As a pioneer in the online gaming field, Karolina Pelc has achieved extraordinary things. A mix of being in the right place at the right time and sheer hard work have seen her profile rise in a previously male-dominated industry.
It wasn’t luck, she doesn’t believe in luck, rather she puts her faith in resilience and openness to take advantage of opportunities as they arrive.
Her unconventional career path as a casino dealer in Warsaw then London, then travelling the world working on cruise ships, gave her the foundations on which to build her professional life.
“As a dealer I learned to read people quickly. I saw the full range of human emotions from excitement and exhilaration, to anxiety and despair, often all within minutes,” explains Karolina.
“I learned to cope with extreme pressure myself while remaining calm and in control – all of which are necessary qualities in leadership and business.”
Climbing the corporate ladder
The rise of online gambling in the UK following a change in the law in 2005, opened up the sector. It presented opportunities for entrepreneurs and technology companies eager to step into this new market. But it was a male-dominated field and incredibly hard to crack as a woman.
“I went after every opportunity I saw, but I couldn’t get past the initial selection stage. I must have applied for hundreds of jobs, before eventually somebody took a chance on me and I was in.”
From that hard-won start she went on to work for some of the biggest names in the industry, pursuing opportunities around the world. She moved through the ranks, progressing from operations to senior leadership and board positions, before realising her obvious next step had to be to found her own company.
“My experience to that point had given me a profound understanding of how large gaming platforms operate, from product development and regulation to customer behaviour,” explains Karolina. “It got to the stage where it made no sense to stay working for somebody else, so I took the decision to bet on myself and set up on my own.”
Creating her company
The result was BeyondPlay, a tech company that focused on digital gaming. She grew her company quickly through successful venture funding rounds, so much so that she was able to sell it for a rumoured eight-figure sum less than three years later.
“I believe you shape your own destiny. I’d had a vision board with the names of potential buyers on it from even before I set up on my own,” she reveals.
“I’d always had an exit strategy in mind, it’s just good business planning, but day to day my focus was on building my company. I had no idea it would happen so quickly though!”
She sold her start-up to FanDuel, part of Flutter Entertainment, one of the largest gaming groups in the world. What’s more, she negotiated the sale herself and reveals: “Two things matter more than almost anything else: leverage and bluff.
“By leverage I mean I never took my foot off the gas. We continued to raise capital, sell our product, build the company and I was even talking to other potential buyers. You can’t slow down otherwise you weaken your position.
“By bluff I mean I knew who I wanted to buy the company, but couldn’t let that show. Of course the danger is your bluff may fail, so you have to be prepared to walk away with nothing. In poker terms, if you’re not prepared to lose the pot, you probably shouldn’t be playing the hand!”
Her bet paid off; the timing and tech were a strategic fit for FanDuel and the sale went through.
A mentor to founders and entrepreneurs
Experience has shown her there’s no straight line from business concept to company. That hard work doesn’t always equate to success and that personal qualities, such as resilience and being prepared to take a risk, are crucial.
Karolina now works with founders and entrepreneurs on their businesses, investing in start-ups and helping companies grow.
“When working with founders I ask them to reflect on the messages around risk they absorbed growing up. On the beliefs around money and stability within their families. Was taking a risk admired or frowned upon? Was failure considered a part of learning and growing, or was it something shameful, to be avoided at all costs.
“These beliefs can impact their appetite for risk. For many founders and entrepreneurs, just realising this and recognising the distinction between their reality and the attitudes absorbed during childhood can be surprisingly liberating.”
Working with start-ups naturally caused her to think about her own journey, which had been anything but straightforward.
“When people think about successful companies, they think there’s a lot of luck involved. But when I started reflecting on the path that took me from casino floors to cruise ships and moving around the world to progress my career, what I saw wasn’t luck at all. It was a process of decisions, risks, pivots and seeing opportunities as they arose. In short, it was bloody hard work!”
Next steps as an author and speaker
This realisation pushed her to write Her Play: Make Your Own Luck, part memoir, part business mindset manual.
“It’s about those moments when you don’t know if something will work, but you take the risk anyway. You reinvent yourself and learn, even in the face of seemingly huge obstacles,” says Karolina.
“It’s about the willingness to move forwards even when the path isn’t obvious. In most card games you don’t choose the hand you’re dealt – but you do choose how you play it. And that, in many ways, is the central idea of the book.”
Alongside launching Her Play on 9 June, Karolina continues to champion start-ups and especially female founders, through investment, speaking engagements and as a thought leader. She is bringing her business experience to audiences around the world, through conferences, podcasts and press. And her ideas on building success continue to resonate with entrepreneurs, no matter what their field.
“Markets change, products pivot and technologies evolve quickly,” she says. “But the resilience and ambition of the people building the company ultimately decide its future. How they act, the risks they take and their ability to grab opportunities they may never have seen coming, all ultimately determine whether it fails or thrives.”
Her Play: Make Your Own Luck by Karolina Pelc is distributed by Simon & Schuster and is out on 9 June. Available from Amazon, Waterstones and other leading retailers
