01:24 Alright, welcome back to the show and today I'm so excited to have with us, all the way from the other side of the world, Bartosz. Will you please tell us who you are and what do you do?

01:30 Hello, Todd, and thank you for having me. My name is Bartosz Skwarczek. I am the founder and the president of G2A .com group. And I've been here for almost 15 years. G2A is the largest, is the largest and as they say, most trusted marketplace for digital entertainment. So in just a couple of words, the mission of the companies democratize digital entertainment. So we aim to help people take the first steps, guiding them into this new world that we can see on the digital front. And we do this in two ways, one being an explorer. So we are saying, hey, G2A, we opened the gate for your adventure into digital world. And we've been doing this for a long time. And the second is we are a care giver. So basically we are saying, hey, we can help you in this world to do it very carefully and very safely and show you how to do it not only effectively having fun, but also in a very safe and secure way. So this is who we are.

02:50 Right, right. Now when you say entertainment, that can mean a lot of different things, but tell us about, where's your primary focus? Is there a part of the digital marketplace that you feel like you're strongest, or where do you carry the most weight?

03:03 The strongest definitely is games, video games. This is where we have started. And on the top of that, we enlarge this digital offering that we have for the clients, for the customers, for the users with gift cards, with different kinds of vouchers, with DLC, download content, etcetera. So everything which you can see starting from educational content, ending to cybersecurity content, and of course gaming, you can find it over 75,000 digital offerings.

03:37 That is awesome. So what is, I think a lot of people underestimate the value of the gaming community in the world. And I for one am a gamer. I have my private games that I love to play. I'm a Clash of Clans guy. I play a lot of Fortnite with my kids and there's a lot of things that we do. But help people understand the scope of what you're talking about because, It's my understanding that the gaming community has more active followers, more daily streams, more channels and communities than any other part of the digital community in the world. Am I wrong in that?

04:23 Gaming is one of the largest industry in general. So here we talk about 200 billion dollars industry and almost 4 billion people playing. So you can imagine that every household around the world, there is somebody who is a gamer. So we talk about one of the largest industries. And of course, there was a thought that, hey, with Google Stadia coming, with those streaming services coming to the landscape, is the gaming going there? But after a couple of years, we can see that Google closed the Stadia, that streaming offerings are not so hot as people thought. And actually, PC gaming, console gaming, and mobile gaming is the cornerstone. And with PC gaming being on the storefront, again on the on the avant-garde of this. So this is where we are operating mostly between PC and consoles.

05:28 I love it. So as you bring those worlds together, you're also attaching with it the way to what, process their memberships or what part of that are you playing the intermediary between those worlds?

05:44 You can think about G2A like an eBay for digital items. So we are a platform between sellers and buyers. For us, the client is both, actually are both the sellers and the buyers. So the sellers are coming and saying, hey, we have the great, greatest games, greatest gift cards you can have, most of them. And the clients are looking for the entertainment, the clients are looking for solving the problem that they have on Friday evening, or maybe to buy a gift card, a present for the grandchild. So a huge selection between the range of clients. Bear in mind that the average gamer is 32 years old. So it's not like a 12 years child, it's rather older. Not everybody is aware of that. But this is extremely interesting that we see gamers and people using digital contents, a huge variety, ending to 80 plus people buying at our marketplace.

07:05 Right. Now that's fascinating to me because, you know, we take Clash of Clans, for example. I think I've been playing that game for almost 15 years. And so you have been in business for about 15 years. How, you know, and just to validate your point in the size and scope of this marketplace, I have traveled the world, all over the world, particularly in Asia. And almost everywhere I've been in the world, I will be on a train, a bus, a plane, and I see people playing the same game that I play. And it immediately connects us, because I'll show them my Clash or my Clan, and we'll all of a sudden have this connection and connectivity. How are you tapping into that? And what would you say, kind of looking back on the growth of your business over the last 15 years, what decisions did you make in your journey? that brought you the most growth of either the client acquisition from the gamer's perspective or from the game producer's perspective? Like, are there different tracks you can take us down that kind of brought the most growth in your journey?

