“You are a beginner again and again” – The mindset behind building and scaling a $10M+ AI-driven digital company

From craftsmanship to product thinking

Before Boldare, Anna worked in TV production during the industry’s quiet crisis – budgets were shrinking, formats were getting cheaper, and “good enough” was replacing the thing she valued most – true craftsmanship. For someone believing that quality was non-negotiable, this shift created an increasing discomfort.

Instead of resisting the industry’s logic, Anna chose a different path. In 2010 she founded Chilid – a design-driven company focused on rapid product development and front-end. Around that time, XSolve founded by Piotr Majchrzak, was building agile software teams designed for long-term collaboration and support for businesses. For years the companies functioned in synergy and collaborated together on various projects, addressing different client needs and supporting each other, but as the market changed, and clients were looking for more comprehensive services, the separation became less and less necessary.

Boldare was created as a natural response to that shift, taking care of the entire process, from design, through software development to support and advisory.

No status, no hierarchy

Each career switch pushed Anna back to the beginner’s position with new rules, skills and people, and zero certainty the next step would work. Each reset also meant losing status or authority.

“People think about power. I think about coexistence.”

said Anna Zarudzka

This point of view directly echoes in how Boldare operates today:

Instead of traditional hierarchy, the company works under a flat structure based on distributed authority through holacracy. Teams self-organize around real problems, and change is considered the natural environment rather than an obstacle.

For clients, this means working with a flexible and responsive partner without slowing the product down due to rigid decision-making processes.

Intentional growth

Throughout 20 years, Boldare delivered hundreds of digital products for 300+ clients – each with its own unique nature and features, tailored to the user’s needs.

At one point, the company grew rapidly and scaled its teams and delivery in response to increasing expectations from the international clients. This made some challenges emerge – leadership became less clear, the quality was harder to protect and the organization got distracted from its core, craftsmanship values.

Instead of pushing the growth at all costs, the company consciously decided to slow down and focused on maintaining quality and standards the founders always cared for the most. Growth in this case wasn’t about the size but the maturity and staying true to the vision the company was initially built on.

Uncertainty as the operating environment

“Jumping into something new, surviving chaos many times… that’s basically running a company.”

– Anna Zarudzka

After many years of starting over in new roles and industries, Anna learned that uncertainty isn’t just a phase on the way to stability, it’s the environment where successful companies learn to work in every day. Markets change, tools come and go, plans fail and what worked yesterday might not be valid today.

Boldare doesn’t fight this reality, it accepts and embraces chaos as the constant and natural state of things, using the lessons learned from uneasy experiences to improve how the work’s done.

However, accepting chaos doesn’t mean thinking blindly, it’s about constantly looking for ways to learn and operate faster.

AI-native by practice

Boldare didn’t start using AI because it was a trend. The company treated it as every new tool – as a way to solve real problems and increase the value for clients. As soon as AI became practically usable, it was implemented across the entire product process: from discovery to design, development and delivery. This fundamentally changed how Boldare’s cross-functional teams operate on a daily basis:

• developers use AI-assisted tools like GitHub Copilot, CursorAI to speed up prototyping, reduce repetitive tasks, and focus on core business needs;
• designers use AI-powered flows to test and validate ideas more quickly, then turn those ideas into production-ready implementations;
• product teams use AI to explore hypotheses earlier, sharpen problem understanding, and test assumptions before investments.

This is what AI-augmented development looks like in practice. Teams recognize when AI adds value and when it doesn’t and wisely apply it when needed. The outputs are always reviewed, questioned, and validated by experienced practitioners.

What’s more, beyond internal use, the company also supports clients through AI consulting, helping them identify where AI makes sense for their business whether in automation, personalization or improving user experience. The focus is always on clear goals and measurable outcomes, not experiments for the sake of it.

Additionally, through initiatives like the Around the Product Development TECH podcast, Boldare creates space for conversations about building products, using AI responsibly, and making better decisions for your business.

By treating AI as a natural extension of team capabilities, Boldare integrates innovation directly into how products are built and improved, keeping the primary focus on real business value.

A partner built for change

Building digital products today means constantly facing uncertainty. Decisions are often made having only partial information and priorities change mid-process.

This is exactly the environment Boldare was built to thrive in – it doesn’t rely on fixed solutions but on staying open, flexible and adaptable. For clients, this means lower risk, better decisions and future-proof products that evolve together with their business.

That’s why Boldare is not a partner for perfect conditions, it’s a partner for real ones.

If you want to hear more about this mindset straight from the source, listen to the full conversation on the Messy Growth podcast: