How to climb to the top on the Internet [INTERVIEW]

Have you managed to look up the "100 Wealthiest Poles 2015" list by Forbes yet?

Michał Sadowski: "No, I haven't."

But haven't you been curious?

"I knew I stood no chance in this edition. A guy who runs a carpet warehouse may have a larger turnover than we do if you consider just first three months of the year. Our business is picking up steam."

Money is important.

"Absolutely, but there are more important things than money, Money gives you freedom and a peace of mind but it is when you have no money that it makes you creative and see different angles. It is this different that make all the difference in the end."

Easier said than done. You've got the money.

"I've been in a tight corner several times in my life financially. The latest example: I had literally no income for ten months as we launched Brand 24. I have to admit it's not easy to be creative when your wife is pregnant and you're worried about how to get money to do shopping or pay utilities or a mortgage."

Only four years ago you had no money to pay your bills and now you're a millionaire. How much money do you have in your account?

"(laughs) I can't tell you just yet. I'm not a millionaire. Of course I have shares in a company that may be worth as much as 30 million PLN but so long as I keep them I'm a nonentity. I don't have a residence either. I live in a flat in Krzyki and drive an Audi or an Opel. And I like it that way."

What does it mean to you to be an entrepreneur?

"The first few years of an entrepreneur are a life that nobody wants to live just to finally reap the rewards and live like nobody can (laughs)."

Haven't you any doubts? Is it really worth it?

"Of course I do. Especially when I return home after fifteen hours of continuous meetings with my clients or when I pick up the phone from the US or Costa Rica at 3 o'clock in the morning."

What is it that you exactly do?

How would you describe your line of business and the way you make money?

"My company is called Brand 24 and we do website monitoring, that is, we identify changes in the public concerning particular brands or products. We gather it all in one place and make it available. This is our subscription tool that we've been selling for four years now. Several months ago we launched a version designed for foreign users to expand globally. We serve clients in 30 different countries. Just tonight I was woken up by an alert saying that someone bought our account in Costa Rica. That's the challenge of doing business online as you sell in places you don't even know how to find on the map. Brand24 is a joint-stock company. We have about 2 million PLN of revenue every year and we grow by 50% annually."

And your business partners?

"I launched the project with Piotr Wierzejewskiand Karol Wnukiewicz, my friends from university, and we were later joined by Dawid Szymański. We give jobs to thirty people in Wroclaw, Warszawa, Brzeg, Gdańsk and Kraków. We love working from home and we also work from any place we find convenient to do so."

You're of the same age.

"Not necessarily. We've got a guy who's 56 (laughs). He's my dad. He picked up the Internet virus from me. He learnt programming when he was 53 and he wrote his own service called wyszalnia.pl for guitar players and karaoke fans."

You set up your company as a group of four but it is you who lends the face to the project. Do you consider yourself to be a leader?

"Yes, a little bit."

Aren't you colleagues envious of your popularity?

"It's actually me who's trying to make them spend more time in society but they don't always want to."

Are you tired of popularity? You're almost like a guru for the industry. When I said we were going to have an interview my colleague (IT guy) said that he knew you and they you even spoke. When I asked for details he explained that he once went to a meeting and he heard you talk. That's all but it was very important for him.

"We enjoyed our spell of popularity when we sold our first company. I tend to joke it was our big time. Brief and undeserved, you may add. But it soon came to an end and nobody recognised me later on. But I'm happy some people still want to strike a high-five or chat with me. I want to be recognised because I did something cool and useful and not simply because of money. I don't know why. Maybe I have an inferiority complex or something?"

Your first money?

Do you still remember how and when?

"I was eight and me and my friend washed cars in Brzeg Opolski. I bought my dream watch with a calculator. My first serious job was in my parents' tailor shop. I did locks, you know what that is?"

No idea.

"It's a special thread that keeps your belt loops in place. I did several thousand such locks before I could buy my first PC. I bought a second-hand AMD 800. I couldn't sleep all night. That was just before I went to university, which was quite late."

Did you always know you want to be an IT guy?

"You must be joking. My dad made me fall in love with maths as school and I did several competitions. But then I read a few books on warfare and I wanted to serve in the navy. I also wanted to study to become a pilot."

A sigh relief for your parents when you got to study IT.

"Precisely."

You finished Programming Engineering at the Wroclaw University of Technology. Several hundred people finish programmes in IT every year. Why is it you who's successful?

"Several people found their sea legs in business. The majority work full time and make careers. The people I'm working with, well, I met them at university. They are my business partners. I think that the most difficult thing in business is to find partners that you can trust 100%. I can still really benefit from the fundamentals of programming I have learnt as a student. But I'm more of a manager than a programmer these days."

Your recipe for success? Friends, trust, ideas. Anything else?

"The ideas are not that important, There are 10 companies that offer website monitoring tools in Poland and over 100 worldwide. We're in the lead because we know how to solve problems that others can't. To cut a long story short, it's not worth seeking something that doesn't exist. You're better off when you improve the ideas that someone has already put to use. Facebook wasn't the first social network and neither was Google the first browser. What really counts is quality and your innovative approach."

Business

OK, so you already know how start a business when you receive your degree.

