Technology like Lego bricks
We focused on the development of technology that can be easily scaled and used regardless of time zones or the language of a given country. From the very beginning, our goal was not to conquer the Polish market, but to be present on many markets around the world - say the founders of Self Learning Solutions, Karol Dziasek and Przemysław Kamiński.
You have a nice abbreviation, a cool name SLS. I found out that it was the name of Elon Musk's famous rocket. Looking at your results, I think you have something in common.
Karol Dziasek: We are definitely "attacking" like this rocket and we don't want to slow down. This rocket fuel in the form of VC on board has accelerated our growth for a year. So far, we have grown organically. Yes rocket fuel indeed, part of this rocket was added in the form of VCs.
You focus on fintech. Apparently, Poland is a good country for creating fintech companies, but it is not good for sales by such companies, because Poland is too small a market, and companies like SLS have to scale. What is your recipe for being like Musk's rocket?
Przemysław Kamiński: We have grown over 100 percent in the last year. Our business plan is also written out for several years ahead and assumes large increases. When setting up a startup, you immediately have to think about how such technology can be implemented abroad. There are a lot of companies that fall into the trap of doing business in Poland. Because we are such a large market, something can be done here, but at the same time small enough that staying only in Poland will eliminate such entities from the growth path, from the VC path at later stages. In my opinion, you need to think immediately in the European and global perspective and how to enter other markets. Estonians or companies from the Baltic states do it perfectly, because they have such small markets inside that they have to set up a global solution right away.
Don't we, as Poles, have the same gene of conquering the world as, historically speaking, the English or the Spanish? You are implementing a strategy that is partly based on sales abroad and you have ambitions to do so. What makes you different from those startups that will never sail beyond the border of the Bug and Oder rivers?
Przemysław Kamiński: I don't know what makes us different, but I can tell you what we want to do to make it happen. We focused on the development of technology that can be easily scaled and used regardless of time zones or the language of a given country. From the very beginning, our goal was not to conquer the Polish market, but to be present on many markets around the world. Karol and I had experience in working with various types of financial companies that operated in many markets in Europe and beyond. We have seen that the problems that affect these companies are similar. This gave us an impulse to say to ourselves "this is a product, a service that has a chance to function globally". Our competitors are mostly American companies that have a global reach and sell technology for the same purpose.
You know what the market conditions are, you know what the customer needs, you have a simple technology that scales regardless of the language and time zone. You have acquired foreign customers in the last year. What can you suggest to other portfolio companies – how to do it?
Karol Dziasek: If we compare ourselves to Estonian and Baltic companies, 40 million people on the domestic market is a lot, both B2B and B2C. There is space, there is networking for testing. This can often help, it's not a limitation. We can test it, what will work in a bank, in a fintech. I say this from our B2B department. And then try to scale it to other markets, looking for similarities between these markets or stages of development in the world. At some point, we said to ourselves: "we want to be global, we have a good network here in Poland, we know people. Maybe we will try to reach some global companies that want to grow in several markets around the world, and our product is scalable and great for capital groups." A client who was on the Polish market and wanted to scale in other markets took our solution to scale this business. This is our recipe - we market and do absolutely everything to attract capital groups that want to develop on other markets. It is also the other way around - if there is a client who, for example, is a fintech somewhere in Europe or Asia, and would like to do business in Poland and the surrounding area, then our business is also great for this.
Przemysław Kamiński: Our experience in working with large corporations has shown us that it is an extremely difficult task to implement solutions if the company itself has not yet decided to change. People simply don't like change. This is a difficult, long-lasting and non-transparent process. We focused on the implementation of new projects - where a new market, a new service, a new product is launched, and this strategy works perfectly for us. Of course, we are able to deliver a working product in a very short time. If the client wants to make a proof of concept or wants to enter with a new solution, we are able to turn this vision into a working process, service or business within a few weeks.
Does this agility make you stand out? You said earlier that you have a lot of competitors. These are mainly companies from the American market. Do you think that this is something you compete with?
Przemysław Kamiński: I think so. We compete with an extremely quick response to what is happening on the part of customers. We have confirmation from them that this model of immediate response is in a sense unique. Large companies have their own procedures, structures, information must be assigned to the right department and the time for a response in accordance with the SLA is, for example, three days. We act immediately, because for many companies, three days of non-functioning functionality is a killer for business. We handle tens of thousands of applications on several markets every day and this value is constantly growing.
Karol Dziasek: Our clients say that they simply like working with us – because we act quickly. We do not sell the product itself, but also some impressions related to it, we show how quickly and easily cooperation between companies can look like. The emotions that accompany cooperation do not come from the fact that we are a startup, but it is in our DNA. According to a certain culture that will stay with us - I hope - regardless of whether we have 20 customers or 200, today or in a few years. I have always wanted to serve people in the way I would like to be served myself. That is why we strive to be the best in the space we have found for ourselves in the market, including risk process management.
You summed it up wonderfully. I understand that you play it somewhere in the materials?
Karol Dziasek: For now, it's in my head. You have exclusivity😊
This is the second question regarding the large financial institutions you work with. How do banks open up to credit risk? Until recently, it was a bastion where they did not want to let anyone in. Your successes show that something has changed. Although you said that you have not only large customers. Again, I come back to the question - how do you reach them?
Przemysław Kamiński: We have to distinguish between two things. We give our clients the opportunity to arrange and manage risk processes very flexibly and quickly. It's like driving a car. To keep the car on the road, it is not enough to keep the steering wheel in one position all the time, but you have to constantly make gentle movements.
The same is true of risk – and what we provide is a vehicle that gives the opportunity to very quickly adapt the organization to what is happening on the market and to manage risk in running a business. The approach to risk is and will be on the side of banks. Each bank has its own methodology, it arranges it in some way and perhaps it is its secret knowledge. We only provide a vehicle that allows for a very quick adaptation of this approach to the currently changing market conditions - related to the micro and macro situation, the results on the loan portfolio, the business environment. A bank or other financial institution that provides financing in any form must adapt its risk policy to the current market situation. The sooner he is able to do it, the better for the business.
Why do you do it better? The responsiveness you are talking about, additional resources to work on is another thing. What is so core that you bring with the band and what brings BLIK to its knees?
Przemysław Kamiński: Today's financial market is a flow of information. If something changes on the market, it is necessary to change this process – to direct this information to a different place or to supplement or enrich it. Today, most institutions have solutions that are hardcoded. The problem arises when we try to do something about this process, to change it somehow. For example, we see that we need additional information about the customer, we want to implement a new policy for a certain market segment. Then IT must come into play, receive the scope of required changes from the business, analyze, deveop and implement into the system. And this is time - weeks or even months. We do the same in minutes!
So?
Karol Dziasek: We have technology that is like Lego blocks. Any block can be moved at any time and can be done by a person who is not an IT specialist. Today, we do several implementations a day for our clients. End customers don't feel it at all. The system is still working, the next version is simply introduced, some functionality changes. From our customer's point of view, this means a huge time saving, and time is money. IT is not involved in this process at all.
How to convince financial institutions that are your clients or potential customers to outsource services such as yours?
Przemysław Kamiński: Not everyone goes the way of outsourcing. Some clients choose their own solutions and try - sometimes successfully - to write similar platforms on their side. This is a question of economic efficiency. You can do it yourself, but it is expensive and time-consuming. You can use what is ready and enriched with years of experience working with other clients. Companies have different strategies for navigating the market or staying on the market. Some use outsourcing, some want to have everything at home.
Karol Dziasek: Outsourcing risk in its pure form is not SLS. SLS gives - as Przemek said - at the beginning a platform and technology to implement its strategy quickly, agilely, and adapt to changing market conditions around the world. It is true for some clients, especially those smaller fintech companies, that all risk outsourcing remains with us. We manage the credit policy, manage scoring models, and recommend changes to them.
Przemysław Kamiński: But this is not our core business, we want to develop technology, not consulting services. We learn a lot from outsourcing by talking to clients - what their needs are, whether our vision with self-learning, automation of profitability, makes sense at all. Thanks to the fact that we are very close to our partners, we can test various solutions and ask about their verifiability.
You said that your customer is risk. B2B sales are specific sales. You don't sell it to one specific decision-maker. Especially in such institutions that you reach with your projects. What is it like when the IT manager sits at one table and has to comment on a solution that he could theoretically write. But - as you said Przemek - economics is against such an approach. In addition, this is something that he will lose control over, because no IT employee will be needed to deal with it, because people, due to the fact that you don't have to code, are able to put these blocks together themselves, create their own models. How does SLS sell effectively in B2B? What is your recipe for B2B sales?
