Portfolio Spotlight: Devo

When I first met Sam, I was carrying every bias I had about solo founders.

The startup road is brutal alone. The lows hit harder. There is no co-founder to absorb the weight when something breaks. I have watched too many solo founders quietly burn out somewhere around month 18.

I almost passed because of that bias.

I'm glad I didn't.

Sam had scars before Devo — and that turned out to matter

Sam had been through earlier startup attempts. Things hadn't worked out. Even the first version of Devo — the grocery delivery business that came before the POS — failed.

Most investors see that and move on.

What I learned watching Sam: scars are not a problem. Scars are evidence. A founder who has failed and is still showing up has already passed a test most people never face.

What set him apart

It wasn't just the positive temperament, though that was real. A few specific things made me write the check:

1) He listens to the customer. Not in the founder-cliché way. He listens to what shop owners actually say, not to what fits his thesis.
2) He's in the field. Not "I went and talked to five customers." He's behind the counter, on the route, with the wholesaler.
3) He pivots when the customer tells him to. Devo started as grocery delivery. The shop owners told him the real pain was operations. He listened. He pivoted. The POS was born.

The line is the headline

I can't sit here and tell you Sam has fully cracked it. Devo hasn't taken off the way some startups do.

But the line from where he started to where he is now is incredible.

The software was running in 2 shops when we invested. It is now in 130+ shops across the UK — London, Liverpool, Manchester, Scotland — adding around 15 new stores every month.

Churn: zero. Once a shop owner has Devo running their tills, their inventory, their delivery integrations, and their wholesaler orders, they don't leave. The product becomes the backbone of the business.

And just a couple of weeks ago, after a three-year negotiation, Sam signed a contract with Just Eat — which means Devo now natively integrates all three of the major UK delivery platforms (Just Eat, Deliveroo, Uber Eats) on a single screen for shop owners.

For a solo founder selling enterprise-shaped software to small business owners one shop at a time — that's not normal. That's grit, compounding.

What it's like to back a UK founder from Istanbul

I invested through Startupist Ventures. Sam is in the UK. I am in Istanbul.

Once the check is written, your job changes. You're not the operator. You're the outside perspective. And honestly — beyond moral support — there isn't a lot you can do for a founder day-to-day from another country.

So Sam and I do two or three long online calls a year. Every single time he's facing something hard. Every single time he tells me, point by point, how he plans to get through it.

I leave those calls more confident than when I joined them. That's the founder you want to back.

What I'm trying to help him with right now

Sam is buried in operations. That's the curse of being in the field — you see every fire, you put out every fire.

The next move is to lift his head. Vision over operations. Pull him out just enough to see the shape of the next 12 months instead of the next 12 hours.

But here's the gift: because he came from the field, he understands his customer better than any consultant ever will. He sees the problem early. He sees the solution early. The intuition is real and it's earned.

Why I invested

A solo founder with scars. A positive temperament that survives bad weeks. Customer obsession that lives behind the counter, not in a deck. Willingness to pivot when the data demands it.

That's the pattern. That's what I bet on.

I'm proud Devo is in the portfolio.

A quick note about how I invest

Through Startupist Ventures, I invest globally in early-stage startups.

I'm sector-agnostic on purpose. I like patterns, not categories. And I love meeting founders early, when it's still messy and uncertain — because that's where you really see who can build.

Devo was one of those bets. A solo founder. A wounded second attempt. Two shops. And a temperament that doesn't break.

My book recommendations this week I read constantly — across founder craft, behavior change, and personal finance — and pass along the books that actually moved me. These three earned a permanent spot on my shelf. Here are this week's picks:

Founder Craft The Startup Owner's Manual The step-by-step guide for building a great company — the operating manual every first-time founder eventually wishes they'd read on day one. by Steve Blank & Bob Dorf

Behavior Change Atomic Habits An easy & proven way to build good habits and break bad ones — the clearest framework I know for turning intent into compounded behavior. by James Clear

Personal Finance The Simple Path to Wealth Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life — the plain-English investing playbook I wish every founder read before exit. by JL Collins

Disclosure: links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend books I've personally read and would buy again.

Burak Büyükdemir Founder & Solo GP, Startupist Ventures Fund · Startup Istanbul Founder of Etohum & Startup Istanbul. Solo GP at Startupist Ventures. 26+ years building startup ecosystems across 170 countries.

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