Professional work
New experiences
In 2021, I entered industries I’ve never worked for: esport/gaming, pharmaceuticals, and bioinformatics. They all occured to be exciting as hell!
I also got my first experiences from swimming in the deep sea by joining 3 management boards of joint-stock companies at once. This also means my first time reporting to supervisory boards and working on behalf of stakeholders. This seems to be obvious, but in general, it’s all about aligning the goals of multiple stakeholders, taking care of trustworthy and transparent communication, and paying attention to effective cash usage.
The previous year was also very successful in the field of fundraising as I secured almost PLN 13 mln in pre-seed rounds. What was interesting was the process itself. Joint-stock companies enable stock issuing, but they can raise funds in different ways. I took part in 2 non-public issues of shares in close collaboration with DM INC (one of the leading brokerage houses in Poland) – both were successful and led to unlocking potential of our projects. In the third case, we managed to onboard a private investor interested in covering the entire round by himself. But preparing for that process is not only an administrative nightmare, it’s also a huge advantage for startups – as a board member I worked extensively on business models, market analysis, and structuring work of a team. It all led to a better understanding of the competitive landscape and accelerated strategy execution. This was the first time I realized how directly financials are linked with anything else within organizations.
But thinking about funding strategy gives you plenty of opportunities. Equity-based capital is only one of them. Successful delivery of an R&D grant submission for a PLN 7.1 mln of a non-equity capital from the National Centre for Research and Development (link) was a project like no other.
Even though I mainly focused on building startup foundations, scaling teams, and business development, we were pleased to be covered by some of the most recognizable Polish media outlets: Puls Biznesu, My Company Polska, and Brief.
Here are some probably most interesting readings:
This is probably what got me nominated as one of the most creative people in business in Poland (6th out of 50) – together with Konrad and Michał Krawczyk, also board members at NaturalAntibody (link). We were appreciated for the unique and extremely creative use of knowledge from various disciplines at the same time. Working on the NaturalAntibody product portfolio requires connecting many dots and using advanced knowledge in biology, IT, statistics, management, and business development.
Personal development
This year was an extreme personal growth for me, but mostly due to implementing things I’ve learnt in the past. I realized how many answers to problems I was facing I already had. The only challenge was to properly use that in action.
I also got the chance to learn from others – working at Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder is a life-changing opportunity to work with the most senior business leaders, investors, advisors I’ve ever met. I’ve always believed that ‘givers gain’ so in the past I paid a lot of attention to sharing my experiences with others, securing enough time for individual coaching for my direct reports, and being there for people whenever they needed me. This time I received that back.
For example I feel like I took my financial modelling to a completely new level (thanks to Michał Wrzołek who torpedoed my first models and constructively challenged my next ones). I learnt how to use it as a business leverage and real roadmap for steering a startup vehicle, instead of being only a theoretical model taken out of nowhere. This is even more practical than I thought.
Reading
I love reading as I believe that ‘leaders are readers’. So during 2021 I’ve started reading more than 12 books (which is still a rather low number)… but I must honestly say that I finished only 4 of them. Luckily all of them very pretty good and insightful:
- ‘Bad Blood’ by John Carreyrou
- ‘Śladami Warrena Buffeta’ (Following Warren Buffet in my own translation) by Jaroszek and Gershmann
- ‘In Asia’ by Tiziano Terzani
- ‘Journeys to the Other Side of the World: Further Adventures of a Young David Attenborough’
What’s more, two of them were real gems!
It’s already 2022, so probably most of you have already heard about the huge Silicon Valley scandal around Theranos – a biotech startup with a multibillion-dollar valuation that faked its value and ended up being completely unable to deliver promised technology to the market. Apart from all the obvious mistakes Elisabeth Holmes made and the unprecedented scale of cheating her stakeholders, ‘Bad Blood’ made me start thinking more about things Elisabeth Holmes neglected when developing her company. Paying more attention to enabling cross-functional communication between departments, listening more to first-line team members and the voice of your customers, more incremental progress when building innovations instead of striving for big bang breakthroughs are just a few key takeaways from reading Carreyrou’s investigation.
