Apr 11 2013
The Foundress

Jess.

Jess_intro

It is pretty much impossible right now to be discussing women in the tech and startup world in Berlin without coming across my third interviewee, Jess Erickson. Jess founded the Berlin Geekettes network, and is currently busy building the Berlin base for General Assembly. Meeting Jess is easy – she seems to be everywhere at once – but finding time to sit down for a quiet chat is actually a bit of a challenge. However we finally manage to get together at Kommerzpunk, one of Jess’ favourite spots. Continue reading →

Mar 06 2013
Entrepreneurship

Beating the Brick Wall.

discipline

What makes a great entrepreneur? I’ll take an extremely subjective view on this – a view shaped by five years of bootstrapping.

  • Imagination
  • Improvisation
  • Pragmatism
  • Priorisation

… and three more things:

Continue reading →

Mar 01 2013
The Foundress

Maria.

Maria_intro

On a greyish morning, Lars and I go and visit Maria Molland, Head of European operations at fab.com. fab’s Berlin headquarters – an old ground floor factory loft in a Kreuzberg backyard – is warm and bright and colourful. Maria, having just returned from a trip to the States, is certainly much more lively than I tend to be when I’m struggling with jet-lag, so we jump right in.

Continue reading →

Jan 28 2013
Entrepreneurship

Keep calm and stay graceful.

graceful

Being an entrepreneur is hard work. And right now I’m not talking about long hours, about the fear of failure, about all the challenges you have to face every day, all the new skills you need to learn, all the things you hate and have to do anyway because there’s no-one there to delegate them to… You get my point. But that’s not what I want to write about right now. I want to write about preserving your gracefulness.

Continue reading →

Jan 09 2013
Entrepreneurship

Emancipation 2.0

beopen

To many people who have chosen a different path, entrepreneurship may seem the epitomy of freedom and independence. However, nothing could be further from the truth. As an entrepreneur, you permanently depend on other people – their benevolence, sometimes their malevolence; their good, and sometimes their bad business sense – and, very often, on sheer luck.

I believe that, as an entrepreneur, one of the most important skills you need to train is how to deal with these dependencies. And this is – to me – where emancipation comes in.

What do I mean when I use the word “emancipation”? First and foremost, I am not referring to it in the feminist sense. I am referring to emancipation as a sense of equality and independence.

Continue reading →

Dec 20 2012
The Foundress

Linsey.

Linsey_intro

My second interviewee is Linsey Fryatt, the Managing Editor of Berlin-based online startup magazine Venture Village. Linsey has been a part of the entrepreneurial scene in Berlin for a year now, and looks at it wearing a journalist’s hat most of the time. I contacted Linsey because I wanted that exact perspective: the views of someone who has been in Berlin long enough to know her way around; someone who is not a founder herself but intimately linked with this very particular parallel universe.

Continue reading →

Dec 09 2012
The Foundress

Franziska.

Franzi_intro

Over lunch at a Japanese restaurant in the heart of Berlin’s Mitte district, Franziska von Hardenberg, founder of Bloomydays (a successful subscription-based flower delivery service) offers her own perspective on being a woman entrepreneur:

“Actually, there are many occasions – events, panel discussions, conferences – where I’ve been the only woman. However, I think the whole discussion is overrated. And, to be perfectly honest – it’s something that you can use to your own advantage so easily!

Continue reading →

← Older posts