08:13 We can say about couple of stages of the business. So the first one is of course, startup. Yeah. When you are just launching the business and then you are fighting for every client, which actually is the truth till the very end. Then you have the moment when, when you want to move from startup to the scale up. And I would rather focus on this, due to the audience that, that, that, that you have. And for many businesses, this is extremely difficult because of many reasons. So for us, the key decisions that led us to being very successful, 30 million client business, when I'm saying 30 million, I mean, at G2A there is over 30 million buyers from literally every country around the world. So around 200 countries people are buying at our marketplace and until today, over 100 million items were sold through the platform. So I think this is a huge experience that we gathered over these years, almost 15 years, and a few things going from a few key decisions that we made over this time. First one was changing the business model. When you are starting the business and we started as an online store. We bought, we sold. Then at one moment we wanted to scale the business, but just being a store was too slow. The gaming market was too hermetic. So we decided to pivot it, a business into the marketplace. And it was a tough decision because you are betting on a different business model. It can work, but you don't have to. So, one thing is, even though you are successful as a startup, we were very successful. You can probably remember the game World of Warcraft. One of the most popular at some time, the most popular game in the world, G2A was the leading seller in Europe for this title, even though we decided that we want to grow even faster and we decided to change the business model into the marketplace. So that was the first thing and you have to be brave, you know, of course make the research, of course check the industry and everything, but at the end of the day, you have to make a decision. So that was the first one. The second was to be very focused on the digital space. And here is the challenge. When you are successful, you think that you can be the best at everything. There is a temptation. When I was so good at this, probably I will be also very good at that. It doesn't work this way. If you are so good at it, okay, be even better. And being very focused, 

11:24 Right! I agree.

11:25 Thank you, thank you very much. And being very focused with what you do is tremendously important. So what we focused on was digital. We saw the trend, the trend going from 95% of physical when we talk about gaming. Today we have 5% physical. So there was a huge transition trend going from physical to digital. We saw it and we focused on it. So that was the second thing to be very focused, laser focused. Of course we did our mistakes. It always happens. So the third thing is don't worry about mistakes. You will do them. Do them fast. 

12:21 Everybody does. Yeah.

12:22 Thank you. Yes. Do them fast and move forward. Learn from them and really move forward on daily basis. Don't worry about the mistakes. You have to do them to learn and to scale. And lastly, one of the most important things we did was being very focused on the marketing side, especially influencers, especially e -sport. G2A was one of the first companies in the world being very close to the influencers. Understanding the creators, how important they are, and we were one of the first companies to start it, who started working with the, even with the biggest ones like PewDiePie, amazing creator. And we partnership with him to promote not only G2A because at the end of the day, and watch this, at the end of the day, publisher is producing the game, the key to activate the game, but G2A and other marketplaces, we are promoting them. So we are paying for the campaigns. We are paying for the content we are paying for the marketing spend for the Google spend for Facebook spend etc to promote not only G2A marketplace but gaming industry but the title itself. So everybody is benefiting from this and you just have to do it. Lastly, but this is actually crucial, are people. So from the very beginning G2A was the company based on values. And we were attracting amazing talent. I can say that people at my company are truly amazing. The teams that I am privileged to work with. And we've been inviting these people from 50 countries. I mean, at the top moment, we have almost 50 different nations at G2A. So here is the challenge. you have to create the environment which is very respectful for people from different genders, sex, culture, nation, etcetera, the color, the skin, everything, and very transparent and very trustworthy. So these are the pillars of the growth we have.

