#105: Artur Grabowski (Extendify)

Feb 9, 2023

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Lay of The Land's conversation today is with Artur Grabowski — co-founder of Extendify.

Artur emigrated from Poland to the Cleveland area at the age of 8 — where he later attended Case Western and got exposure working both with a hardware measurement instruments company and a Silicon Valley software startup that later became a unicorn. Artur then transitioned to the business world working with KeyBank's investment banking team in Cleveland and with the startup ecosystem while at Silicon Valley Bank in the Bay Area. After completing an MBA at the University of Chicago, Artur returned to San Francisco to join Adobe where he lead acquisitions and investments, and launched Adobe's early-stage investments through the Fund for Design. Artur then returned to Cleveland and joined Automattic, the company behind WordPress, to lead acquisitions, investments, and strategic initiatives.

Most recently, in 2019 — and where we’ll spend most of our conversation today — Artur left Automattic to co-found Extendify where they are a mission to help web hosting companies deliver delightful WordPress experiences and has since raised venture capital in support of this mission, with the initial investment led by Village Global, and subsequent investment from a variety of angel and strategic investors, including his former company, Automattic.

WordPress powers an almost unbelievable 43% of websites on the internet today and Artur is set on supporting those in this goliath ecosystem! Artur has great perspective on the landscape of the internet, building a fully remote company before it was the popular thing to do so, venture, and I feel has a refreshing and unique take on many aspects of the entrepreneurial journey — please enjoy my conversation with Artur Grabowski!