When to Be Hands-On and When to Build Systems as You Scale

Agata Krawiec‑Rokita, co-founder and CEO of sun.store, scaled from a €12M GMV forecast to €100M in just 12 months.

Now she’s facing the next challenge: shifting from doing everything herself to building systems that scale.

In this episode, James Johnson and Agata chat about how she decides when to stay hands-on, when to step back, and why scaling is often harder than starting.

We cover:
 • The framework she uses to choose where to stay involved
 • Why startup planning breaks down during rapid growth
 • The mindset shift from year one to scale-up
 • The line between being hands-on and micromanaging
 • The one question she asks before major initiatives

The hardest part of scaling isn’t hiring great people. It’s letting go while the stakes keep rising.

Listen now to hear how she’s navigating the transition.

More from James:

Connect with James on LinkedIn or at peer-effect.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hi, I'm James Johnson, founder and CEO coach. Welcome to Peer Effect, the podcast where your peers will tell you what's unlocking their 10 million plus business. My guest today is the co-founder and CEO of Sunstore, their Europe's largest B2B marketplace for solar and storage components. And in 2025, Sunstore raised a 6 million seed round and top sifted to Future 50. This is the episode for you if you're struggling to balance how in or on your business you are.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Agatha, welcome to the show. Now, this, you mean you're running a very successful business now, but that wasn't always your dream, was it? What was your first dream business?

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Uh this was uh very i it was when I was around six or seven, and uh my first business idea was to have a small kiosk with newspapers, suites, and all that stuff, just to have this very tiny place for for myself. Actually, every day I passed some something similar when I walked down to the to the school. So when I passed it, I was imagining myself sitting there and owning that kind of business, and it was I it felt great.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Did did it ever become a reality?

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Not really, no, kiosk not, but actually I had a uh shop with wine and things around wine, so it was uh commerce, retail, real place with real products there on the shelf. So it was close to this idea, but not exactly kiosk. I think that when I grew up, kiosks were somehow out of the business already.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

There's still time. Maybe that's the next one.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Well see, in in general, there um I think my reflection is that quite a lot of businesses from my childhood they they do not exist any longer. There is no market need uh no longer for such things, but new ideas come off come over each day, and Sunstore, for example, I would never have thought about such business until three years ago.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Well, I mean, before we jump into Sunstore, I'm curious about is I mean, when it comes to how it's grown so rapidly. But sort of from from sort of kiosk to McKinsey, how did you go from being sort of a mini entrepreneur? Dreaming of being a mini-entrepreneur to sort of going to McKinsey? What was what was what were you th what was the thinking behind that?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yes, I think that on the way this uh entrepreneurial spirit changed slightly. So so it started with the dream about being entrepreneur, and then it changed to being in a big business. So somewhere between high school and studies, I decided to go more into corporate world and and uh more of this, let's say, fancy corporate uh work. So that's why and and then I I I was always like liking to have a plan. So when I thought about having like this big corporate career, I looked up for the best companies. I found out that management consulting is actually very renowned, and then out of the management consulting firms, McKinsey was top of the top. So I decided okay, I need to be there. So from the fourth or fifth year of my studies, I like I had this plan actually, not even idea, but plan to get there. I started to prepare for to the to the tests, to the interviews, etc. So so it was actually planned and thought through to to get there.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Wow. That's quite a degree of sort of planning for a teenager.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yes, that's true. To the probably sometimes to the ridiculous extent of checking which high schools in my city were the best to get into the university I wanted to get. So basically, based on the rankings, which high school should I go to in order to get to economy on the best university in Poland, etc. This is the let's say, but I'm extreme J, like there is is in this MBTI, you can be on some extremes, and my extreme is to be like super organized, which is sometimes helpful, and sometimes it is totally ruining my day-to-day.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

We're going to come back onto the execution challenges around that, but I think what's interesting here is that's the idea of visualization, planning towards it, it's quite a key skill set for a founder and CEO.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Might be, but at the same time, there are also like pitfalls because it's difficult if you visualize something and you stick to the plan, you think that it's going to work and then it doesn't work, it's more disappointing than for somebody going uh say more spontaneously.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

But that fluid takes us quite nicely back to McKinsey, because I mean that if there's one challenge to sort of management from self-surse, it's all it's all good creating a nice PowerPoint on paper, but actually making it happen is quite different. So it's all the possibility to make this work, basically.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

You just and end with the strategy.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

So I suppose what what what did you take from your McKinsey experience into the startup world? What what did you learn that went right and what you learned that went wrong?

