In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Marta Olszewska, Head of Marketing at Piktochart. Marta shares a pivotal personal story about spontaneously moving to Malaysia after applying to Piktochart, describing how that leap of faith led to rich cultural experiences, remote work, and eventually settling in Barcelona. She discusses her approach to leading distributed teams, emphasizing hiring autonomous, proactive, and empathetic people and trusting them with clear, ambitious goals. Marta explains her organic career progression from a growth‑hacker focused on SEO and localization to becoming the go‑to person for guidance, which naturally evolved into her current leadership role. She offers personal advice to her younger self—don’t be overly concerned with others’ opinions, accept failures as lessons, and move on quickly. On happiness, she stresses self‑acceptance, love, and finding daily joy in work, hobbies, and relationships. Marta recommends Marie Kondo’s The Life‑Changing Magic of Tidying Up, highlighting how decluttering physical space can clear the mind and reduce unnecessary consumption. She shares two favorite quotes: one from The Minimalists warning against the word “someday,” and another from Gabriel García Márquez about never stopping the pursuit of dreams, linking them to living purposefully and maintaining a child‑like curiosity. Finally, she directs listeners to connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter (@GwynethMarta).
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by WagsMedia. WagsMedia provides you with everything you need to generate more customers and grow your brand. Head on over to wagsmedia.com, W-A-G-S-M-E-D-I-A dot com, to enter a contest where you can win a free, done-for-you custom website valued at $2,500 for a limited time only. Now let's jump into the episode.
Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Martha Olszewska with us. She is the head of marketing at PictoChart. So welcome, welcome to the show.
Thank you. Thanks for having me, Tyler Wagner Wagner.
Of course. Grateful to have you here. We'll dive into the first one, Martha. The first question I have for you is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Okay, so that would have to be the moment that I decided to basically pack up my life and go to Malaysia. It all started with a quite spontaneous application email that I sent to Piktochart, a company that I work for until today. And I was quite enchanted with their whole product and experience since I've discovered it as a user. And I've decided to give it a go, not knowing actually where they are located. And the funny thing is that the first question the CEO asked me who responded was, Is your move to Malaysia permanent? And the first thing I thought was, well, actually, I have no intention to move to Asia. But then on the second thought, I thought, what is really stopping me, you know? And this one leap of faith back then led me to, I must say, some of the best experiences in my life, including working in a startup, discovering incredibly rich and diverse cultures of Southeast Asia, being location independent, and finally choosing the place I live in today, which is Barcelona. So I guess the moral of the story was go with the expected. And even if it's, if it scares you a little bit, and if it's something you haven't initially planned for, and just trust your instincts because you never know where it will lead you.
Yes, I agree. It's, It's that like instincts and the gut feeling. Somehow it's like our body knows what to do sometimes before our head knows what to do. It's interesting. So love it. Thank you for sharing that with us. Appreciate it. The next one I have for you is what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Well, being a leader of a remote team, I get a lot of questions from either companies or, you know, HR people or managers on how I make it all work, the whole leading a distributed team of people. And I think the key lies in one, hiring people who are autonomous, self-sustainable, proactive, as well as empathetic. That's really important and communicative. And number two, Trusting those people you hired with real, reasonable, and responsible tasks and laying down your expectations and setting ambitious goals for them on objectives.
Yeah, I think empathy and trust within an organization is the top two things, but that's just me. So, and what's your best piece of like overall business advice? So, you know, you can give kind of overall or if you want to, maybe go in, like, how did you even end up as like the head of marketing at Pictochart? Like, how did that happen?
Hmm, that happened very organically. So I came in as a sort of a growth hacker, actually. I was just figuring out SEO and some opportunities within localization, localizing our product. And then somehow I, I don't know, I ended up being the person who people came to for tips and advice and for guidance and for directions of where to go. And somehow it just happened, you know, I was offered that role. Yeah.
So, well, so it kind of came like you just kept delivering like tons of value and then people started coming to you for questions and then kind of naturally you moved into that role, right? That's kind of—
Yeah, that's it. Because we, you know, within the leaders in Pictochart, we really value more of soft skills, I guess, that empathy and that trust that we talked about earlier. Those are very important. So if someone exhibits that plus has, you know, overall, of course, knowledge of and is an expert in a given area, I think those are the most important traits as a leader to have.
