Why Traction Beats Perfection: Unveiling the Power of HerPlay

From Casino Dealer to iGaming Exit: What Hustle Actually Looks Like

You've heard people credit their success to luck. Karolina Pelc doesn't buy it. The founder of BeyondPlay, who built and sold her gaming software startup to FanDuel in 2024, traces every “fortunate” moment back to a decision, a risk, or a leap taken before she felt ready. In this episode, she joins Lee-Ann to talk about building a business in a male-dominated industry, the lessons that only come from failing, and her new book Her Play, which challenges the narrative that success is something that happens to you.

About Karolina Pelc

Karolina Pelc has spent over 20 years in gaming, starting as a casino dealer in Poland before working at London's most prestigious clubs and spending three years on cruise ships. She moved into online gaming as it was emerging, held roles across marketing, product, and business management, and was part of the LeoVegas team during its most exciting growth phase. She went on to found BeyondPlay, a software-as-a-service company specialising in multiplayer and jackpot products, which was acquired by FanDuel in February 2024. She now mentors early-stage founders and has channelled her journey into her debut book, Her Play, which publishes on 9 June in the UK & Europe and on 8th September in the USA & Canada.

Talking Points Include:

• Why luck is a byproduct of motion, not a personality trait – the phrase at the heart of Her Play, and why Karolina developed it in response to a question she kept getting asked after the sale
  
• What a cruise ship taught her about multiplayer gaming – and why the product idea she eventually built and sold wasn't random at all
  
• The three moments she knew she had outgrown the room – from leaving a cruise ship job without a plan, to founding a startup in a 43-square-metre apartment during COVID lockdown
  
• How failure compounds into advantage – why the jackpot product that got BeyondPlay acquired only existed because the original product wasn't getting traction fast enough

Building confidence in a male-dominated industry – Karolina's honest take on gender dynamics in gaming and the startup investment world, and why she sees her experience as a superpower rather than a disadvantage

Traction Over Perfection

One of the clearest themes running through Karolina's story is that waiting for the right moment doesn't work. The deck she spent weeks perfecting before launching BeyondPlay got rejected everywhere. The version she rushed out during COVID, when she had no travel, and no certainty about anything, got funded. Her thinking on this is direct: if everything is perfect, you're already too late.

This resonates well beyond the startup world. In affiliate marketing, the instinct to wait until the commercial terms are exactly right, until the landing page is finished, until you have more data, is one of the more common ways programs lose momentum. Karolina's argument is that motion itself creates the conditions for success. You iterate when things are live. You build relationships when you're already in the room. And you figure out what actually works when you're getting real feedback, not theoretical validation.

The jackpot product at BeyondPlay is the clearest example. It wasn't part of an original roadmap. It was a gap filler, a way to prove product market fit when the primary product wasn't moving fast enough. That urgency, that direct response to failure, turned out to be the reason the company got acquired. The lesson isn't that failure is fine. It's that failure well-handled is more useful than success avoided.

Pulling Up Your Own Chair

There's a moment in this conversation where Karolina talks about what to do when you walk into a room and there isn't a seat for you. Her advice: don't wait for someone to move. Pull up a chair from somewhere else and squeeze in. It sounds simple, but it's the kind of directness that tends to get lost in conversations about confidence and imposter syndrome.

She's thought carefully about visibility, particularly for women who may hold back from sharing their expertise publicly. Her answer to the internal critic that asks “who am I to be saying this?” is to focus on the one person who gets inspired rather than the ten who might be sceptical. She writes about imposter syndrome in Her Play, but her working conclusion is that naming it isn't enough. At some point you have to call it out as an excuse and move anyway.

That applies to affiliate managers building programs, to marketers trying to earn a seat at the strategy table, and to anyone who has convinced themselves they need more preparation before they're ready to act. The story Karolina tells isn't about having all the answers. It's about moving consistently enough that the answers have somewhere to land.

Listen to Find Out More About:

• What Karolina actually took away from her two visits to Necker Island, and how the experience shaped the book and her decision to mentor founders
  
• How she navigated the identity crisis that came after selling BeyondPlay, and what helped her work out what she wanted to do next
  
• The specific moment during COVID that convinced her to found the company rather than take a permanent job, despite every rational signal pointing the other way
  
• Why she believes your past experience is never a liability, and how that thinking connects directly to what affiliate managers do every day

The five key takeaways Lee-Ann pulls from the conversation – including a fifth one Karolina adds herself, live on mic

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[01:38] Karolina's introduction and the story behind HerPlay — from land-based casino dealer to iGaming exec to founder

[05:37] “Luck is a byproduct of motion” — where the phrase came from and what it actually means in practice

[18:15] The three defining leaps in Karolina's career, and what finally made her take each one

[25:00] Necker Island, Richard Branson, and the full-circle moment that launched the book

[32:00] Lee-Ann's four-point summary — and Karolina's fifth, which might be the best of all

Want to Build a Program That Earns Loyalty, Not Just Links?

KonverJ Agency works with brands across performance marketing to build affiliate programs that attract the right partners and keep them engaged. If Karolina's thinking about traction, relationships, and showing up before you're ready resonates with where your program is right now, get in touch with KonverJ Agency to talk about what that looks like in practice.

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