SPEAKER_00 5:55

I think that at the very beginning of management consulting, you just learned the toolkit, the the the toolkit of how to think, how to structure things, how to prepare presentation, how to communicate, how to prepare Excels. This these are I would say very basic skills, maybe now already being replaced with some great AI, but back then it was simply a strong toolkit of skills used in in business. After two years, I couldn't say that I really got into like client management, getting getting the client sales managing team, etc. It was a bit too early, but definitely a strong skill set of analysis, critical thinking, problem solving, like usual suspects.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

So a good a good toolkit then and good good habits. What did you find was weren't so useful when you moved into the startup space?

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Oh, expectation that people will would behave the way I I think or I I I believe they they behave because both being around people like other my like my peers at McKinsey or around the clients in the strategic teams or like the C-level execs, this gives you expectation that everyone is having such ownership, such way of thinking, etc. And then you go to business and you deal with the people who who sometimes they they do they don't care or they have their priorities somewhere else or they don't know how to do some stuff, and and you have this like high expectations, and then you need to deal with the with the reality of everyday life and everyday business, and managing people who are not not as you expected for many reasons. It's not going so smoothly as it used to when you were around uh super ambitious, very competitive peers.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Yeah, I mean I think change is hard, isn't it? That's the one thing that anyone has done at any stage is pe people resist it rationally. They re resist it irrationally, but there are many rational reasons for people to resist change. What so when when you when you've you've got your McKinsey experience, you go out into startup world, people are behaving differently, you've got this sort of very much tactless J attachment to a plan, a clear vision. How does that show up for you now? Like what what is how how how do you balance that today?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

I think that now I have managed my expectations or it's the the word, so I have more patience versus versus the the beginning and my first scale-up because the first after McKinsey was Polish scale up doing retargeting. There a lot of things frustrated me, that the projects and plans are not moving as fast as I wanted, that people don't care about my projects, etc. Or that I couldn't do things. Now I'm definitely more patient and empathetic with people. I think these years in business that would be my main learning, that that the empathy towards others at work and the patience versus patience into the processes and projects and how the things move simply. So that would be the main the main difference, but still still I have this say clear vision and process orientation in the everyday execution. The main difficulty right now for me is to move from the moment where I was responsible personally for everything, and I like was I felt like I'm I'm accountable for every action, every order, every every product development, etc. And now I'm moving into giving this responsibility and accountability towards the team, and this is super difficult because because when you give it to others, you don't manage it by yourself. It means that there will be more maybe not more mistakes, but the mistakes are not going to be yours, so it's it's uh more difficult to digest.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

I've got something to sh maybe a framework to share with you after this than on the So do you find that's then made an adjustment to your plan? So do you do you find that you are now taking that into account when you're making these plans? So there's kind of plan A, which is super smooth, McKinsey style execution. Now that's not the case, and you've gone from doing it yourself to building a team, and now you've got managers involved. Are you adjusting your plan accordingly?

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Yes, definitely. I don't do any more of A plans. This like mentioned, like everything going smoothly from the very beginning, I assume that things are not going to go smoothly. Sometimes even when I'm thinking about the first timeline for some project, I'm like multiplying it by two or three, adding extra month or two, or like trying to even when I ask my team like how long do you think it will would take, I'm adding extra month or two, and then we land more or less on the realistic execution time. So in the planning, I'm definitely not thinking about idealistic scenarios any longer.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Well, I mean you managed to get to a hundred million GMV in 12 months. So I I'm I'm scared to think what an A plan for you would have looked like.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

The plan was actually our ambition for the first year. I remember my first business case was 12 million GMV. So it was a pace which was not expected, definitely. Sometimes like the reality is surprised. Actually, it shows that sometimes reality is better than than the plan. So it came with many problems too, but but still, still that was a great surprise. Reality versus forecast. But also, how can you forecast or budget some something which you've never done or nobody else did? So it's like probably any of the budget or any of the plans, plan I did before was not realistic.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

I mean it's a bit of a truism. Any plan you do is is outdated from the moment you finish it. How how do you think you achieved that 100 million? What do you think took you from your expectation of 12 to your reality of 100?

