The take-away business, we see a different pattern where customers fed back to Just-Eat after every sale. The reason why Just Eat has been able to operate as they do is that it has been too expensive for each takeaway restaurant to make a solution yourself, but now the technology allows for Orderyoyo to disrupte the model and offer a solution which is much cheaper. It makes good sense to take-away places have their own platform to ensure ownership and loyalty of their clients.”

Orderyoyo delivers an app and a website uniquely built for each customer from which they sell their services. What’s more, it also includes a printer, which ensures that orders land in the kitchen. Orderyoyos business model is based on a subscription option where customers pay a fee starting at 295 kr per month. If, for example, a restaurant in a given period would have provided food to 350 customers for a total value of 55 000 kr, Just Eat would take about 11 000 kr while Orderyoyos cut would instead only be at 995 kr.

Serial entrepreneur

Thor Angelo has previously built a business from scratch. Back in 2000 he started LanguageWire, which are now among the world’s largest suppliers of translation. The company has over 100 employees and has a turnover approaching € 25 million. We recently did a story on him when he had a fireside chat at Accelerace, which you can find out more about here. During that chat he amongst other said how he has switched from being an business angel to being an entrepreneur again:

“I am back as a full time entrepreneur and do it all again. I wanted to be in operations. Talk to clients, be on the ground.”

Huge market potential means great investor interest

Only in January, over 10,000 orders made through Orderyoyo apps, corresponding to a turnover of customers to 1.5 million kroner (€ 200 000). The young company is also aiming at the UK, where they’ve got 60 customers on their system. UK alone represents 33% of the entire European take-away market.

The startup has a total of 33 employees and is currently moving to new premises at Thoravej in the Northwest of Copenhagen, where they get 450 sqm to romp on. Orderyoyo has spent almost 2 years developing the system, while sales to customers began in the summer of 2015. Since then the company has experienced a growth of 30% every month. Order Yoyo received their first investment in early summer 2015 and now SEED Capital is ready for a second round. In addition, Thor Angelo already in dialogue with other Danish and international VCs.

“We first invested in April 2015 and Orderyoyo has since enjoyed impressive growth. They are one of the companies that have come best from the start. They have created a product which allows for their customers switching from Just Eat to self-owning customers. We can look at the numbers that customers use the platform and are pleased with the solution. The team executes fantastic and we are not afraid to invest again.”

– says Investment Manager Helle Uth. The sum invested has not been announced.

The post Serial Entrepreneur pulls the rug from under Just Eat appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Angelo has since his exit worked as a business angel and he is currently involved in a widespread of startups such as Speechminers, Tutee, Shoptagr and Orderyoyo. He is also the founder of Angelo Company, which invests in startups and helps in development.

Peter Torstensen, COE of Accelerace, recently had a fireside talk with Thor Angelo. The interview is mainly focused on Angelo’s transition from entrepreneur to investor and the differences there is between the two roles.

RESULTS RATHER THAN IDEAS

Having spent time on both sides of a startup evaluation, Angelo notes that entrepreneurs should stop wasting time going from one investor to another. Today it is not the ideas that are count.

“An idea today is worth nothing. Because anything that you want to do, a hundred other people are doing right now at the same time. Unless it’s something very unique and high-level technical stuff,” says Thor Angelo

Instead, the value lies in the team and in the execution. If the startup is able to prove their ability to attract customers and develop a product, then there is value to the company.

When Thor Angelo engages in a startup he is involved as more than just an investor. As an investor he prefers to go in to the company at a very early stage. Thereby he is able to quickly push the team to get result and figure out if it sticks of if it doesn’t.

For more advice from Thor Angelo, see the full interview.

The post Thor Angelo: Balancing Entrepreneurship with Investment appeared first on Øresund Startups.