On the other side of the globe, there’s a continent that stole my heart – Asia. I read a lot about the Far East and South-East Asia. I’ve completely fallen in love with Asian history, culture, habits, economy, growth potential, and super friendly people – not to mention the delicious cuisine. That’s why it surprised me how late I discovered Tiziano Terzani’s outstanding journalism on the topic.
The book is filled with descriptions made by a real victim of game-changing events in Asian history. ‘In Asia’ is a collection of articles from various times when the author traveled through and lived in Asia for business purposes. The multitude of Terzani’s perspectives and experiences makes it a very good presentation of both the diversity and common features of the countries in this region. It made me realise how difficult it is to understand a specific Asian country without understanding the entirety of what was happening in the region at that time – like foreign colonial influences or the influx of different ideologies. His book is very good in this respect – Terzani uses his journalistic eye to see what’s necessary to connect the dots. This was my first encounter with his work, but I already knew that he was an outstanding author. I will be reaching for more of his work in the near future.
Structured studying
I not only continued self-development during the pandemic but also focused on completing a few more courses from my Executive MBA at the University of Quebec at Montreal, leading to the end of the entire program.
But studying online is close to worthless. Sitting in front of your monitor for hours and limited interactivity with both other people and the speaker is the biggest pain of studying remotely. Tools enabling extended collaboration like moodle, MS teams, miro.com, or mural.com are definitely not enough for increasing the value from online studies, while the real one lies in unconstrained communication with your colleagues.
I was lucky enough to start the MBA program on-site in 2018, and many times I experienced the so-called convergence effect and highly increased pace of my growth when exchanging thoughts with experienced people – even though they might’ve come from completely different industries. It quickly made me understand that executives face the same or at least very similar problems – challenges with leading others, difficulties with building precise forecasts, ways of hiring top talents, building a psychologically safe environment that lets others grow. Different angles of looking at these things have amazingly enriching power.
Family
My new and the most exciting role
The biggest game-changer this year was that I became a father! People say nothing can help prepare men to become dads, and that’s true. It’s a completely unpredictable, totally agile, fast-changing environment with no possibility of postponing things for the future. And a truly wonderful moment when you look into your baby’s eyes, trying to uncover their emotions, wishing just for a smile. I still have a lot of homework to do in the field of parenthood, but I’m getting there 🙂
Workation
One of the best decisions we made this year was moving to a cosy apartment in the suburbs of Warsaw. Close distance to the forest, lakes, and great cycling paths were amazing for daily walks with our baby while my wife Ania was on maternity leave.
But few things pushed us to make a decision of going abroad for a longer while and we decided to escape from Polish autumn to stay in the magical Tenerife for nearly 2 months. The flights were extremely cheap, living costs were comparable to living in Warsaw, so we started to ask ourselves why not.
A few tips for people interested in working remotely while living abroad:
- If travelling with your family (and especially with kids), ensure that your living conditions allow you to have separate space for you and the rest of your family (it helped me a lot to have a separate space with no distractions – in my case, it was balcony and bedroom)
- Find a place with a supermarket nearby – the walking distance is extremely helpful. It not only allows you to reduce your living costs, but you can also realize that having a car might not be necessary to live really comfortably (we only rented a car for 20 days during our entire stay just to do some travelling across the island).
- Prepare for the odd feeling of change in general. In our case, there were few factors that affected our mood and comfort: time zone (being 1 hour earlier in comparison to my colleagues in Poland), climate change (much warmer and sunnier), different sunrise and sunset time (we completely undervalued the power of this factor, but this can ruin your kid’s biological clock).