Przemysław Kamiński: Usually, IT has a backlog written out for two years ahead, so I don't feel that we are taking their jobs:-) I think that there is no one magic way or magic channel. We have not found the holy grail. We just have to do what others do, only better. We are also always looking for an ambassador - at the client's and sometimes it is the head of IT, other times the head of risk.
How do you know who to hit? Is there anything your intuition telling you? You said that there is no single recipe, but there is one of yours. It cannot be a trial and error method. Can you tell us something?
Przemysław Kamiński: I'll surprise you - it's a trial and error method, testing and checking if something works. Of course, we are looking for customers in other markets. We create communication that comes from us to potential customers. We check what messages work and which people are best to reach. Which group, how reacts to a given message, etc.
Why Vietnam? Do you have certain countries or a certain part of the world on your radar because it's easier there?
Karol Dziasek: Yes, we have been working there with the client for a good few months now. This is a client with a capital group that operates in many markets. He tested us on one of them and today we do business together in several markets around the world.
Do you aim somehow? What is the method for this?
Przemysław Kamiński: We have two approaches - in one we choose the areas in which we would like to function. In the second one - we go with customers where they want to be present. There are places in the world that have a lot of growth potential, mainly Southeast Asia and South America. There, we are actively looking for opportunities for development. The second strategy mentioned is to follow clients who open new markets in cooperation with us. In this model, we provide the solution, the functionality on the market in which they intend to launch the project. At the beginning of the conversation, I said that financial services are the flow of information today. The risk assessment process is the process of processing information. The problem is that completely different information is available about customers in Africa, different in Europe, and still different in South America or Asia. The level of economic development, computerization of society, devices used, access to data in databases. And so, for example, in Africa, everything "sits" in a mobile phone. In Poland, we have economic information offices where you can collect information about the customer. This is not a common practice around the world. There are countries in Asia where hundreds of millions of citizens do not have an ID card. Or those in which the economic information bureau can be used, for example, only by banks. However, there are also companies that have to assess the risk associated with financing. It is extremely interesting that the tool that supports the process must be fed with information. And what information has been provided depends on the specifics of the market. We maintain not only the platform itself, but also the connection to external data sources. So that the customer can decide which data they want to use - transaction data, data from business offices, social media or registers.
As you have already said - you are a technology company, you want to create technology, you build systems of "blocks" in some way. It is a box with blocks that you give to the customer and he can use it.
Karol Dziasek: Self Learning Solution was born out of frustration. I have been dealing with risk for 15 years and during this time I have not found an engine that would meet my expectations. That is, one that would be easy, fast and pleasant. Everything that was there was expensive, difficult to implement and to integrate. The integration description is a hundred pages of various modules, etc. The conversation about integration itself was a nightmare. Today, we have two A4 pages of API description. All integrations external. A well-used cloud gives such a solution that really anyone can do it. The challenge is to optimize the cloud, to implement tools to process it quickly. We are the decision-making engine that processes and monetizes data and does it the fastest and best.
Where do you want to be in 5 years as SLS?
Karol Dziasek: I know that I want to be among the top solutions. If someone wants to set up a fintech, they must also think about SLS. This is what I am aiming for, how to do it and strive to be a brand recognizable all over the world when it comes to decision engines. This is my vision for SLS.
What is it like to work in such a team? You are building SLS together, each of you has a baggage of experience, dynamics and your own vision. How is it? What is it like to juxtapose these visions and expectations, and at the same time make the whole team know what these common assumptions are? Is it so that you "stroke" each other, or as a result of clashes cool things are created that strive to unify this vision. Is it a matter of character or your experience?
Karol Dziasek: It's interesting, I came up with the idea to set up SLS and I went to Przemek with it. I knew that I would not do business things on my own, I was looking for a man who understands the market, people and can manage a business, as well as who complements me and Przemek was top one on my list. Przemek also didn't think long, which was surprising for me. Przemek immediately caught my vision and said "this is how we do". Although it is not so easy, nothing is created here as a result of stroking. There were always discussions, sometimes arguments, stress, especially in covid, when our biggest client dropped out. When we were faced with the decision whether to close the business. But the emotions always subsided and we sat down to look for a solution. We do not "stroke ourselves", but we have one vision. There are different ways and we discuss these ways which way to reach the goal. SLS is supposed to be a rocket, this is what unites us. On top of that, we have a flat structure, the company culture is very open and friendly.
