He came up with a simple but brilliant idea in a coffee shop and, at 35, is already earning $60 million
A simple spark of inspiration turned Mateusz Tałpasz into one of Poland’s fastest-growing tech entrepreneurs. Here’s how he did it.
Great ideas don’t always arrive in boardrooms — sometimes they come in the most ordinary places.
For Mateusz Tałpasz, inspiration struck one afternoon at the cafeteria of the Wroclaw Technology Park in Poland. He noticed something curious: employees were still ordering and paying for their meals using paper notebooks. A restaurant worker would write down “Mateusz Tałpasz, 20 zloty” in one ledger, while another copy was kept at the company. Days later, an accountant would painstakingly compare both lists to calculate meal subsidies and taxes.
“It was all so inefficient,” Tałpasz later told the Polish outlet Money. “I just wanted to automate the whole process. That was the starting point.”
From rough beginnings to the first big client
Tałpasz got to work on building a system that could digitize and streamline company meal services. But success didn’t come overnight.
For ten long months, SmartLunch — the startup he co-founded — struggled to land its first client. Then came a breakthrough: Bombardier, the Canadian manufacturer with hundreds of employees at its Polish plant, signed up.
In the early days, revenue was modest. “We were making less than 5,000 zloty a month [about $1,200],” Tałpasz recalled. But he and his team learned quickly, optimizing menus and adapting their service to workers’ needs.
Still, there were plenty of setbacks. Early tablets froze constantly, forcing the team to manually open up devices and reset them. “When you launch an innovative service, you think it will be an instant hit. Then reality hits back,” he said.
Factories over offices: the pivot that paid off
The turning point came when SmartLunch shifted its focus from office workers to factory employees. With larger headcounts and predictable lunch breaks, factories were the perfect match for their model.
The company’s strategy was simple but powerful: guarantee restaurants hundreds of meals a month in exchange for a commission of just over 10 percent. Logistics became easier, costs stayed low, and restaurants were eager to sign up.
The real growth, however, came with a high-profile partnership. When Toyota — one of the largest employers in the region — joined SmartLunch, it set off a chain reaction. Other companies followed, and even employees who switched jobs introduced the service to their new workplaces.
From startup struggles to international expansion
Today, SmartLunch works with more than 800 companies and serves over 100,000 active users each month. Since its founding, it has delivered more than 52 million meals.
Revenue growth has been explosive: from 86 million zloty (nearly $24 million) in 2022 to 222 million zloty (over $60 million) in 2024.
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The company has also expanded beyond Poland, gaining traction in the Czech Republic within just a few months of launching there.
And Tałpasz isn’t slowing down. His goal is ambitious but clear: “We want to reach 1 billion zloty [more than $275 million] in revenue by 2028. It’s realistic, but it will take a lot of work.”
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