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It’s time to sum up the results of 2017 for Dodo Pizza. The main point: we haven’t made it.

In the beginning of 2017, we publicly set an ambitious goal: end the year with 400 pizza shops in the chain. This number looked insane and fantastic, but we did the math and came up with a solid plan that made it look doable.

We have always been setting challenging goals to hit in order to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and come up with unconventional solutions. We’ve worked hard. We’ve done probably everything we could. But we didn’t succeed.

It’s a good lesson for us. You can’t win every time. And you have to learn how to lose and publicly concede your defeat.

We ended the year with 280 working pizza shops (+126 compared to 2016)—250 in Russia, 18 in Kazakhstan, 3 in Romania, 2 in China, and 2 in Lithuania, while Estonia, the UK, the US, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan each boasted one Dodo Pizza.

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Our chain’s total sales in 2017 made up $107,7 mln—that’s 116% growth compared to 2016. The Russian market brought us 91% of our revenue. Our corporate chain saw $6.11 mln in sales; the rest was brought in by our partners.

In terms of local market growth in Russia, the biggest we saw was in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In January of 2017, Dodo Pizza made around $183,000 in the Moscow region. Last December, that number jumped more than four times—to $878,000. In St. Petersburg the trend is the same: $84,000 vs $478,000.

In December of 2017, we set a few records. Dodo Pizza’s monthly sales exceeded $13.9 mln (+20% growth compared to November). Some of our pizza shops achieved fantastic results. For example, one Dodo Pizza in Samara, Russia saw $168,175 in sales. Monthly sales over $100,000 don’t look extraordinary anymore—many of our “old” pizzerias make even more a month.

It’s been a fascinating year. Taught me and the team a lot. Spurred us to rethink many things.

 Will we give up setting ambitious goals? No.

Have we become stronger and wiser? Yes. So I wish ourselves one thing in 2018—keep dreaming, keep trying, and keep moving towards our dreams.

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