It Took 20 Years to Become an Overnight Success: A Conversation with Michał Sadowski

Michał Sadowski is close to a household name in Poland: an award-winning photographer, YouTuber, author, musician, and internet personality who happens to run a little side project called Brand24, a social listening tool used by thousands of companies in 154 countries. He built it over more than fifteen years, took it public, and eventually sold his shares at around a hundred-million valuation. With six-figure follower counts across platforms and a company with global reach, by any measure he has made it.

What makes Michał worth listening to is how little he performs the part. This is not a highlight reel. It is an unusually honest conversation about the pressure of building in public, why he stopped chasing quantity, what he actually wants his kids to learn, and why the truly wealthy people he knows drive ten-year-old cars. It is the long game, told without the gloss.

Quality over quantity, and curing the pressure

Despite the photography, the music, and the following, Michał says Brand24 gets 99 percent of his time. Photography was the side hustle, most intense a decade ago, now a weekend a month. And he is refreshingly frank that social media used to give him anxiety attacks. The pressure of not having a certified banger, the Friday-night dread of an empty content calendar before the optimal Saturday-morning post, squeezed all the fun out of it. At one point he feared his best work, in both photography and business, was already behind him.

So he cured himself of it. He is ten to twenty times less active now, has not posted on a TikTok account with 200,000 followers in two years, and shares only what he genuinely believes is valuable. He is careful not to sound like the obnoxious guy who thinks all his output is quality, admitting he has pumped out plenty of poor work too. The point is that he became surgical about it, protecting the high bar he set for himself rather than feeding the quantity machine. He still believes his best work is ahead of him. He just refuses to let the pressure to constantly produce steal the joy from the things he loves.

Oversharing is a superpower

The biggest lesson Michał wants to pass to his kids, and the one that helped him most, is to be open and kind, even too honest. He shares his insecurities and challenges publicly, and it built relationships with customers, made him stand out among slicker salespeople, and repeatedly saved him and the company. Founders, he notes, almost only share success: another great month, another great quarter. Almost nobody shares the current real problem, whether it is signups, health, culture, or a PR crisis.

His insight is that when you share your issues, you open yourself to solutions from the most unexpected directions. He has had tremendous help on serious challenges from people who were not his closest friends, sometimes near-strangers he happened to meet, precisely because he was willing to say what was going wrong. Oversharing, in his telling, simply makes it more likely someone will be able to help you. It is the opposite of the founder instinct to project constant strength, and he is convinced the honest, open version wins.

Real wealth is quiet

Michał has a finely tuned bullshit detector, and what triggers it most is the business-coaching world. He has deep respect for real coaching, but a lot of the "business coach" community, he says, is bullshit artists, and calling yourself a self-made millionaire makes it more likely you are neither. The genuinely wealthy people he has met, and Poland has founders who have built multiple billion-dollar businesses, are people you would never guess have money. They drive a ten-year-old Opel and wear an H&M hoodie.

The worst version is when someone uses the impression of wealth, the fancy car, the fanned-out bills, to sell you their "wisdom," which is usually something ChatGPT could generate, to people who can least afford it. It genuinely angers him, to the point where he has considered a Coffeezilla-style series exposing the grifters, held back only by being a nice guy with a family and something to lose. His own "I made it" splurge tells you everything: after selling his shares, the first thing he bought was summer floor mats for his Volkswagen, in winter, just to live a little with no real consequence. No Bugattis.

The marathon, and the advice for a 25-year-old

There is no dramatic exit plan, no "I'm done with this" moment. As long as he has the freedom to realize his ideas, he is happy, and he is proud that even without full ownership he has all the influence he could want at Brand24. He would rather create than passively invest, and knows he would make a poor investor. His pride in the company is quiet and grounded: they sold at a valuation that is more than enough for him, comfortable without the "wealthy people problems" of security details and the rest.

His advice for a 25-year-old who wants to do what he has done is simply to keep going, because it is a marathon, not a sprint. People only learned about him in the last five years, but he has been at this for twenty. The overnight-success stories are the exception; most success comes from many years of hard work. He rattles off a list of his own failed ventures nobody ever heard of, and lands on the line that frames the whole episode: it took twenty years to become an overnight success. We over-promise, and we assume it will be easier than it is. Persistence is the actual edge.

Key takeaways

A few things worth keeping.

Choose quality over quantity, and protect the joy. The pressure to constantly produce can give you anxiety and steal the fun. Being surgical about what you share protects both your bar and your love of the work.

Oversharing is a superpower. Founders broadcast only wins. Sharing your real problems opens you to help from unexpected directions, and it builds deeper trust than any polished front.

Real wealth is quiet. The genuinely wealthy rarely signal it. Loud displays and "self-made millionaire" branding are usually the tell of the opposite, especially when used to sell wisdom.

It is a marathon, not a sprint. Most overnight successes took decades and a trail of failed ventures. Persistence, not a single break, is what compounds.

Model openness and passion for your kids. Being kind, honest, and willing to try many things, rather than chasing status, is the lesson worth passing on.

Frameworks worth stealing

Share the problem, not just the win

Resist the founder reflex to broadcast only success. When you are struggling, say so, publicly and specifically. The more openly you name the real issue, the more likely help arrives from a direction you never expected. Openness is a distribution channel for solutions.

The quiet-wealth filter

Be skeptical of anyone signaling wealth to sell you their wisdom. Loud displays, fanned-out cash, and "self-made millionaire" labels correlate with the opposite of what they claim. The real operators you should learn from are usually the unassuming ones in the old car.

Play the marathon

Assume any worthwhile thing takes far longer than the highlight reel suggests, likely a decade or more with failures along the way. Optimize for persistence and staying in the game rather than for a viral break, and do not judge your year one against someone else's year twenty.

Quotes worth keeping

The lines I wrote down.

When we start to share our issues, we open ourselves up to solutions from the most unexpected direction.

I'm more of a doer than an investor.

It took me twenty years to become an overnight success.

And the anti-flex that says more than any supercar.

The first thing I bought when we sold was new floor mats for my Volkswagen.

Rapid fire round

Same questions every guest. No prep, no warning. Here is how Michał handled it.

Best advice you've ever received? Distance yourself from the comments, especially the reactions to the stock price.

Advice you ignored or wish you had listened to? Start the business globally from day one, not in year four.

What would you tell your younger self? Keep going.

Ongoing challenge that keeps you up at night? Only health problems genuinely wake him at night. Everything else is a challenge to overcome rather than a real problem.

Favorite spot? A kebab place in Sopot he rates, though a kebab is more or less his everyday.

Tool you can't live without? Brand24, of course, but if he is being less self-promotional, ChatGPT has been his number one tool for the past two years.

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Michał Sadowski is the founder of Brand24, a social listening tool used by thousands of companies across 154 countries, which he took public and later sold his shares in. He is also an award-winning photographer and self-described average musician. Find him on LinkedIn, at brand24.com, or on Instagram for his photography.