Twenty years in business is an impressive achievement. If I counted correctly, you've created 38 brands in that time! Not all of them have survived, but OpenGift.pl is the leader in promotional gifts in Poland. How is it that you're still operating at full speed?
My key is passion and the joy of creation. From the very beginning, I treated work as a field for experimentation—I never saw it as an obligation. I feel like I've never worked a day in my life, because it's still my passion; circumstances just change. Every project was an opportunity to learn and discover new ways of thinking about business, people, and products. Even today, when I look back, I see that failures were actually lessons, and every success a result of many trials and errors.
Exactly. For me, from the very first project, it was about implementing ideas. Sometimes experimentation and creativity led to concrete business results, and sometimes it was the opposite. I was fascinated by e-commerce, which gave me the feeling that there was no limit to scaling sales.
And the family business? This is, after all, the anniversary of your collaboration. It's often said that a family business is a ticking time bomb, a mixture of rivalry and tension?
Sure, there's competition—even in a radical form at the very beginning, but we've learned to embrace it. We started out as competitors. Only at a certain point did we agree to a 50:50 share.
We simply like each other. Let's be honest: we love each other, although that doesn't mean we always agree. On the contrary, we have different perspectives on many issues, which stimulates us to new solutions and better decisions. What's crucial for me is that we've never lost respect or trust.
And the beginnings? You start classically in the garage.
Yes, there was a garage (laughs). My father had to park outside pretty quickly. My parents supported us—not financially, but they stood by us, sometimes watching over us. It all started very early when my passion for electronic music emerged. At 15, I learned website coding and started a website—ClubTechno.pl…
And you refused to let us do it together, sharing 50% of the shares! You only wanted to give me 49%, so thirteen-year-old me founded TopDJ.pl, which reaches 250,000 unique visits per month and becomes your competition.
(laughter) And bigger and more recognizable, too. My parents hid new ideas in a safe to avoid recriminations.
Such a family patent office!
Exactly. Those were the days! The first money started coming in, as our services became so popular that media houses wanted to buy ads. At 13 and 15, each of us was generating several times the national average at the time, but we reinvested all our money in new ideas and brands. The problem was, we were really young, so we sent older colleagues from our service editorial offices to meetings with partners and music club owners. Soon after, I opened a shop selling T-shirts for electronic music fans bearing the ClubTechno.pl logo. My mother signed the contracts, and the first magazine was in our dressing room.
In 2006, the online clothing print shop Embros.pl was founded – our first business together. A breakthrough and reconciliation (laughs). Instead of treating collaboration as a simple sum of our strengths, Szymon discovered that together we could achieve much more – effects that multiplied, not just added together. And indeed, we grew quickly: we took over the basement, built another room, and occupied the garage.
Is this the moment when OpenGift.pl comes into being?
It does not exist as a brand yet, but we consider March 16, 2006 to be the birth of OpenGift.pl, because that is when we entered the gadget industry.
Our first product was a music festival lanyard. (It sold out quickly.) We're partnering with major festivals like Sunrise Festival, OFF Festival, and Audioriver. That was a real milestone.
And this is where the fun of experimenting and building companies begins. What haven't we tried? We've had a DJ booking agency, website design, the PureClubbing poll, an e-commerce platform for internet creators and brand owners, and a car rental company (which didn't work out for us either). We even have a tax office, Frieske.pl, and an advertising agency, Van De Friesque, under our belts, in honor of our eternal Dutch ancestors! Finally, in 2014, Reflect Group was founded, along with the OpenGift.pl brand, which taught us what a treasure people are in a company. And the real test was the pandemic...
That sounds scary. Have you lost much?
Paradoxically, no. During the global recession, we achieved our best results ever. It was then that we realized that no crisis could break a company that truly invests in its people and culture. Initially, there was fear, which we turned into action. The entire team behaved like a well-coordinated football team – everyone knew when to pass, where to stand, how to help, and we, as a company, just kept scoring.
This experience solidified our philosophy: we build people, not products. Products are merely a tool for creating value. Today, I know that with a team like this, we can overcome any crisis—we'll always find a way. I also believe that thanks to a culture based on openness, trust, and empathy, we learn humility and become better people—even outside our company walls.
Do you remember your first employee?
CO-WORKER – because that's how we like to describe the people we employ – yes, we remember it well. There was a great woman working in our parents' business, and they asked her if she would like to work with us. After a few years, she became a manager. She even met her husband there!
How do you become an industry leader? What do you have that your competitors lack?
I think it's primarily courage, creativity, and strategic thinking. It's true that OpenGift.pl has 100,000 B2B customers, 300,000 completed orders, and over 50 million złoty in net annual turnover. But for us, these numbers are the result of long-term thinking and consistent investment in people and relationships. For the first seven years, we didn't pay ourselves a penny—everything went into development. Only in the eighth year did a modest payout appear. The second thing is investing in people. We employ both experienced experts and young people with potential. This allows us to develop talent within the company and give them a real influence on the business. One of our colleagues started as a printer—today he is the CEO and shareholder of Reflect.pl. We want to give more than just money for work. This is our way of building value and market position.
In every service company, employees will treat customers the way they are treated at work. In 2024, we defined the company's DNA, vision, and mission, and now we describe our organizational culture with the slogan #openPEOPLE. Independence, honesty, and the ability to learn from one's mistakes are more important to us than rigid hierarchy. We truly believe that people develop best when they feel responsible for the end result, even if it's not the best (laughter). Because that's precisely what our philosophy is about: OpenGift.pl isn't just a brand—it's people. OpenGift.pl = #openPEOPLE.
After 20 years, you haven't lost the twinkle in the eye of those two teenagers from before their Windows 97 computer, so what can you promise the world in the third decade of OpenGift.pl's existence?
We will listen to our clients and their needs with unprecedented openness and expand our presence in Poland – we are opening offices in every major city to be even closer to the people we work with…
…because for us, growth isn't just about numbers and new addresses, but above all, about the people who fill those spaces. Therefore, along this path, we will invest in their development and competences like never before.