- Besides having supermarkets in your neighbourhood. It’s great to have some useful facilities there as well – while I was working, Ania was enjoying the black, natural, volcanic sand beaches or fantastic 10-kilometer long promenade on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.
- When travelling (having days off), adjust your daily routines to your baby. Ensuring that the baby is well-rested is a must to keep a great atmosphere and allows you to do as much sightseeing as possible – that way, we visited top must-see places on Tenerife: Masca valley, Teide National Park, Puerto de la Cruz, Garachico, El Medano, Candelaria, Costa Adeje, Los Cristianos, Playa de las Americas, Los Gigantes, Playa de las Teresitas, La Orotava, La Laguna, not to mention countless other breathtaking viewpoints.
- A baby carrier is a great tool! Really!
Lessons learned
It’s all about being people’s game – Hunting for best leadership talents on the market is a challenge – at Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder we don’t search for C-level executive managers, but real startup founders, self-organizing, totally autonomous leaders capable of driving a company to a success. Without the high intrinsic motivation of a leader, there’s no way a startup can pivot when necessary.
Leaders can be measured by a factor of putting organizational goals above their personal objectives. It’s not that obvious at first, and can be easily diluted when people act like this just for the purpose of negotiation. But If you really think about the company’s goals first, you’ll end up realizing you reached your own goals on the way. So: being egocentric doesn’t help at all. Being a true advocate of a business, bringing people together and aligning them around the common vision is the right direction.
Venture building is more than VC, incubation, acceleration – I can see patterns in designing companies more than ever before. No matter what industry or business model. That’s why serial entrepreneurs can repeat building fantastic ventures over and over again.
Old-school management is over – interdisciplinary planning and emancipation is the key
Cross-functional competencies, bringing people together, facilitating internal meetings to empower people to freely share their ideas, opinions and perspectives is a must-have for innovation. I witnessed that mediocre teams can perform way better than outstanding individuals solo just because they learned how to benefit from much broader set of skills. That’s why Intent Based Leadership described by David Marquet only takes on importance when building digital ventures, swimming across the Blue Ocean.
Once again, this year brought prof. Piotr Płoszajskis’s words to my mind:
“,Management is paradoxical today. It requires efficiency and openness, thrift and mind-blowing ambition, nimbleness and a workplace that fosters creativity.”
The sole founder dilemma can be solved by open communication and partnership
‘(…) No entrepreneur anticipates or wants pain, but pain is the reality of starting something new. It is unavoidable.’ said Steven Schwarzman, CEO at Blackstone.
Last year, I saw this on my own. Having a huge responsibility for business results, service value or outcomes for stakeholders, feeling a lot of pressure and having nobody understand your problems might be painful. But it looks as if like-minded people can perfectly understand themselves. Having a space for an open discussion, brainstorming around problems founders face on a daily basis and simply zooming out with a third party listener has a magical power to get a completely new perspective. I experienced that sole dilemma might be exhausting, but venture building can be a real support when you find an intellectual partner.
Big thanks
But it’s easy to underestimate the value of teamwork when describing one’s professional or personal successes. In most cases it wasn’t just me, but a group of super talented, highly motivated leaders and specialists who accompanied me in these processes.
Having this opportunity I’d like to say thanks first of all to my wonderful wife who was super brave and extremely well organised in her new role, being also a fantastic role model to me. I’d also like to say big thanks to my colleagues at Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder: Arek Seńko, Radek Czyrko, Sylwia Duszyńska, Gosia Giermakowska, Bartosz Lis, Michał Wrzołek, Maciej Kosuń, Kamil Moczulski and fantastic people from portfolio companies with whom I worked hand in hand on a daily basis. Someone said that we are the sum of people surrounding us and I must say I feel massive personal growth thanks to all these amazing people.
2022 is gonna be a blast!
I don’t make any New Year’s resolutions, but on the other hand, I perfectly know in which areas I’d like to improve this year. After all, change is always a process, not a one-time job.
