From Sea to Success: How Argyris Stasinakis Turned MarineTraffic into a Global Leader in Ship Tracking and Data Intelligence (Part Two)

Forbes Books presents the Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shepard, brought to you by startupscience.io. Greg is an entrepreneur who has built and sold 12 businesses. He's a recipient of 4 private equity awards and is a featured TEDx speaker and Forbes author. Here's Gregory Shepard.

Welcome back to my conversation with Arjuna Staksonakis. We've been talking about MarineTraffic's acquisition by Brussels-based data intelligence and cargo tracking company, Keppler. And now, RG, I want to get into something that you and I discuss all the time as friends, and that is the intersection of science and business. It's clear that in the early days, MarineTraffic had a strong vision, plenty of ideas, but even with all of that, execution tends to be the toughest part of most startups. I'm writing my next book about execution because it's a monster subject. But talk to me about how you executed some of those ideas and prevented yourselves from spreading yourself too thin.

That's a brilliant question. I might even draw upon my experience before MarineTraffic.

Okay.

You know, I started in the early 2000s, a little bit of consulting, but soon enough, the entrepreneurship in me took over. I went into e-commerce, e-learning. I did mention Memos, my longstanding partner since those years. So we were equal share partners in a business called WOW Group based in Athens, Greece, you know, working from Athens. And at the time, we were so excited by the opportunities that the digital space had to offer that, you know, we were offering a pretty broad range of digital services. We were a digital agency. We had some pretty interesting successes in social games. We were using also games in advertising. It was quite an exciting period, but at the same time, we were a small business.

Hmm.

In terms of people, we were about 20 before we started with MarineTraffic. And with hindsight, I could tell you surely that it would have been more productive for us to focus in a specific domain and grow around that instead of trying to do a bit of more.

Hmm.

The opportunity with marine traffic then was that we had something specific in our hands. We could see the potential immediately when we also met Lekkas. There was already a high demand for the services, even though there was no real business there. And what we did is methodically take one brick at a time, if you like, and started building those components either from the product side or from the team side or the brand, bit by bit, trying to understand where the value of our business comes from. We are a subscription software as a service or data as a service business. So, you know, recurring revenue. Retention. These are the obvious basic elements that we needed to take care of. Educating our team, growing with the business. All of those were components that we regularly had to visit and revisit again and again. Structuring and restructuring again and again, given that, you know, when we started with MarineTraffic, we were 20. people. At the time of exit, we were 200, and the revenue had grown from, you know, half a million to $1 million to $20 million. So quite a journey, loads of individual components coming together. And you're right in saying that it is a science. And I actually highly appreciate your latest endeavor, you know, the startup science idea, which I think will be extremely useful to to young entrepreneurs, even those who have done it already once, just to be reminded of the basic rules of engagement.

Yeah, you know, it's very interesting because we get a lot of founders that say, oh, I've already done a— I've already done one and sold it. And then they go into the courses and they look at it and they go, oh, I forgot this, I forgot that, you know, because by the time you get to your exit, it's been a while, you know, and things change and you forget what you did back then. You know, I know it happens to me. So your idea here, this, this whole experiment that turned into a business is, it's just really a beautiful story, especially the fact that it had been bootstrapped. It's a brilliant idea at the right time. And when you were able to get everybody focused on a specific stage of execution, so you're, you're on this path and you're focused on execution. You know, one of the things that comes up with a lot of founders when I went over the data is that the team that you start with is rarely the team that you finish with. And I'm wondering if that was the case for you guys, or did you have the same people the whole time?

Oh, brilliant question. Well, interestingly enough, we have many of the people who started the corporate journey. The corporate journey started around 2013. So the Marine Traffic was founded as a website, as you said, a little experiment in 2007. So 2013 was the proper incorporation. Some key individuals were already with us then, but definitely they grew along. We kind of, you know, we're quite proud of our culture. We're very people-centric. And given that We were also very fortunate to be earning revenue profit through our business. We were reinvesting not just in growing the team in terms of people, but also developing our team members. And I'm very proud to say that many of them still go on now through the acquisition into the next phase of MarineTraffic into Kepler. Of course, in the way, there were many roles that did not exist initially. So we hired for those. So if you look at the leadership team today, most likely half the people were there 10 years ago and the other half joined the team along the way, along the process.

Wow, that's way more than I usually see. Usually it's around 17 to 20%, but you have a 50% rate of keeping your people. It means that you probably did a really good job working with these people, managing these people, and choosing the right people along the way. Is there any trick to retaining this kind of talent for that period of time through all the turbulence that happens and all the changes that happen, you know, in a startup? Any tricks you can tell the listeners?

I think being fair, giving them responsibility and accountability and ownership for their work are extremely useful elements in that recipe. People feel proud for what they achieve. They feel they belong. More often than not, that's even a more important factor for staying along with a job, even beyond, you know, what you earn as your own salary. And that definitely is part of the marine traffic culture. The other thing is that the job in itself was really interesting. I mean, you know, you're in a business that was facing healthy challenges, retaining customers, for example, or building the next generation of intelligence product around ship tracking. All of these things are so exciting. There was so much innovation along the way. So, the job was interesting too.

