From Translator to Linguistics Entrepreneur: A Conversation with Krzysztof Zdanowski

Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Richard Lucas and Kimon Fountoukidis speak with Krzysztof Zdanowski, language and technology entrepreneur. Krzysztof argues that entrepreneurship is about emotional and social intelligence. He discusses the ups and downs on the road to building Summa Linguae Technologies, a company with yearly revenue of $35 million.

Krzysztof studied applied linguistics in college, which helped lay the groundwork for his initial career as an interpreter. He first worked night shifts at a steel plant in Krakow. The factory had workers from different backgrounds, giving Krzysztof experience translating between workers and the international managers. Not long after, Krzysztof was fired from his job, which gave him the perfect opportunity to explore starting his own business.

Krzysztof created a translation company and experienced several challenges in the effort to find the perfect business partner. He describes the important lessons he learned in these initial struggles. For Krzysztof, the most important things when it comes to a business partner are a "match in values" and complementary skills.

Krzysztof also discusses the role of luck in creating a business. As he states, in the early days, he gave away half his business, only to buy it back shortly after. Krzysztof also experienced personal setbacks, dealing with a severe illness that left him partially paralyzed and in and out of the hospital for several years. He finally began to recover after a series of treatments in 2015, which allowed him to refocus on growing the business.

That year, the company went public on an alternative stock exchange in Poland and made its first acquisition of a translation company based in India. At this point in time, the company's yearly revenue was $1 million a year. Summa Linguae was able to more than 30x by acquiring other companies. For Krzysztof, this period was filled with stress. To fund these acquisitions, he had to spend a significant amount of time raising money and hiring talent to grow the company.

This period of "crazy growth," from 2016 to 2019, was the "death valley" for Summa Linguae. In 2019, Summa Linguae sold a portion of its equity, giving both the company and Krzysztof breathing room.

In recent years, Summa Linguae has begun pivoting from translation to data services. Specifically, they use their data built up from many languages to help train AI voice assistants and other language assistant tools.

Krzysztof spends much of his free time helping to build the entrepreneurship scene in Poland through the Entrepreneurs' Organization.

Krzysztof Zdanowski is an entrepreneur. As CEO of Summa Linguae Technologies, he has built a language and technology company with revenue of more than $35 million per year.

The NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast aims to educate, inform and entertain, sharing insights based on the personal stories of carefully selected guests—all in an informal atmosphere of unscripted conversations and open, personal accounts.

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