Culture matters.
The early days of Onet.pl
“Culture matters” was the title of a talk by David Bizer at the Innovation SaaS meetup on people. It was a great talk and a great subject. It made me recollect how it was at Onet.pl when Tomek Kolbusz and I were icharge.
Task
It was December 1997 when Roman Kluska, chairman of Optimus SA, and we, Tomek Kolbusz and I, agreed that it was time to build a great Internet company in Poland. Roman made the in-kind contribution of the Optimus Internet team based in Kraków, which employed around 15–20 people, and we gave the vision, management and assets of two companies that we were running. On top of that, Roman invested a couple of million dollars.
It was few months later, after we had made plans, that I looked at them and thought, “Gee, this is going to be huge. It will be a 1-billion-dollar company that will employ hundreds of people.” I felt excitement and fear, and I knew I wanted to do that.
Competence
We started hiring. After a few weeks we knew that it was going to be a challenge. Surprisingly, the easiest people to find were software engineers, for the very simple reason that among them there was a group that wanted to work for an Internet company, and there were only two Internet companies that were hiring. People who wanted to work with us were ready to overcome difficulties just to be in the Onet team. With other positions, it was really difficult, as there were no people in Poland and very few in the world that had the experience we were looking for.
In the beginning I should say that we had a secret weapon — our HR director Anna Wolfarth. When I saw that the task was huge, I wondered what to do, and the first move was to look for a person who could help us build the team. We picked Anna, and she was the right person.
Example
Let me tell you the story of UX design in Onet. Obviously there was no such thing as UX design then. There was no such term as user experience or evenusability. There was HTML and very simple Web pages, but our goal was ambitious. The goal was to build a portal — a central gateway for Internet users, A place were 80 per cent of users in Poland would satisfy 80 per cent of their needs. Silly, is it not? But it was our goal, and the funny thing is that we almost did it.
Let me come back to the UX design. First, we started to work with home-grown computer graphic designers. It was not good. Then we looked for traditional graphic designers — it looked much better, but it was not smooth to use such web pages.. Lively discussions took place about what was a good web page, and after a while we managed to get down to the essence: it has to be useful. If it is beautiful at the same time, it is brilliant, but usefulness is the primary concern. We started looking for a person who would be in charge of the design of web pages at Onet, and we screened dozens of candidates. It took weeks, with no result. Finally, there was a guy, Andrzej Sienkiewicz. He had never made a Web page, but he was able to see a lot, and he was a personality. The way he tackled problems was impressive. The things he paid attention to were astonishing. We made a bet, and we won.
Culture
The pace was fast. More than 300 people hired in two years. In my mind I visualised Onet as a train and had this feeling that it was going faster and faster with the speed getting close to the limit. I also had the experience that every three months the company changed and entered a new stage and basically it becomes a new company. I started to plan changes in such rhythm, and it worked.
We all had a mission. We were building something important. We were changing the world. Two years later, after the exit, there was a survey of company culture. I remember one element that it revealed — it was the feeling of participation. The survey showed that everybody was convinced that their arguments, points of view and ideas were heard and were taken into consideration. The third element of the culture was Tomek’s insistence that the product should be excellent. The competition is one click away — we were dead serious about that.
The feature distinguishing us from other dot-com-boom entrepreneurs was that we were building Onet on sound fundamentals, as we had previous experience building Pascal and OPM.
Challenge
To sum up after 15 years, the company culture was based on these three fundamental beliefs:
- we were special, and we were changing the world,
- the company was flat and open,
- we were building a real business with excellent products.
After first 18 months, a stress test of the company culture arrived. In Kraków, a new portal was founded by two powerful companies: a software giant and a media group. All our employees got a letter inviting them for a job interview. Salaries were not high at Onet — not bad, but definitely not the top salaries — and I have to say that we were uneasy about what would happen. The outcome was amazing for us: as I remember, only two people went to work for the competition. It was a function of culture — Onet was the company to be in.
Hyper-stress test
The hyper-stress test came later when the bubble burst. The Nasdaq IPO that we were preparing with Goldman Sachs was abandoned, and the end of the cash runway was approaching. We started to work with the new shareholders and their consultants.
After tough discussions, the decision was made that we had to lay off a third of the team. Can you imagine? One-third of the team in a company with a strong mission, a company that was changing the world. The questions we asked were: Is it the end? Will the company as it was before survive, or it will turn into something ugly?
It was one day of action that nobody expected. Half a day of tough debates with directors about who should stay and who should leave, and the other half day of individual meetings of directors with their employees. More than 100 people were fired in one day.
In the evening everybody was invited to a condolence party, as the atmosphere in the company was like a funeral. I have never been at a party that had such a huge emotional impact. It was really a surprise for me and a great relieve that during this party the sentiment switched. People understood where we were and we remained one community. To our utter surprise the company culture survived. It was a day I will always remember and it was a day when I learned hard way: culture matters.
Conclusion
In 2001, Onet was a team of A players. Most of us were not A players when we started. We became A players because of the team and the company culture. It is the culture that makes the difference.
In the coming years after I left Onet, people from this team would become important members of many top Polish Internet companies and would contribute to the growth of the Polish Internet. I am proud that I was a part of this exciting three years, and that we were able to put a dent in the universe.
I do not think that there will be another year like 1999, but the opportunities around us are plentiful — the digital revolution is at the beginning — and when you start a business to take part in this revolution, do not forget about the theme of this post: culture matters.
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