It is often said that entrepreneurs aren't made; they're born. However, serial entrepreneurs are an even rarer breed. The fact is that it isn't often that you come across someone with a real passion for innovating and starting businesses. Tomas Gorny is just such a person. From humble beginnings as a Polish expatriate attending a German business school, he went on to found multiple successful businesses, including his current venture, the unified experience platform company Nextiva.
In between, however, he became a millionaire, lost it all, and came roaring back to the heights of success. His story is one of resilience, intentionality, and steadfast dedication. In short, it's a perfect model for any would-be entrepreneur. Here is Tomas Gorny's story, as well as his advice to other entrepreneurs, gained from years of experience, trials, and tribulations.
From Business School Dropout to Dot-Com Entrepreneur
Born in Communist Poland in 1975, Tomas Gorny's formative years gave him a front-row seat to the economic hardships faced by residents within the Soviet bloc. It was an experience that molded him into an economic risk-taker early in his entrepreneurial career.
While attending business school in Germany, he started a computer delivery business—eager to put his ongoing business lessons to work. However, just before graduation, 20-year-old Gorny decided to take a chance on himself by moving to greener economic pastures. With almost no money and a limited grasp of the English language, he dropped out of school and moved to America.
At first, he worked multiple jobs there to survive. He first found work as a valet and even cleaned office carpets on weekends to make ends meet. At the time, making ends meet meant living in a small apartment in Los Angeles and scratching out a paycheck-to-paycheck existence. But that wouldn't last long, as the 90s dot-com bubble was just starting to inflate.
It wasn't long before Gorny joined a small web-hosting company called Internet Communications as one of its earliest employees. However, since money was scarce at the fledgling firm, he agreed to work for an equity stake in the business in lieu of a salary. It was a decision that would have profound consequences for his entrepreneurial career.
Boom, Bust, and Boom Again
Just two years after going to work for Internet Communications, Gorny had amassed a 20% stake in the business. That stake—worth very little at the time—would soon change everything for him. Shortly thereafter, rising public firm Interliant purchased Internet Communications, turning Gorny into a newly minted millionaire overnight.
It didn't take long for him to learn his first hard entrepreneurial lesson, though.
Like many entrepreneurs at the time, Gorny leaped headfirst into an investment binge, eager to pad his fast-growing net worth. And like many others, the decision would come back to haunt him. By the early 2000s, the twin blows of the Dot-Com crash and 9/11 decimated Gorny's investments and left him with nothing but his car and very little cash in the bank. In other words—almost back to square one.
It was an experience that taught Gorny a valuable lesson that's just as applicable to today's entrepreneurs as it was then: only a fool chases money. Of his sudden downfall, Gorny remarked, "I set my goals around my net worth and that was a mistake. Everything suddenly collapsed," Fortunately, he didn't stay down for long.
By late 2001, Gorny started over by launching another SMB-focused web-hosting startup called IPOWER. And before long, it was thriving. At the end of 2007, IPOWER merged with a smaller web-hosting provider Endurance International. Four years after that, the combined firm was acquired by Goldman Sachs and Warburg Pincus for nearly $1 billion. As a primary shareholder, Gorny was once again a multimillionaire.
Unlike his last go-round with wealth, however, Gorny resolved not to make the same mistakes again. Rather than investing in other entrepreneurs, he instead decided to bet on himself, using his newfound riches to bootstrap multiple new, successful ventures.
Learning From Failure and the Road Ahead
Today, Tomas Gorny is a fast-paced innovator and business leader. He's the co-founder and CEO of Nextiva, and until recently, sat on the board of directors of Endurance International Group. And in the middle of all of that, he even achieved another successful exit when SiteLock sold to ABRY Partners LLC. in 2018.
In the process, Gorny says that he's learned even more about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Based on his experiences, his cardinal rule is never to build a business with an exit strategy in mind. He insists that the path to success lies in creating value, not a road to riches. "When I lost all my money in 2001, I completely abandoned the view of focusing on net worth. The success of a business really lies on the value it provides," says Gorny.
He also says that entrepreneurs shouldn't worry about being underestimated, insisting that this only makes it easier to outmaneuver the competition. He now believes that being underestimated has a power all its own, allowing you to strive for your goals without would-be competitors seeing you as a threat.
Lastly, he's learned that the best bet you can ever make is on yourself. This is why Gorny poured his own resources into Nextiva. However, that's a position that other entrepreneurs may not be in at the outset, and that's just a part of the journey. As Gorny's early ventures proved, it's always possible to get back up, dust yourself off, and try again if you don't succeed right away.
And if his journey—starting as a new immigrant with almost nothing in the way of assets to being one of America's most successful and celebrated entrepreneurs means anything, it's that the sky's the limit for any entrepreneur with good ideas, the desire to succeed, and the will to keep moving forward.
