Why Karolina Pelc is Rewriting the Founder Narrative
Karolina Pelc didn’t take the traditional route into tech, investment, or authorship. Before the boardrooms, funding rounds, and international keynote stages, she was standing behind casino tables in Leicester Square, working cruise ships across the world, and trying to figure out how to survive in industries where very few people looked like her, sounded like her, or shared her background.
Today, Pelc is best known in the sector as the founder and former CEO of BeyondPlay, the disruptive multiplayer betting startup acquired by Flutter Entertainment, less than three years after launch. Since the acquisition, she has rapidly built a reputation as an active investor, advisor, and thought leader focused on leadership, risk, resilience, and what she terms “engineered serendipity.” Now, she is launching her most personal project yet: Her Play: Make Your Own Luck. – Out on the 9th June – reserve your copy today
But for those expecting a niche business manual written solely for female tech founders, the book will come as a surprise. Her Play is deliberately designed for a much broader audience, offering a universal appeal that makes it a gripping read for anyone navigating an unconventional path. In fact, early reviews from tens of beta readers have universally labelled it a book that is “difficult to put down.” The page-turning quality comes from Pelc’s willingness to tell funny, often self-deprecating stories from her early life as an immigrant, alongside raw, Below Deck-style confessions from her years on cruise ships and her vibrant expat life in Malta and the Philippines.
Instead of a sterile guide on how to raise venture capital or a polished piece of founder mythology, the book delivers a raw, memoir-meets-mindset story detailing the fierce realities of reinvention and identity. It also ventures boldly into territories rarely, if ever, explored in traditional business literature. Pelc dives deeply into the science of human behaviour, exploring the profound roles that epigenetics, generational trauma, and neuroscience play in shaping how we function not just as human beings, but as leaders and entrepreneurs.
By grounding her executive insights in science and lived experience, Pelc refuses to flatten her trajectory into easy empowerment clichés. She openly documents the isolating realities of imposter syndrome, failure, and survival mode, alongside the unique challenges of balancing femininity with authority in heavily male-dominated corporate environments. It addresses the invisible emotional load that ambitious professionals quietly carry while still being expected to perform at the highest level.
Threaded throughout this diverse narrative is her defining, contrarian message: “I don’t believe in luck.” Instead, she explores how movement, visibility, discomfort, and calculated risk create the exact conditions that outsiders later label as “luck.” This philosophy ultimately formed the foundation of her proprietary core framework—balancing Hustle, Execution, Risk, Passion, Luck, Adaptability, and the vital element of ‘You’—which she utilizes to mentor the next generation of global leaders.
The book’s rollout also reflects a wider cultural shift. Just as modern tech founders are expected to build companies in public, Pelc has spent the past year and a half documenting the chaotic, unfiltered process of authoring her book while simultaneously navigating startup life, motherhood, and a major corporate acquisition integration.
The resulting momentum has already attracted significant attention both within and beyond the gaming ecosystem, earning features in major business publications like Fast Company and national media coverage. For anyone trying to forge their own path, the book resonates precisely because it moves past the headlines of a multi-million dollar exit to ask a much more profound question: What if the biggest gamble is not the one you take in business, but the life you choose to build?
Karolina can be found on LinkedIn and Instagram @storiesbypelc, where she shares her thoughts, advice, and behind-the-scenes insights from her career, startup journey, and the new chapter she is building around HerPlay. – Released on the 9th June, reserve your copy now