SPEAKER_00 13:25

I think that first of all, the market helped us a lot. It wouldn't be possible if the market was in a different timing. So definitely it's like there there are these, like let's say, tornado effects that sometimes in some businesses there is simple circumstances helping the business to build what they they are building. And a lot of the first year for us it was it was a market help because first the market was still growing very fast in in solar and storage. Second, there was a dynamic price changes all the time, so there was a lot of the movements of the goods. People wanted to sell the old stocks, other people wanted to buy with the for a very good price, so it was simply a good momentum for a lot of movements of goods across Europe. At the same time, I I believe that we pushed very, very hard. So from the very beginning, we wanted to use this momentum to the maximum, uh, a bit with the approach that the winner takes it all, we simply need to fight for the market share, we don't look at anything else. So, right now it is way more difficult because we look at the profitability, we look at the client satisfaction, we look at which features would bring us to the next level, etc. There are many factors counting in in our strategy or thinking. Back then, in the first year, it was just a simple fight for business. And sometimes it's easier when you have this clear one goal, it unites the team, everyone is pushing for the same same thing, everyone is talking just about GMV. There is not like one part of the team talking about operational excellence, other about gross margin, other about the let's say financial health, etc. Everyone with a clear focus just pushing GMV to prove that we have this market share. So this was probably the second uh second strong helper for us.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

I think it's quite common that as a as a startup and survival phase, it's kind of it's tough because you have less resources and you're pushing, but as you say, there's there's kind of a simplicity of the goal. It's like it is survival, which tends to come down to one metric, but then you move into the scaling phase and you have more resources, more people, more possibilities, and actually then you start can start getting like siloing, you can start getting people like heading off in different directions. It's actually it's a whole different phase.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

And I I don't know if it's more more or less probably depending on the type of the founder or type of the person managing the business, but in my personal view, it is more difficult. So it's like let's say more sophisticated phase versus this pure, let's say, in basic instincts of growth in the first couple of months where everyone simply needs to prove that the idea is is at least getting the traction.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

It's very interesting. For me, I think it's the other way around. Just because I I spent close to accurate work for multinational doing like business turnaround, like they try to be like specialist managers. So I think the scaling phase is much easier than the startup phase. Just because the startup phase is really hard, you've got to get right in the into it, you've got to grind it out, you have a high lowest, etc. It's actually as you start scaling, you can bring in like good people to help, you can build that management layer, you can get more on it, you can be more on control. It just requires different, like almost like a different mindset and different skills, but it's quite a hard transition.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

That's true. We are still not there. I would say that we are now in this, let's say, not there yet, but not in this initial phase. So we are somewhere in between already having some managers, but not a let's say very big structure, but also not being a team of 10 just just pushing everyone is selling, and uh myself including, I'm I'm like going to the I'm I'm responsible for the delivery of the orders, not not anymore, probably, but not yet there to have managers for everything.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

Because I think that's a very hard stage because you're kind of like moving almost on a daily basis, like in the business, out the business, in the business, out the business, in like so how do you how do you choose what you're in on and what you're out on?

SPEAKER_00 18:21

That's uh that's a very uh very difficult, difficult question and difficult decisions on a daily basis. I think I'm I'm picking the cases in I'm picking the cases based on the difficulty and urgency. So if I see let's say the customer service area in which I'm involved every day on everyday basis, say I'm just picking the the most difficult cases which are too difficult for the team to handle on their own, or the most urgent, it means that clients are really escalating and they need they simply request or need my attention or mention they need the attention, etc. So trying to get only the worst of the worst cases on on myself, which is also helpful to get to know the business because in these cases you really get to the dirty things happening in your in your business. So, for example, customer service, this would be the the most difficult and most urgent. When it comes to clients, I think that it's similar to everyone that the most either the the key clients for for us, so the top top accounts, or the ones could be top accounts in the future, but for now still being prospects. And in all the other cases, let's say HR, finance, marketing, etc., I'm trying to ask my team where I should look, like which day which areas are for them problematic, and they bring the problems on our one-to-ones. So I'm trying to count on them. But sometimes it is not the best to count on this because I realized with time that people sometimes think that things or problems are too small or not worth discussing with me. And that's not true usually. Usually we could have reacted earlier if I if my attention would have been brought earlier. So I'm still doing it, I'm still counting that my attention would be picked, but uh but at the same time, sometimes I regret that I didn't react earlier.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

And so what what what can sense your time do you think and mind you spend in the business rather than on it?

