A podcast for entrepreneurial women: founders, builders, changemakers shaping the world we live in.
Female founders, investors and startup ecosystem enablers share their stories, knowledge, fears and failures, moments of growth and pieces of advice.
With these conversations, we want to inspire more women to build their own businesses.
#35: Growth mindset: don’t just ride the waves, make them - Nadine Mezher
Nadine Mezher was eager to spearhead change in habits and attitudes to handling money in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa). She wanted to democratise access to investing and make it available to not only the ultra rich. Nadine co-founded Sarwa, a platform for investment and personal finance. In 2022, Forbes recognised Nadine among 20 women behind Middle Eastern tech brands. A fashion professional and owner of her own design house in the past, Nadine unpacks the concept of a growth mindset in business and private life.
#34: Out of natural habitat as a founder - Alina Bassi
How do you launch an innovative business in uncharted territories? Alina Bassi realised she could apply principles of coffee waste management to recycle textiles into… plastics. A chemical engineer, she launched Kleiderly in a foreign country, with no language skills, and out of network. She masterfully addresses challenges of two industries simultaneously: cloth waste management and manufacturing plastics.
#33: Gender investment gap: Its origin, impact and ways to bridge it - Lucy Chow, Vera Futorjanski, Medea Nocentini, Katie Wachsberger
All-women startup teams receive less than 3% of the venture capital globally whilst male-led startups collect 89% of it. And as if this statistic wasn’t depressing enough, the trend is negative. It’s getting worse every year.
Venture capital investors share their views on the reasons behind such disparity. What are its consequences? What are we as a society missing out if this gap perpetuates? And how can we possibly bridge it?
#32: Building a FemTech, don’t look too passionate about it - Fatoumata Ly
#32: Building a FemTech, don’t look too passionate about it - Fatoumata Ly
Many businesses start with the future founders trying to solve an issue they face personally. FemTech startups (female technology) are no exception. Here, however, many areas are emotionally loaded and wrapped into layers of taboos.
Fatoumata Ly shares how her own story of trying to conceive evolved into addressing the centuries-old issue countless women face. Fatoumata is now building Ninti, a company that provides digital solutions for personalised care around sexual and reproductive health.
#31: What is your weapon of choice to drive change? - Jacqueline van den Ende
#31: What is your weapon of choice to drive change? - Jacqueline van den Ende
‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ sounds like a fulfilling life motto. But how do you put it into practice? How do you leave a positive mark in the world *and* enjoy the ride along the way? Ultimately, we all have just one life to experiment with.
#30: Will ChatGPT be your next career coach? - Darja Gutnick
Can you become a better leader in 2 min a day? Darja Gutnick, Co-Founder & CEO of Bunch, an AI leadership coach, states that yes. Darja also shares her own story of how losing key people on her team and going through a split-up with her co-founder made her better leader.
#29: Are you building just a perk or a sticky product? - Leonie Ellerbrock, Viktoria Lindner
Mental health and marketplaces - both are hot topics! Isn’t it a great idea to build a marketplace for mental health services? Viktoria Lindner and Leonie Ellerbrock, co-founders of Mindsurance, share a story of launching such a marketplace and then walking away from this model.
#28: Build an ideal team of investors and treat this as an alliance - Sonia Weymuller
Can FOMO (fear of missing out) be a market opportunity? Sonia Weymuller realised many people were seeking ways to invest into tech startups and be a part of the startup buzz. Yet, there was no platform in the MENA region to do so.
Sonia Weymuller is a Co-Founder and General Partner of VentureSouq (VSQ), a MENA-based venture capital firm, and Partner Lead for the VSQ Conscious Collective, its global impact-focused investment and educational platform.
#27: Hardware business: building products and teams that survive any storm (or flood) - Polina Mikhaylova
Polina Mikhaylova co-founded KNOT, a micromobility company, in 2015, long before shared scooters came into vogue. Terms like ‘free-floating’ or ‘swappable batteries’ didn’t exist yet. Polina is a true enthusiast of docking stations. Can they be the future of shared micromobility?
#26: One year of podcasting, or how giving up on a designer bag can help female founders - Katia Yakovleva, Bettine Schmitz
This is a joint episode with the Female Business Angel Podcast hosted by Katia Yakovleva and Bettine Schmitz. We launched our shows more or less at the same time, one year ago. Darya, Bettine and Katia talk about one year of podcasting, their learnings, angel investing and the outlook for female founders.
#25: How technology helps investors in search of startups - Penny Schiffer
Imagine you are invited to give a talk at Stanford about your work as an investor. Excited, you board a plane to cross the Atlantic. And this 11-hour flight changes your whole life trajectory. You are now adamant about building your own business.
That’s exactly what happened to Penny Schiffer, CEO & Co-Founder of Raized.ai. After 10 years in venture capital, Penny decided to launch a startup to make this industry more intelligent. A psychology major, she had to ‘go back to the roots’ and re-discover her technical background.
