Tomas Gorny started his journey as a Polish immigrant with no money to become a successful entrepreneur and the founder of multiple tech companies in the United States.
Gorny, 48, credits his work ethic to a paperboy job he had in Germany. It required him to wake up at 3 a.m. and remain dedicated to serving his customers. As he looked at creating a business he realized the process-oriented German culture irritated him, and wanted to move to the United States to create a business where he set the rules and pushed through boundaries.
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Entrepreneurial Roller Coaster
To realize his dreams, Gorny dropped out of college in 1996 and moved to Los Angeles to work on a website hosting business. Just 20 years old at the time, Gorny took on a variety of jobs, including valet parking and carpet cleaning. He spoke little English when he arrived but learned the language and used his spare time to educate himself about business and finance. During this time he recounts living on about $3 a day and dining with a friend at an all-you-can-eat buffet at a nearby Sizzler steakhouse, which would fuel him for the day.
Gorny grew his first business into a multimillion-dollar enterprise that he sold in 1998 for several million dollars. Flush with the entrepreneurial spirit, he soon created another business that sold internet advertising. That business failed during the dot-com bubble and 9/11, and he found himself in dire financial straits struggling to cover his mortgage payments. In interviews about the business failure, Gorny said, "I set my goals around my net worth, and that was a mistake. Everything suddenly collapsed."
From Broke To A Billion-Dollar Sale
Undaunted by the setback, in 2001 Gorny founded web hosting platform IPOWER, which made it easier for small-business owners to develop a website presence. Gorny and a partner funded the company with credit cards. IPOWER gained traction, attracting a large number of customers.
Gorny and his partner built the company over the following years, reaching tens of millions in annual revenue before merging with Endurance International Inc.. He sold the company in 2011 to a private equity group for $975 million in 2011.
While Gorny does not disclose his net worth in interviews, he could have retired after this sale. But he went on to cofound three more ventures, including Nextiva, a cloud-based business communications software company. The company pulled in $200 million in financing from Goldman Sachs in late 2021.
Gorny's story is a testament to the resilience and determination that can drive people to overcome adversity and reap the rewards of entrepreneurship. His journey from a struggling immigrant to a millionaire entrepreneur at the age of 22 and current CEO of a well-funded tech firm serves as inspiration for other entrepreneurs.
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