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Probably probably like 50-50. 50 would be like uh managing the team or thinking about the strategy for the future, doing some networking, etc. And other 50 would be like solving real cases or doing uh real stuff, like I'm I'm doing also some product development myself, like writing specification, or dealing with a client and trying to to to fix some financials, etc. So probably it will would be 50-50.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

It sounds like so.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

And also how much it would bring in value for the business, probably. So so it it's more more connected to this client side or late deal side, but how much it can give us long term if I do it or not.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Yeah, I feel like connecting it to your vision and way.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Trying to get to or simply trying to find the time on the things which are not even there yet, because that that's probably the most difficult, but sometimes I also need to think where we want to be in two or three years and what kind of projects should be there, even though they are not even discussed in any meetings or any any kind of business uh day-to-day business agenda.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

So then Ivy, it sounds like you probably caught a lot of help to your team, sort of if you're picking up some of the harder use cases. How do you get the balance done between sort of being in the weeds with them productively and mic for a manager?

SPEAKER_00 22:50

So I think that if I'm doing the things, I am I I like agree on this that let's say there is a part of analysis which I'm going to do myself. It's like that I'm going to do the Excel or do the analysis or change something. It's not that I'm checking, check, checking in and checking out on the day. So there is clear division. It's this part of the job is something you do, and this is something I'm doing like operationally. It's not that I don't do anything myself, but I'm just checking your progress every five hours or six hours or every day, for example. So I'm trying to take some tasks or some simple or not simple jobs on myself, not instead of giving very, very small and let's say literal instructions and counting that the team will do it and then checking it, but myself not doing anything.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

How do you that sounds like a great outcome in terms of clear like rather than micromanaging and saying I'll take it? What is your sort of planning slash tracking cadence with your team to do this? Because that sounds like it's requires quite a lot of discipline and planning up front to the task allocation. How does that work?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

I think in this day-to-day business, we're not really doing a lot of planning. We have like simply, like everyone, we have the communicator, and sometimes when we know that there is a bigger task to be done, we communicate on on teams saying, okay, I'm going to do this, you're going to do this, let's let's try to finish it by Wednesday. Simple day-to-day work. We have a lot of project management and cadence around the strategic projects we're working on. And there actually we have like the plan for the year, which projects we want to close this year, who is responsible, who is the owner of this idea. And there I'm also in some of the strategic initiatives, I'm a business owner and I'm responsible for this idea. In the others, there are other team members responsible for the ideas, and I just help with problem solving on our weekly one-to-ones. So I would have a I have a clear division into what is going into the planned strategic initiatives, and these have the cadence, like monthly meetings in the team, talking about progress, etc. And day-to-day tasks, which we don't really plan who is going to do. We simply, when we see that there is, we know that there is a task in some area. We know like somebody's telling me I can't do it or I don't have enough of time, etc. I simply can help them.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

And just so that task allocation in that case, because I'm sorry about planning is like the maybe the task allocation. Is that done by you getting involved in the project going okay? I'll do this, or is that done by your team going, they're doing they're planning out their week, let's say actually I can't do this. Agatha, can you take it? How how are you getting visibility and doing that side of it?

SPEAKER_00 26:10

No, this is on on the teams. So basically, in each of the areas, I have either like some somebody responsible for the area. They usually have a lot of ownership. I really have a great team. Even if they are responsible for, let's say, some small specific part of the business, they feel owners of this part of the business, they do their planning, they do their processes. And let's say on some of our meetings or day-to-day chats, I realize that there is something behind or that they are, let's say, struggling, and then I offer my support. It's not that we have for everything schedule and I'm like I know every single detail process in their areas that wouldn't be possible at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

So it's more responsive in terms of you're doing a normal catch-ups, that something comes up and you say, okay, I'll take it.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Yes, exactly. Or let's say we have a weekly customer support uh session, and there are five urgent topics, and I'm saying, okay, I will reach out to this client. It seems that they need me calling calling them and saying sorry or or something. So so this is these cases actually come to me by accident or by some strange in a strange way they are coming to me. It's not that I'm managing every single process that maybe it would be better, but I cannot imagine doing it.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

It just felt like you were you were very for what you're saying before, like very organized. I was wondering like was there was there a sort of a tool behind this you were using or a system? But if it it feels like the system is just being involved in those kind of frontline meetings and being had regular catch-up is with your team, which flag stuff that actually you feel is the right thing for you to do.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