How to reach the goal? How to face challenges? What was the hardest moment? You said that covid was such a challenge. What is the worst thing that can happen to an entrepreneur?
Karol Dziasek: Just like the beginning of the pandemic in our case. When I got a call that we were being locked in our homes, and the main client said that he was closing the business. At the beginning we were actually "down", but on the second day we decided to move forward. We had a slight drop in revenue, but we "ran away", we had some time to put everything back together to maintain revenue, and then think about VC. We said to ourselves "we are moving forward, the crisis will not catch up with us", because we know that there is potential in our company.
Przemysław Kamiński: We have a vision, we believed and still believe that there is a place for our product on the market. But the road we traveled was not easy. Churchill said that success is about going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. I think that's a bit like that. The fact that the company is growing does not mean that there are no problems, we face some dilemmas and choices every day. Without any certainty that the decisions we make are right.
Today we know how the pandemic ended. What has remained in you, what is the conclusion, the lesson that you have been using to this day?
Przemysław Kamiński: That moment in covid was a very difficult experience. We did not have an external source of financing. All the facts said "run away", but we were moving forward. I think business is about having that determination and perseverance to take the next step, no matter if it's raining, if you're in a good or bad mood, you just do it. It is also a fantastic adventure. We spend more than 8 hours together at work. We decided to build a team with such people so that it would be "fun" for everyone to be in this adventure together and move forward together. For me, it is a very important element to create a place that is good for yourself and for people, so that they can also develop, feel safe, feel respected and appreciated.
Do you feel that it is successful? Is this an area in which you are constantly experimenting, searching, wanting to improve? In what style do you manage the company?
Przemysław Kamiński: I think it works. I don't want to use big words, but we want to move towards a turquoise organization. In general, a company is people, not technology. We, as founders, want to provide people with the conditions for work and functioning that we would like to be provided with. Are we succeeding? You would have to ask the team, but we are trying!
What do you think from today's perspective - you say Przemek that making decisions is not easy, there is a lot of uncertainty, but you try to make the best decisions at the moment according to your knowledge and experience. What would you do differently today? How do you draw conclusions?
Przemysław Kamiński: We made a lot of mistakes. I think it's a continuous learning process, we're doing this startup for the first time. That a situation will happen in which I make a mistake seems practically certain. The only question is how big it will be and whether it will not overturn the business. We are fully aware of making mistakes as part of the learning process.
What is it like when you don't work in one place and how does it affect the dynamics of cooperation?
Karol Dziasek: I talk to Przemek more often than to my wife:) In the team, a large part of the team is IT and analysts and actually... It is good that we do not disturb them. Of course, we are in the office once in a while and we are in touch, but I think that analysts and the IT team are more efficient when they work in conditions that are optimal for them. On a daily basis, Przemek and I "sit on the phone", which also teaches us a certain discipline to take care of things on our own. But such an arrangement also poses challenges - the team gets distracted, you have to take care of "maintaining" attention and contact, the written language is different from the spoken one, which does not always facilitate contact. I have a lot to learn myself - what company culture is, what it means in everyday work. I teach emotional intelligence.
How do you do it?
Karol Dziasek: I read a lot. I often travel by train and have a moment to read.
You are motivated, behind it is the frustration from which the company was born, professional maturity and the desire to "go further". How to keep the same motivation in the team?
Przemysław Kamiński: Karol said that you can't "disturb" the band. This is the level on which there is no agreement between us. I believe that it is impossible to run a business without communication. The hybrid model is a challenge for the whole world today - how to create a team that has a common goal and a sense of community in such conditions. And it's not easy at all in remote work. Of course, we use many communicators, we meet and talk many times, on a weekly basis certainly with everyone - we make sure not to lose contact with people from the team.
How big is your team?
Karol Dziasek: At the moment, there are almost 20 people from very diverse areas. We are all strongly involved, we share our doubts, praise, call, write. We "live" projects intensely, emotionally, and perhaps this is low-level behavior, but in our conditions - natural.
But it's so unusual - a combination of mathematics with an emotional approach to "getting excited" about the product.
Karol Dziasek: I love such contradictions. I used to have to choose - the analytical or managerial path. Today I have the honor of running my own company, and since I know analytics, I sometimes program something.
What is the catalyst for you to move on?