#24: Should founders sacrifice their private life and relationships? - Jenny Holmström
If you launch your own business, just forget about having a life. It’s only work, no play. And your friends and family will need to accept it. This notion is particularly popular in the startup world but how much truth is in it?
We asked Jenny Holmström, CEO and Co-Founder of Coupleness, an app helping couples to develop healthy habits for happy relationships.
Jenny and Darya examine
- why maintaining healthy relationships is a key success factor for entrepreneurs and well, just everyone,
- how couples can navigate the challenges of early-stage venture building: what can go wrong and how to prevent such pitfalls,
- and Jenny’s own story of prioritising work to the detriment of her family life which brought her to building Coupleness.
#23: Train the change muscle - Karen K. Burns
Her first job was as a saxophone player. Later, she worked on producing Star Wars and Fast & Furious in the Abu Dhabi desert - and absolutely hated it. Now an established IT professional, Karen K. Burns is the CEO & Co-Founder of Fyma, a computer vision company enabling data-driven urban planning.
Karen knows best what change is, on personal and professional levels. She and her co-founder launched Fyma right before the pandemic hit, only to see cities deserted.
We discuss how change starts deep inside us, why it is important to embrace and steer it and how to make decisions based on limited information. Finally, we examine how data and data-powered software will change urban space and our lives as urban dwellers.
#22: Business angels’ wings and money for startups - Rita Vilas-Boas
9 out of 10 startups die, and the first years of any startup existence are the most challenging to navigate. This is where business angels can offer invaluable support to founders along with so much-needed capital.
Rita Vilas-Boas is a marketing professional, entrepreneur and angel investor focusing on consumer-centric startups. She is particularly interested in impact and women-led startups. In the last 20 years, she held top-tier roles at major global brands like Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola as well as family businesses. Rita shares a moving story of fear, flight and growth that brought her to work and live in 7 countries across 3 continents.
#21: New habits for a new life chapter - Vanessa Westphal
What do you do if after 10 years of a successful corporate career, you feel the need for a big change? Can you make a career pivot, start in a new area and still be credible? Your track record may have helped you to get that new job or a promotion. And the same track record may hold you back from making a leap of faith into building your own business or starting anything new.
Vanessa Westphal is COO and Co-Founder of Choosy, a personalised meal planning and grocery shopping assistant that makes forming healthy and sustainable eating habits effortless.
#20: Be a leader worth working for - Kate Hofman
How do you build an indoor farming company to produce delicious salads at scale and make the food system more sustainable? You may need to start with a greenhouse on top of a shipping container. Then raise >100mln of euros of external funding. But most importantly, you’ll need to create a company culture based on values that aren't just some words on your website.
Kate Hofman is Founder and Brand Director of GrowUp Farms, an indoor farming company helping to build a more sustainable food system in the UK.
#19: Building a launchpad for women of colour founders - Stephanie von Behr
Less than 0.5% of venture capital goes to women of colour founders. Is it a pipeline problem rooted in a lack of such founders? Perhaps, women of colour simply do not dare to build high-growth businesses?
Stephanie von Behr, Managing Director of Founderland, debunks these myths. She is focused on increasing visibility, creating community and getting more women of colour founders funded.
We talk about what allyship truly means and why it matters, how disadvantages can become opportunities and what it takes to create a robust and flourishing community. Stephanie tells the story of building Founderland with simple tools like surveys and match-making keeping founders’ needs at the heart of every step and decision.
#18: What founders can learn from an outsider-turned-investor - Maria Dramalioti-Taylor
Founders and investors alike should be excellent signal processors. But what if you are navigating an environment that your ‘sensors’ are not attuned to? And what if this environment is not welcoming? You can adjust those sensors and blaze a trail. You can transform your drawbacks into unfair competitive advantages.
A woman, a foreigner, and an engineer, Maria Dramalioti-Taylor, will share her story of breaking into the venture capital industry. Maria is the founding partner of Beacon Capital, a London venture capital firm.
#17: Who should or should not raise venture capital? And how? - Gesa Miczaika
Despite the glamorous image of venture capital, it's not a funding source that fits all. Who should and who absolutely should not raise venture capital to finance their business? How can you make the fundraising process less painful? And finally, is there a way for an outsider to break into the VC industry? Dr. Gesa Miczaika offers straightforward and deep answers to these questions.
Gesa is the founding partner at Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, a venture capital firm co-investing in startups with at least one female founder in Europe.
This episode has many practical tips for women founders!
#16: Profit vs Mission: Can you truly pursue both? - Adriana Luna-Diaz
‘I am on a mission to make organic food mainstream, accessible to everyone regardless of their income level.’* While doing so, Adriana Luna-Diaz is building a profitable bootstrapped business based on the principles of holacracy (decentralised management model).
Adriana is co-founder and director of Tierre de Monte, a Mexico-based AgriTech company. Forbes Magazine named Adriana among the 100 most powerful women in Mexico in 2021.
Tierre de Monte creates products that improve soil fertility, protect crops and foster biodiversity. With a team of 9 and a large network of partners, the company has been operating in Mexico, Guatemala, Peru and Ecuador since 2015.