16:36 I love it. I love it. You've just touched on several different items that I find very, very common amongst those who survive and grow and thrive as a scaling company, because a lot of people do get stuck for the reasons you just mentioned. A, they don't focus on a specific target audience or specific target marketplace. Like you mentioned, going from physical to digital, huge, huge step in your growth. focusing on the client avatar. You've been able to identify that you have both the publishers and the gamers who aren't teenage kids. We're talking about 32 year old people on average who are actively gaming. And let's be honest, the 32 year old gamer is gonna spend more money than the teenage gamer. So when you can capture, right? So when you can capture that audience as opposed to,the other ancillary users, you now generate stronger revenues, stronger revenue patterns and different ways to target them in your marketing. And then lastly, you talked about just identifying exactly who you are in the food chain, meaning the publishers identify the value of you being able to connect with  people using their products and making it more accessible and better for them. And you're doing the spend for the publisher. Like this is a very intricate system you developed, but I think that because you've identified how you fit for both the publishers and the users, you've been able to grow and outgrow all of your competitors. Is that fair enough to summarize?

18:29 It is, it's a great summary. One thing which is invisible in digital space, but is very influential is cybersecurity. And sometimes the companies, especially the smaller ones, they have this temptation. And we also had it. The temptation is like this, hey, we have limited budget, which is always the case, no matter how big you are, unless you are, you know, Amazon, Google, Apple, and you have $200 billion on the balance waiting for spending. But other than that, you always have limited budget and you think, should I spend it on cybersecurity or maybe marketing campaign or maybe bonus for my people or maybe for some features for the clients? Always, there is this decision -making dilemma and don't compromise on cybersecurity. This is our learnings from several past years. And today we are one of the biggest advocates for cybersecurity. We did it hard way. I mean, for several years we were fighting and fighting and fighting. And today I can say that G2A is on the top of the game, awarded with the most prestigious global awards like C &P in the United States for being on the forefront. So one example, next to us, Microsoft, Berkeley's bank got this award for being one of the top companies when it comes to fiber security. And this is invisible for the client. If everything works perfect, yeah, we call it hygiene effect. Hygiene effect is when everything is perfect, nobody says about it. It's obvious.Yeah. And, and you think like, come on, I spend millions of dollars, like, like a G2A. We spend millions of dollars on cybersecurity just to everything become and perfect for the client. This is this, that is the caregiver approach we have. One of the, of the, of the role models that, that archetypes we love to have. And that's it.

20:58 Now I gotta ask you though, because just this weekend, one of my sons loaded some credit onto his Roblox account, right? And right after he executed the coupon code to put the money into his account, somebody hacked his account, took all of his, a bunch of things out of his account, tried to lock him out of his account. And fortunately he was able to get some things back. When you're talking cybersecurity and you as the intermediary, how much of that falls on the blame of the producer versus the intermediary like you who's bringing it to market and the user security? How do you balance all of that?

21:47 Okay, perfect. Perfect question. The security of the game, it's always the responsibility of the publisher because the publisher is producing it. Yeah. Publishing it. What is publisher? I mean, also the developer who is behind the publisher because publisher is working directly with the developer where marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, G2A are responsible. What these marketplaces are responsible for is the transaction process. So the payment side, yeah. I give you an idea. Yeah. The  payment side is when the client is coming to the marketplace and saying, Hey, I would love to buy the game. I would love to buy this item or that item. And then the platform is responsible to firstly, partnership with the proper payment provider. It can be credit card, Visa, MasterCard, etc. It's obvious. It can be PayPal. It's obvious. But watch this. You ask about scaling from startup to scale up. If you want to be really global and you want to have the clients from India, PayPal or credit card is not enough. You have to have a Boleto. In India, you have to have Paytm. In Brazil, you have to have Boleto. In Germany, it's Sofort. So country by country, you have dedicated payment methods. And if you have only two or three of them, it's far not enough. So that was one of our key success factor that we integrated almost 200 payment methods. And then you are responsible for integrating them properly for providing the proper cybersecurity for the payment to the client with the client customer journey through the website. So here is the answer. Yeah.

23:52 That's insane. Yeah. That's insane. I mean, when I think about the scope of what you just described and being an international, I operate my business internationally as well as domestically, but when I think about the intricacies of what you just described, knowing that there are several different payment gateways and platforms and tools to use all over the world, I mean, you're talking about having to manage exchange rates, security login features, your integrations with all of their different payment accounts and all their different, I mean, this is insanity, what you've created. The depth of what you just described, I think is misunderstood by most people who only operate in say, the US, knowing that there's so much going on in the world and all these localized systems, you've, You've done something absolutely amazing here.