Yeah.

So, nurturing both sides of innovation and excitement along with the ownership and the accountability angle. I think helped tremendously in achieving that high degree of retention of people, as you mentioned.

Well, you have done an exceptional job. I really love this story. I rarely get to talk to people on the podcast that are founders that just freshly went through an exit. So let me ask you a question. What does it feel like? How do you feel?

God, I'm still trying to figure it out.

Yeah.

I'm still trying to figure it out because really at the time when we exited, I was, I was, and I still am very hands-on with, you know, a next phase of the marine traffic endeavor. It's something that we refer to as port call optimization. It's all about empowering the stakeholders around the port call. So the port authorities, the terminals, the suppliers to execute to execute an efficient port call for the incoming vessels. And, uh, and there's a, a high degree of sustainability, uh, thinking involved there. And this thought leadership around just-in-time, as applies in other industries, what we would like to see that is for that to apply in shipping and particularly in the port call process. Because at the moment we do register a lot of idle time and a lot of wastage and indeed a lot of potential for savings on emissions in, you know, as far as that angle of shipping is concerned. So I am still feeling very energetic in, in the domain of the work that we're doing. But at the same time, I have given the keys to, to, to my new partners, you know, the people at Kepler. Who are now, you know, have to combine those 2 strategies, one from the commodity side, the other one from the maritime side, you know, and creating the new superpower in this arena, in this global arena. So that's one side. I feel responsible for the continuity of what we created within the new reality. That's one. You know, a great truth is that there is a little bit of capital for me to invest one way or another, and I need to understand how that influences my own career, you know.

Mm-hmm.

Whether it will be entrepreneurship within Kepler Marine Traffic and PCO, port call optimization, or whether it will be a new venture. venture that will be attracting me going forward. But it's still too early to tell. At the moment, I'm committed with what we have. The continuity angle is very strong within me. Securing the interests of Kepler, securing the interests of our people, securing the interests of our clients, of our partners, you know, the huge network of AIaaS contributors around the world, these are top of the agenda at the moment. So let's have this discussion in 6 months from now and I'll tell you how it feels then.

That's fair. I'll tell you, you know, when I had my first larger exit, I remember waking up in the middle of the night thinking it didn't happen and then rolling over and opening my phone and looking at the bank account and saying, oh my God, it just happened. Yeah. You know, because it seems like it's so hard to believe, you know, when you— it just happened. It seems like there's this buildup and the buildup and and there's this long process, but then it feels like it just happens and it feels like the whole thing went really fast. I don't know about you. Has that been the case for you?

Yeah, for us that was, although the idea of an exit was, you know, being built over the years, this process itself happened, you know, within 3 months. So it was quick. I did describe that there was this angle of nurturing the relationship with Kepler, the buyer, but it didn't happen at the time that we were planning it to. There was a little bit of improvisation there, right? Even so, it did happen very quickly because the pieces were in place.

And a lot of the diligence was already done, right? Because they already worked with you.

So exactly, exactly. They were using the data for their own business. So, you know, there was no question about the quality of the service anyhow, or, you know, client references, all of that. That was all were very much given, and the financials were pretty simple to digest.

A hell of a ride, huh?

It was a hell of a ride. I feel, you know, I remember, I remember you mentioned COVID before. I remember through COVID, we, you know, and through the time of uncertainty, especially at the beginning, when we realized that we kept on going and we were starting to adjust to the new reality, et cetera, I remember I did something extremely old-fashioned. I bought a couple of, wish cards, you know, and I sent one to Lekas and another one to Memos. And I felt, you know, and I wrote to them how grateful I felt about the business that we were running. I just wanted that down in writing, you know, the old-fashioned way.

Mm-hmm.

So, yes, it was a hell of a ride. It was extremely exciting. I still feel excited about it. The fact that we were able to exit is a life-changing event. Undoubtedly, the fact that there is continuity in the exit one way or another is rather unique, I think. So yeah, bring it on. Let's see what we do next.

On that note, it's a great way to end the show. I really want to thank you so much for your time and your energy. From all the listeners, we really appreciate these sort of stories. And congratulations, my friend.

It's a real pleasure and a real honor to be here with you, Greg. You take care and see you around.

Absolutely. And that's it for another episode of the Startup Science Podcast. If you enjoyed the show, we'd love it if you could subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you have a moment, a review on Apple or Spotify would be greatly appreciated. And I'll see you next time. Namaste, my friends.

This Startup The Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shepard is brought to you by startupscience.io. Founders can log on to startupscience.io and use code Forbes to get free access. To connect and find out more about Greg, go to gregoryshepard.com. The Startup Science Podcast is a production of Forbes Books.