George Hatzigeorgiou & George Augustidis

The co-founders of Skroutz, George Hatzigeorgiou and George Augustidis, talk about the experiment that started as a joke and developed into one of the biggest success stories. They explain the choice of the name and its misspelling, remember the first anxieties and the great difficulties they had to overcome, talk about the value of the idea and its execution, dispel myths and highlight truths about entrepreneurship in Greece today.

By Christina Katsantoni

The co-founder and CEO of Skroutz, George Hatzigeorgiou, was born in Athens and grew up in Nea Ionia. His great love since his youth was IT. After completing his studies as an electrical engineer at the Polytechnic, he had the idea of creating an aggregator website that could gather all the products and all the prices from the existing electronic stores of the time.
In the new venture that appeared on the Greek Internet, comparing prices of the same products from 12 stores, George Hatzigeorgiou was not alone. George Augoustidis, who also grew up in Nea Ionia, had completed his studies in IT and was working in a large chain of stores in the sector.
Together, George Hatzigeorgiou and George Augustidis founded Skroutz.gr in 2006. In 2007 the site became a company and started recruiting. Today the company has developed into the most effective electronic shopping platform in Greece, with around 700 employees, and is the first in terms of traffic in the e-commerce category.
After the global giants Facebook and Google, Skroutz.gr has the highest traffic in Greece, while most of the e-commerce in our country goes through its platform.