Przemysław Kamiński: This is absolutely the best job I've ever had in my life - giving me the opportunity to create something the way we want, the opportunity to build a piece of the world also for others. It is extremely important to me that I can make people have nice conditions to function with my actions. This is something that drives me. On top of that, I know that I have a difficult and uneven road behind my back. But there is also another peak ahead of you, which is often the foot of another mountain after reaching it. I want to do something that makes sense, create, achieve, be constantly on the move. This is my motivation. Of course, money is also important, but this is not the main driving force in my case.
Is it a path or a destination?
Przemysław Kamiński: I think that both are important. To achieve a goal that I need 5 years to achieve, and that's a long time in which a lot of great things can happen along the way.
The way in which the paths of SLS and WP SQUARE intertwined was not obvious. We were not the "first choice fund" for you. How do you assess cooperation with funds from today's perspective, not only in the context of WP SQUARE? What do you expect from investors? Do you prefer the approach in which the investor gets involved, or do you prefer a passive model in which you are given free rein?
Przemysław Kamiński: What is important to us in funds is real smart money. It was a priority for us to be able to use the funds' networks to develop in many respects. I would also introduce a different dividing line than "active/passive fund share". For me, the most important thing is mutual trust. You believed us that we would do everything to achieve our goal. We feel that we can turn to you for consultations, for help. And this applies not only to you, but also to the other fund we are working with. The fact that there is a relationship and we talk every month, showing where we are, what has been successful, where we can see opportunities and threats, what you can do to help us. And these are normal, partner conversations and relationships. This is the kind of cooperation I would expect.
What do you do outside of work? What activities would you like to inspire others to do?
Karol Dziasek: I think it's a beautiful time, I'm in love with my wife and daughters. I've been training ballroom dancing for 13 years and I miss this hobby. Now the challenge is to get out for two hours to go dancing. My experience with dance helps me today in situations where I am invited to meetings where I have to talk in public about "data and mathematics", and then I mentally go back to the times when I danced in front of an audience. Dancing is also a stepping stone from work and going out to people.
Analyst, programmer, mathematician and also goes to dances. Is there something that connects it?
Karol Dziasek: Planning trainings and trips, adapting to the schedule of tournaments, regularity and perseverance in training - perhaps this is due to the mathematical mind, the desire to plan.
What are your business habits?
Przemysław Kamiński: We both have a high level of self-discipline. There are things that need to be done and that's it. This is followed by a certain organizational rigor, consistency in action, responsibility for people and towards customers. There is also an element of healthy hunger in it, to do something more, faster, better, further. As you have noticed, we are different, but we complement each other well. We used to work together before and we knew each other, but running a business together and knowing "from work" are two completely different worlds.
How did it happen that you work together?
Karol Dziasek: Przemek was my boss and I watched him a lot - how he manages, how he can solve problems and conflicts and how dynamic he is in all this. This is something that I lack and in which he complements me. I was for perceiving numbers and algorithms, not people and processes. I was aware that I would not be able to run the company on my own. I knew I needed a business partner and I was ready for it.
And from your perspective, Przemek? How did it happen that you decided to work with Karol?
Przemysław Kamiński: I wasn't exactly his boss. I also have to say that I saw Karol working. When he came and told me about the idea for SLS, I didn't hesitate even for 3 seconds. I think I'm lucky with people, I manage to meet people who can create such stories. I guess I have to trust my intuition more. In the days before SLS, Karol's frustration was also my frustration. Karol was responsible for the risk, but I was responsible for the whole business. If the risk did not work, then the business did not work either. If the business didn't work, it wasn't profitable, and I couldn't do anything because I had to wait for IT. So if someone comes to me and says "we're going to have this system on blocks and we're going to do it in one day, and I have to wait three months for the change, my reaction was immediate "we're doing it!". That's how it started. During the first months, we invested our own money in the development and construction of this tool.
Beautiful - a total flow, for which 3 seconds was enough.
Karol Dziasek: We have been in difficult situations many times and it has never happened that we have been disappointed in each other. It brings people together. I also think that sometimes it is also worth trusting your intuition.
Przemysław Kamiński: Karol and I think we know each other well:-) Trust is very important, not only between us, but also in the people we work with. They prove it to us many times by getting up at night to keep an eye on things or staying at work until everything is done. To be clear - it's also not the case that people sit on work for 20 hours, because that's not the point either.
And this is how we will sum up our conversation:) Thank you!
Interviewer: Ewa Pysiewicz and Paweł Florkiewicz, January 2023