Yeah. And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
I think it would have to be, don't get caught up in what other people think of you. And also don't judge yourself too much because that happens a lot when you're younger. Be more accepting and also not dwelling too much on your failures, but move on fairly quickly from, from them and treat them more as experiences or lessons, because at the end they will contribute to building your, your stronger and your, your better self in the future.
And it could tie in, but in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Wow, that is such a big question to answer, but I think it's to truly understand and accept and love yourself. Because this way you won't really project any of your insecurities on others. And all the connections that will happen to people will be much more genuine that way. And it's also to constantly fall in love with everything around you, whether it's a job, it's your daily tasks, your hobbies, the people that are close to you. And let those smallest things in your life be like your constant daily dose of happiness, I would say.
And what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
So I'll go with a nonfiction here. It's a book that in a way changed my relationship with the material possessions in my life and made me rethink some of my consumer behaviors. It's Marie Kondo's The Magic of Tidying Up, or actually the title is The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I don't know if you've heard about that one.
No, I haven't.
Okay. So Marie Kondo is this Japanese, quite famous around the world now, Japanese minimalist. And she believes that surrounding yourself with only the things that spark joy in your life and keeping them in the right order ultimately leads to to having more lighter and happier life. So in that book, she provides very specific tips on how to conduct this ultimate cleanup or decluttering of everything you have once and for all, and how to store the things that you decide to keep to never, essentially to never come back to the chaos. So it's really interesting. And one thing I've learned is that By decluttering your home, you actually end up decluttering your mind as well, like the entire life around you. So it helped me to get rid of all the distraction that once I thought I needed and cherish what I actually do have and what I did decide to keep. And also minimize my new purchases, which is good. Prevent me from spending and accumulating and accumulating.
Yeah, no, I think being a minimalist is huge, especially for— and it depends, but it seems to me like you're saying, like, it's like the more you have, the more it actually clutters your mind. And then the less like free and focused you feel. So if you only kind of like, keep material possessions as things that are like necessary and that like make you happy, I think you're way better off than like collecting all these material things because it just gets to be too much. And then also, you know, just a side note, think about moving, you know, if you move somewhere like that, kind of sucks to have to move all that stuff. So I think, yeah, keep it minimalistic.
Yeah. You wouldn't imagine how much we accumulate over the years. You know, live somewhere 2 years and suddenly realize you have the whole apartment of stuff that you don't really need.
Exactly. Yeah. It's weird how that like happens unknowingly. And then like you said, like we kind of wake up like 2 years later, we're like, oh my God, I didn't even know I had this couch.
That's crazy.
Yeah. The next one I have for you is, what is your favorite quote and why?
I think going with the flow of— because I had two quotes that I thought of. I don't know if you can hear both of them, but they're pretty tied together. You can hear both of them? Yeah. And one is Actually related to the whole minimalist things because these, it's from Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus. These guys run an awesome podcast if you're looking for a new podcast to listen and website also called The Minimalists. So in one of their articles, I think they said this, that someday is the single most dangerous word we utter. It grants us the illusion of future possibility without having to focus on that which is important today. So for me, you know, when I think about this is that every single day should be treated like the best day we'd ever have, because you never know what's going to happen tomorrow. And do what's truly important to you. And it doesn't have to be monumental to the world around you, to other people, like starting a new business or I don't know, making a difference, but it has to be meaningful for you. So if you dream of starting something like a new habit or anything, just try your best to do it today and don't fall into this someday kind of trap.
Yes, I agree. And then did you have one more that you wanted to share?
Yeah, that's kind of related. That's from Gabriel García Márquez. Who said that? Probably, you know this one. It's not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, but they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams. Have you heard that one?
I haven't, but I am mind blown now. I like that.
Yeah. So for me, it means two things to me. One is that it's never too late to pursue your passions. So you should never give up on them and really find a way to feed them daily, weekly, you know, whenever you can really. And then the second is that age is an illusion. And it's important to always cultivate your inner child. Because somehow when we were children, you know, we're not afraid to take risks and dare to dream big. And as we grow older, we tend to lose it. So always stay a child in a way.
Yes, I love it. Thank you so much for coming on, Martha. The last question that I have for you before we let you go is where is the best place for people to find you online?
That would be probably LinkedIn under my name and Twitter. My Twitter handle is @GwynethMarta.
All right, perfect. Thank you again. We really appreciate it.
Thank you so much, Tyler. Thanks for having me.
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