The national finals of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year competition took place in Warsaw on Thursday, 24th November. The winner of the “Emerging Business” category is Barbara Sołtysińska, the founder of LifeTube and indaHash, two startups dealing with influencer marketing. She was awarded for “a talent for creating and developing high-value innovative companies”.
“45% of all contestants during the 14th edition of EY Entrepreneur of the Year were companies in the “Emerging Business” category,” said Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, Chairman of the Board of Partners in EY Poland. “Many of them have extremely innovative products and a novel approach to entrepreneurship. Now, the tough challenge ahead of them is to make their businesses grow.”
EY Entrepreneur of the Year is an international prestigious competition, organized first in 1986. Jury, independent on the Ernst&Young company, chooses the winners basing on aspects such as entrepreneurial spirit and vision, financial performance, innovation, strategic direction or sustainability and growth in employee numbers. The category “Emerging Business” is suitable for all businesses that are on the market for 2 up to 5 years.
LifeTube, one of two projects of Barbara Sołtysińska, is the leader of influencer marketing in Poland. This company unites over 270 most popular Polish YouTube channels, reaching 33 mln subscribers a month. The platform not only manages the top YouTube stars, but also cooperates with companies to create and promote YouTube channels for brands. To top it off, LifeTube manages various multi-channel campaigns – until now, they completed over 850 of them.
indaHash is an international platform that automatizes the cooperation of brands and influencers, namely Instagrammers. Brands have an opportunity to create their own campaign, in which they reward influencers for taking pictures with a certain hashtag or for reposting their content. The platform allows for reaching out to over 100 thousand influencers. Brands keep the intellectual property rights to photos taken for the purpose of their campaign. indaHash makes it easy for brands to run social media campaigns, while the influencers earn on participating in them – a win-win situation.
Barbara Sołtysińska finds creating new businesses and developing her influence marketing platforms most satisfying. Thanks to the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award, she will have the opportunity of representing Poland in Monte Carlo during the international Final Gala of the contest.