"Not really, no. I know what it's like at one university only but I think it's a more general problem. University studies do not prepare to work on your own. I have learnt the hard way myself. I couldn't tell the difference between strategy and tactics or operations. Here's the example. Our business partners use business slang and I haven't got a clue what they are talking about. I was one asked how was the EBITDA going (accounting measure calculated using a company's net earnings, before interest expenses, taxes, depreciation and amortization are subtracted). I answered that everything was going well, and that we had two (laughs) and I made a fool of myself. I have learnt a lot since then and if I don't know something I have no qualms to ask about it."

You are quite often invited to universities these days to tell how to do business.

"That's what I found missing while at university. My supervisor was the only person to tell us that there are other opportunities than full-time employment. He told us how to do business in class. The majority of his students are now entrepreneurs. Our technical universities turn out engineers to address the immediate needs of the market. Nobody care if they would like to set up their own company and give jobs. Just to make it clear, I'm not against working full time. Each scenario has its pros and cons. The web industry is different in that you can do projects after hours or set up your own business when you get the money. The good thing in this line of business is that you don't need a lot of money to start. What you really need to invest is your time."

Finding a balance

Do you have time for family or friends?

"I'm trying to find a balance so that I don't wake up one day and have no one to enjoy the money with. Having your own business means you don't have to work from nine to five. If the weather is nice I can take my family and break away from it all any time I like."

Does it happen often?

"No (laughs). My job is my pastime. Even on Saturdays when other people enjoy their weekend I always do something because I like it. For me the great reward it to see how the company grows. That's a bit like SimCity but much more exciting."

You wife doesn't work, does she?

"She works at our company. She deals with sales and she's really good at it."

Like a magician

How do you think the web is going to change over the next few years?

"I don't know. When my partners ask me about my plans for the next two years we have to act a bit like magicians. Who would have predicted five years ago that you would be able to order a taxi in New York with an app. We can't simply predict how technology is going to develop and that services it's going to offer us in the future."

Don't you think it's a little like a soap bubble, you plug it off and there's literally nothing to hang on to?

"No, I'm not afraid of this. The Internet is unpredictable and is now literally devouring the world. I remember when we thought that Google is completely off the wall as there was no way you could make money on it. And it's a cash cow these days and it can help you to do a lot of things. That's like an ecosystem. You have ten projects that fail and one that changes your life. This is really exciting."

His next step is...

"My dream project is to go global with Brand 24 and reach 1000 clients. This will bring our business to the next level. And then 10 thousand clients and so on, and so on. We want Brand to be used by everybody. By plumbers, restaurateurs, you name it. A tool available for everyone. These days we mainly serve big brands which know what marketing is all about. But our dream is to reach SMEs."

I can imagine politicians also want to know what people say about them.

"They are really keen on tools such as ours but I prefer to stay away from politics."

But politics has an impact on your life and your business too. Do you go to the polls?

"Of course I do but I don't sympathise with any political party. What I hate about politics is duplicity. Let me get this straight. I took me seven hours to get to Warsaw five years ago and now it's only three. An I have to be there once a week. I simply can't stand people who moan all the time and who say that everything sucks. That's what opposition parties are doing all the time. And there are lots of things we should be proud of. The sooner we get rid of our inferiority complex and learn to believe we can do things, the more companies such as Estimote or UXPin, we will be able to attract."

Is there anything that hampers you? Taxes, the law, ever changing regulations?

"You begin to encounter problems when the company is up and running.

As an employer you need to trust your people and be several steps ahead of the competition."

And haven't you ever thought of leaving Poland to do business abroad, for example, in America?

"Of course I have. I've got quite a lot of friends who left Poland and work in awesome places, for example in Bali, because in the web business you can work wherever you like, even from the ends of the earth. I've stayed because I feel attached to the country and I have to many friends here to just give up on them."

Great daughter, great wife

Don't get me wrong, but you don't look like anyone special. A hoody, jeans, trainers and a smart phone in your hand. No expensive watch or a designer suit. That's not like millionaires or success stories look like.

"(laughs) Yeah, I haven't put any bling on today. I'm joking, the truth is, it's my wife and my daughter that make me special (laughs)."

You run a company, you wrote a book called "Rewolucja social media" ("Social Media Revolution"), you're a blogger and a web pundit, your video clip "Internety robię" ("I work on the Internet") had half a million hits in just several days.

"Yes, I've made my dreams come true."

Which dream is next on your list?

"My wife bought me a visit to a high-speed wind tunnel. That's a springboard to another dream of mine: parachuting. But I have a yellow streak each time I think about it (laughs) because I have a fear of heights. You'll agree that's quite a challenge for someone like me who wanted to be a pilot. I love extreme sports so maybe I'll try heli skiing one day. I were to choose just one dream I would take my two girls and go on a tour in a big car across America."

Michał Sadowski was born in 1982 and graduated from the Faculty of Information Technology and Management at the Wroclaw University of Technology. In 2005, he and his friends set up patrz.pl. which they later sold for 2 million PLN.

Currently, he's Director of the Board at Brand24 S.A. He has published "Rewolucja social media" ("Social Media Revolution") and received a number of awards, including Auler and Ekomers. In 2013, he was named the best Polish web entrepreneur in the international competition The Next Web Startup Awards 2013. In February 2015, he entered the 50 Most Creative Entrepreneurs ranking by "Brief": read more.