And I'm I'm trying to attend a lot of meetings which are not my own meetings, also that like there is like team catch-up. I will just if I have time, I will just go there, but not always. I sometimes would come, sometimes not, but trying to join as many as possible just to see or and hear from the first line, front line, what's happening, what they are discussing right now, what are their main issues, etc. Even if it's for me, if it wouldn't be my meeting originally or the meeting I would be invited in.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Well, for for other founders listening, so at the sort of C Series A stage, what's one thing that you'd suggest they do around this kind of execution being in, being out right now? They could take listening first, they go, okay, I'm gonna go and try that now.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

I think that the first thing is just to think about execution in the realistic or let's say as realistic as possible terms, so that it's not going to to assume that it's not going to move as smoothly as we think, that it's not going to have problems. And I'm trying when I think about execution of some specific things, I'm always trying to visualize what's the worst thing which could happen, just to try to prevent this worst thing in in the specific process or specific project to mitigate the risk. Of course, there will be hundreds of other things which will pop up, but but at least some risks I can mitigate at the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Could you just give me an example of that if that sounds like quite interesting tactic?

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yeah, for for example, we want to implement the order-for-order process so that somebody pays to us, we pay to the to the seller, the the process is very quick, smooth, and we finance working capital for the for the buyer. And that could actually enable another 10 million monthly GMV. We would be helpful to the buyers because they get they get working capital, we would be helpful to the sellers because they can sell more, etc. Everything is looks great, we have external partners, etc. So in this specific scenario, I'm trying to think what's the the worst scenario for my company, what can happen in this process. And so the let's say the answer is that I can give the credits to the to the buyers, I can pay to the sellers, and then there are no goods behind. So basically, all the amount is just fraud. So then I'm focusing in this, let's say, execution of the project. I'm trying to mitigate the the main risk here so that I simply would lost after a couple of weeks, I would lost all the all the money I would give from my own balance sheet. That's just one of the ideas in, but in in many projects there which look great from outside, there is this hidden great risk which can actually basically make your business go bankrupt from day to day.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

I I really like that as actors that you're it feels like you're actively seeking out the hardest and most difficult things to pull onto yourself. So you're trying you're trying to maintain a balance like 50-50 in and 50-50 out, but when you're going in, you're really being quite disciplined about not just stuff that's being flagged to you in a responsive way, but you're also trying to dig out stuff that's actually really quite fundamental and important.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Trying to, yes, because I think that's that's my role to to actually figure out the things the other ones uh uh nobody would figure out. We are still probably we are still too small to to have people thinking about such like holistic things, so I think that's part of my job.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Do you do you find that a challenge though to create the space to think all that thing through given the the weight of tasks that you've got to do at the same time?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Actually, I with this with this part like the time for thinking I I cannot complain. I usually have a lot of time to think. This is like daily walking or dream or shower, because I like as probably all the founders, I don't have like division between between my work life and personal life and and and all other potential lives. So so basically I don't have problems with finding time to think. Because I can think on the spots every every single second, I might just have to think about some problem. Amazing. That's kinda it's kinda good because I'm not limited by eight hours here.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Yeah. I I I think as founders that is a very anyone that whose partner is a founder is probably very much aware of those fac the founder thinking face where it's kind of like they're trying to talk to you and being lost in some like five-year future plan.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

That's actually great because I hear here like I I need to appreciate my partner because he's usually very keen on discussing with me, or or like while we prepare the dinner, he's happy to discuss something I'm thinking about right now, and I'm doing I'm trying to do the same for him. So we are both working in business, so it's also very helpful. I think it would be way more difficult if my husband was a pianist or like having uh totally different problems, but as we have at the end, we have similar problems because it's like working in business, it's all about the same, like how to grow, how to make profits. So so it's also helpful. My kid though, he is still not very into business.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

Well, I mean, I don't know how old he is, but give it another couple of years, and he might be thinking dreaming of uh say his own kiosk.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

But now it would be AI, AI-based technology of you know, personal recommendation of newspaper. Let's say, or let's see, future future vision of kiosk.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

Well, give give it another three years, and I'll have him on the podcast, and he can he can he can tell me about his uh his uh dreams for global domination of the AI kiosk space.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Might be might be the case.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Amazing. Well, Agatha, thank you so much for coming on today.

unknown 35:19

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

You've been a great guest.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

That was uh a great great time, and thank you for having me again.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Such a good episode today with Agatha. I loved how she chooses what she gets hands-on involved in. We'll see you next Wednesday for another founder episode, or Monday for the Peer Effect post pack with Freddie. As ever, if any questions, just email us at hello at peerffect.com or reach out on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening and happy scaling.