Building side projects with real-world potential
The story of Savvas Vezyridis
Hi, Dimos here.
Welcome to the 4 new subscribers this week! 🥳
Today we have Savvas Vezyridis (LI: @savvas-vezyridis), a software engineer with a very diverse background. Savvas served as an officer in the Greek army, started his own food restaurant, and is now working as a developer for a design and engineering studio.
There will be a part two next week where we explore Savvas’ current side project and how they got to where they are today. For now, enjoy this first part of our conversation!
Read time: 5 minutes
Savvas Vezyridis
Athens, Greece
Majored in communication electronics engineering in the Hellenic Air Force
Co-founded easywedding.gr, a platform that connects wedding professionals with couples
Started a premium street food restaurant which closed due to poor timing with COVID and inflation
So Savvas, what's your backstory?
I studied electrical engineering at the Hellenic Air Force Academy. This included some computer science lessons which got me writing code for the first time.
After graduating, I spent a year in a repair shop for F-16s and then served as a maintenance control officer, scheduling all the maintenance for aircraft in my squadron. I did this for roughly five years before deciding it wasn't for me.
How did you get your first job in software?
The army has this school of developers which I attended for six months. I also applied for an online Master's in Computer Science from Georgia Tech and started working on a side project with my best man, that would eventually become easywedding.gr.
Interestingly, I didn't do many interviews. I found my current company on LinkedIn, did well on their technical test and that got me the job.
What do you like the most about coding?
I like cooking a lot, and I find them very similar. You take raw materials and create something new. In software, your thoughts are the raw materials. It’s very creative, and there aren’t many fields where the input cost is so low. It's primarily your thinking.
Talk to me about Easy Wedding
It's a platform for wedding professionals and couples. The idea is to help couples organize and run their wedding while matching them with wedding professionals like photographers.
It took us more than a year just to build the first version, but we now have 700 vendors, helped organize around 2000 weddings, and have a full-time employee—my sister—who is doing the business side.
How did you grow to this size?
It's not that we followed a clear plan. It all came from trial and error—essentially, throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks.
Do you have any advice for developers building side projects?
I would say be curious. Don’t just build something for your CV. Build a project that people might use. Something that has real-world potential. Then chase that and experiment.
Real users reveal things that are not working properly. You’ll have to do a lot of tweaking and refactoring to support traffic and that will make you a better engineer as well.
What would you work on now if you had the time?
I would like to hop on the AI train with something small, and I also really want to dig into Rust and smart contract development. I think there’s a shortage of Rust developers. Or at least that’s what I’m seeing on Twitter.
Did you start a restaurant?
Yes, I had a street food restaurant in Thessaloniki called Street Fellas. We started it with my sister and a cousin of mine, but unfortunately, it turned out to be bad timing due to COVID and the inflation crisis, so we had to shut it down. It just wasn't economically viable.
How did inflation affect you, and what can someone do about it?
Inflation was causing our inputs to sometimes even triple in price between when we opened the restaurant and when we closed it. For example, gas was a non-existent expense when we opened, and it ended up being the second biggest expense after rent.
And you can’t keep increasing the prices indefinitely. At some point, you lose the customer. If I had to do it again, I would try to operate in an area where the customers are a lot less price-sensitive.
All done! If you enjoyed this, I’d love to know!
Until next Tuesday,
Dimos
🚀 Shoutouts & Recommendations
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