Vasilis Danias is passionate about Software Architecture and Software Engineering. He is the co-founder and CEO of Bitloops and in the past has worked at Beat, Uber, Accenture, UBS, and various startups. He has received a B.Eng. in Artificial Intelligence & Software Engineering from the University of Edinburgh and holds an MBA from HEC Paris.

• We believe that every entrepreneur has a story to tell. Tell us about your story behind starting Bitloops. How did the idea come about?

Both I and my co-founder Sergio Pereira, having worked in the past in tech-fueled businesses, have always faced the same problem; huge delays in rolling out new features or fixing existing issues. Our employees and customers could not understand why seemingly simple things would take so long to address. The reason was always the same: “we don’t have enough engineering resources” and everything was a large t-shirt size in terms of estimation. We knew there was a better way to produce software and we wanted to make it a reality.

• What has been the most interesting challenge in your role as the CEO and Co-founder of Bitloops?
  
  What we are doing is deep tech and requires a lot of effort to get off the ground. At the same time, funding is necessary to materialize our vision. The most interesting challenge has been to effectively communicate our vision to investors given how technical it is and how non-technical the average investor is.
• Can you share with us any particular growth strategy or hack that’s worked for you?

     I am sorry to disappoint but there is really no silver bullet to it. You just have to constantly talk to users. Talk to understand their needs, talk to spread your message, and talk to help people achieve the most with your solution. 

• What has been your key takeaway from API World 2022?

     A lot of people have monoliths that they are trying to break into microservices. There were many talks around this topic. The good news is that the Bitloops Language and platform will help companies in the future to avoid significant challenges in the future without having to prematurely go with a microservices architecture.

•  How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way you go about business? What trends do you see coming into force after the pandemic?

     Remote working was a common thing for a lot of tech companies even prior to COVID-19. Nonetheless, this trend has now accelerated and seems that it is going the main mode of work for most tech companies at least.

• What are the factors, professional and personal, that drive you as a leader? What keeps you going?

     I see myself, above all, as a problem solver and I get a kick from solving problems that do not have an obvious solution but are really worth solving. I get motivated to prove pessimists wrong and I hate failing to achieve my targets. Nonetheless, my optimism is always based on viable path that I constantly reevaluate. The founded belief that what I am trying to achieve is indeed achievable is what keeps me going. You cannot continue without the confidence that winning is a possibility.

• What is the next milestone that you’ve set for yourself and Bitloops?

     Our next milestone is to achieve our first 1,000 stars on GitHub on our Bitloops Language. Nonetheless, that is just a number, the important thing is to prove that developers see value in learning how to use and to develop software using the Bitloops Language. 

• You have been a speaker at several in-person events. This year we see the comeback of many in-person events. What is your take on in-person events? Do you prefer them over hybrid or virtual?

     I think nothing can really match the level of presence you have in an in-person event vs a virtual one. Attending an in-person conference requires an investment both in monetary terms and in time and people tend to pay more attention to those than virtual ones. Of course, virtual events increase the number of people that are able to attend and get value out of the event. In that sense, hybrid events (as with hybrid working) seem to be the best approach.

•  Eventible.com is a review platform catering to B2B events. Given how review-driven our lives have become today, do you think reviews will bring a level of transparency to the events industry? Would you rely on event reviews from other speakers if you had to make a speaking decision?

Reviews are always important and like all industries, the events industry can also benefit from. Both as a speaker and an attendee I would want reviews information when making a decision to attend an event.