24:49 Thank you. When you live in the US, the life from several angles is beautiful. What I mean by that credit card and PayPal done. You are covering most of the market, but if you want to go global, it's far from being enough. When we talk about cybersecurity, then why? Did I say that we spent millions of dollars on that? Because every country is different. Because we have to work with really the best companies in the world, like Akamai, to name just one of the providers. Like companies who are providing the cloud, companies who are providing the proper routing, companies who are protecting you from DDoS attacks, et cetera, globally. And this is very different when you work locally on one market. And there is a big challenge. And I can give you an example, if you like. We had a fantastic conversation with, let's say, top three publishers in the world. They invited us to the headquarters and we talked about payments among many different things. And they asked me, I asked them, hey, What do you plan for payments? Because I noticed that in Turkey and India, you don't have a strong payment provider. And they said, hey, you know, we are really good at it. We implemented this year three payment method. And I said, aha. And then they asked me, hey, Bartosz, how many payments method do you have? Have you implemented this year? And I answered, 82. So when you really want to scale your business, you have to be super fast. I mean, working 24 -7, 365, that's the drill. You know, when Elon Musk is saying, I work 100 hours per week, it's not only Elon Musk. Yeah. It's my daily schedule for the last 20 years. And people sometimes forget about it. That it's not only about technology, it's about the effort that you can put into this. And building the startup is... When I started the business, I thought that, okay, after five years, it's going to be easier because the beginnings are the most difficult. Wrong. It's not easier. You have just the bigger level. 

27:41  Right. More tentacles to watch, right? Yeah.

27:42 Yes. Yes. bigger level of the challenges. Today there is almost half thousand people at G2A. So you look at the site and you think, you know, a couple of people doing this or that, no. It's half, almost half thousand, half a thousand people working daily basis, day in, day out. And that's the challenge, to create the environment the culture, the proper culture for having people on board and really being motivated. And I can say that we did it at G2A, having amazing people among us.

28:25 Tell me a little bit about, in closing, I love to ask people who have experienced the type of growth that you have, it's very rare that someone can figure all this out on their own. And granted, you've been doing it for 15 years, and so you've learned a lot of things to experience, and you've bumped your head against the wall a few times, but are there people that you'd like to give some shout out to who have maybe helped you kind of? Understand the landscape and some of the areas where you maybe didn't have the experience to grow the way you have

29:01 Beautiful question, because if there is anybody saying, you know, CEO, quite often they say that, unfortunately, saying, hey, this company was created because of me. In my opinion, humble opinion, it's false because without our people, we wouldn't build anything. And that is a very secret sauce, which everybody knows.But not everybody understands, I think, that people are not, the best people are not working for money. They are working for the proper culture, for the proper trust, for the proper responsibilities, for the ambitious big projects, for the proper treatment. Treatment, I mean, the way you as the founder, the CEO, the president, the chairman, the manager, you treat them. And, and that is the first thing. So the first thing about who helped me building this business is that I was building and I am still building the business with people. They are not working for me. They are working with me. And that is the very different mentality. When you work with people, or you think they work for you. So that's the first thing. Thank you. The second one is that of course I was blessed with so many mentors. I was always looking for them. From the very beginning, from the inception of my business career in different industry, 20 years, over 20 years ago, I was always looking for somebody to learn from, to look up to and when you ask about the growth, we can talk about the growth of the business and the growth of a person. And with the business, G2A is growing organically, steadily and very well. I mean, over 20 % per year organically without any &A's. Year after year, year after year. Thank you very much. And we do this very consequently.This year we are considering some &A's and next year to speed up this. And it's always people being behind that. And when you think about personal development, which is the key factor, if you want to stay with the company for a long time and not get into the stagnation, you have to lead by example. And it's like with the rope. You cannot push the rope. You have to pull it. You cannot push the rope. You have to pull it. And leading by example is something that we've been cultivating in G2A from the very beginning. And for me, this personal growth is getting into, I think what Albert Einstein said once, the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. So I've read over 1 ,000 books about business, psychology of achievement, the things related to what I do. And the more I read, the more I see I can learn. And really, the more humble I am that I am stupid, but I still don't know so many things. And, I use really every source I can to get knowledge. So for four and a half, five years ago, I was able finally, after 15 years of dreaming about it, to use Harvard and MIT for different courses and programs, flying to Boston, being there for almost two years, to get some additional knowledge for what I had. On the top of that, I work with, I was either co -founder or the driving member, one of the first members who drive the organizations, who are associating CEOs, founders, presidents chairmans., C executives sometimes, international leaders forum or different other organizations where.. I learn from people being a mentee or coachee and I mentor them. And I do this on a weekly basis, not once a year.

