Klarna cofounder’s journey to a $16B IPO included stints with Burger King and food stamps
Investors are optimistic about buying now and pay later. The Swedish Fintech company Klarna was public and was the largest general subscription in 2025 so far, according to Nisolons.
But for the founder of Clarna and CEO, Sibitian Simiakovsky, the journey to success was decades of making – and could not be far from the straight line. In fact, it took years to determine entrepreneurship may be his true call.
It started at the age of 15, fluctuating the distress in Swedish Burger King. There, he picked up the basics of customer service – and began to wonder why people chose to pay credit on the opponent.
By seeing any future in fast food, Siemiatkowski takes jobs as an atmosphere of dementia, school teacher, and eventually to subscribe to the Internet. It was the last experience that sparked his interest in loud culture and grinding-a 43-year-old situation that he was immediately connected.
“Sales are usually seen as this type of low object, but I find it beautiful,” he told Sequoia Capital. “I always loved polishing and improving my sales text; in the end I knew that I got it perfect one day when I closed 16 consecutive calls. This kind of things – the art of persuasion – it’s just a great skill.”
But this was just the beginning of the Siemiatkowski path towards the leadership of the higher company Fintech, which now includes the maximum market of $ 16 billion.
The year of the gap that motivated the idea on business in millions of dollars
Simiakovsky’s father always wanted his son to become a doctor; Instead, he joined the Stockholm College of economy to study business, but he was far from a star student.
Just two years later, the year took the gap with his counterpart at the College of Business, and his colleague Burger King Alum, Niklas Adalth. This project, which led them to the exit from work, (to no avail) was working on a marine ship in Florida, and waiting for tables in a Swiss ski resort.
It is still turbulent, the duo set out to Hitchhike all over the world. But the crisis arose when the last monthly shipping ship missed Los Angeles from Sydney, leaving them, they were stranded.
“[It] “We really taught the value of flexibility,” Siemiatkowski remembers to Sequoia. Ultimately, we found beds and jobs at a cheap hostel as two furniture engines. Ourselves have proven that we can be the trick. No matter how bad things appear, we have proven that we can find a way to survive. “
The worst potential crisis arose when they made it at home and realized that it was absent from the deadline for re -education in the semesters of the College of Business Administration.
“He left this full year completely empty,” said Simiakovsky. “Here I was, thin and poor after a year, no job, no school, and no support at all.” Living in social welfare examinations and food stamps, has a job in Lahmad, a company that helps small companies cover unpaid bills. This was the one who planted the seeds in 2005 when Clarna’s approach would be in consumer payments: buy now, pay later.
Siemiatkowski began building Klarna when he was 23 years old, the brand has since become one of the best companies in Buy Now, and paying the subsequent industry that is a favorite of Gen Z.
After two decades, with 40 employees who have now turned into millions of people, the Simiakovsky Road from Burger Fleber to Mogul Venins is shown that success rarely comes from careful planning – it comes from seizing the opportunities that life puts on your way.
luck I arrived in Klarna for more comment.
2025-09-12 15:39:00