34:08 More of like a peer advisory, it sounds like. Yeah.

34:10 Yes, yes. So when they have a problem, they call me and say, Hey Bartosz, what do you think about digital space, about getting into there and blah, blah. When I have a challenge like, &A, who should I ask? Then I call to them and it's, Hey, tell me about this or that. And I do this literally on weekly basis. So every month we have meetings face to face. Every quarter we have a big two, three days meetings etc. And we exchange knowledge. So...

34:45 Well, this is something I'm glad you brought up because I talk about this quite a bit. I really am a huge advocate of, of peer advisory boards where they could be formal or informal, but no matter who you are and no matter what business you're in, there's no better resource for advice or, or even just you know, really trying to understand where you're going than to ask other people that are actively growing and building their businesses because, you know, the environment changes so dramatically. I mean, who would have expected COVID and the effect it would have on all of our businesses? Who would have expected? And you can't just ask someone who exited a company 15 years ago to give you advice on how to handle COVID because they never handled it. You know what I mean? But when you have other active CEOs and other active leaders who can get together with you on a regular basis and understand your needs and you understand theirs, that's where the magic really happens, in my opinion.

35:46 I fully agree, I fully agree on this because the market is so dynamic. Some rules are the same, like Peter Drucker once said about culture, eating the strategy for breakfast. And it's still the truth. Yeah. It still works. At the same time, geopolitics, macroeconomics, so many things is changing, digitalization of the space, AI and so on. And you have to be very close to that. I mean, on daily basis, looking for the sources, reliable sources and the way, this is actually what my mentor at MIT taught me about the productivity, because now we have too many informations and you have to be choosy which of them to choose. Yeah, and how to allocate your time because this is a very scarce resource. So the combination of all of that is building you actually. Lastly, but probably the most important in all of that is never stay to be hungry. Be hungry, be foolish, once Steve Jobs said, and it's very true. I mean, if you want to scale your business, going from startup to scale up, then you have to be hungry, hungry for knowledge, hungry for talent, hungry for humbleness. I mean, really being open, hungry for feedback. So we say G2A is a feedback company. We made hundreds of mistakes in our history, but we always very carefully listen and say, okay. Thank you for saying this. Let us improve ourselves. Let us do something better. And I think this is the secret sauce.

37:58 I love it. This is fantastic. What a fun interview. I really appreciate the things that you've shared, the experiences that you've shared, and I am very confident for those listening, if you've ever wondered what it's like to grow and scale an organization for as long as Bartosz has, and in the depth that he's been able to bring it, this is a great experience for you, and please don't hesitate to leave comments down below. I know that both Bartosz and I would love to engage with you, answer the questions you might have. Bartosha, thank you so much for taking the time today to share these insights with our community. And we can't wait to catch up with you in the near future.

38:37  Thank you very much, Todd. It's my pleasure and g2a .com pleasure to share, to share because it always come back to you. 

38:46 It always comes back. 

38:48 Yeah, it always comes back. Thank you very much for having me today.

38:50 Wonderful. And we'll catch all the rest of you on the next episode. Thank you Bartosz.