FemGems Podcast

A real talk on women's health, mindset and business with the co-founders of Circles, a company developing natural solutions that help get rid of PMS, period pain & hormonal acne! They've just launched their pre-sale on Startnext, so check out their awesome products & mission: https://www.startnext.com/we-are-circles?utm_source=startnext&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=FM3 On this episode, we talk about: - why women's health has been understudied and neglected for many years and what the consequences are;- how to practice real self-care and take charge of your well-being and fulfillment;- what makes a great co-founder and how to assess potential ones;- what bootstrapping looks like and why you would go for it;- strategies to manage your time and priorities in a sustainable way and much more!If you're an early stage female founder and want to get mentored by inspiring entrepreneurs like Sis & Margaux, apply to join the FemGems Club at: https://www.femgems.club/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=FG45

Founder of FemGems, Dora Petrova, sits down with Anna Harbaum, Managing Director of the Berlin-based blockchain company, Interchain. In this episode, Anna provides a great example of the importance of lifelong learning. Join us as she delves into her colorful past from her formative years as a chef and restaurateur, to entering the world of blockchain while calmly navigating motherhood.Follow FemGems on Instagram and LinkedIn for more inspiration and opportunities: https://www.instagram.com/femgemsclub/https://www.linkedin.com/company/femgems

This episode of FemGems Podcast was recorded live at Factory Berlin in January 2020 and sheds a bright light on the reality of being an impact-driven social entrepreneur. Our FemGem 43 is an extremely inspiring founder that has been awarded multiple times for her incredible work, e.g. by Edition F as one of "25 Women" revolutionising the German industry, by Handelsblatt as "Mutmacher of the Year"(2018), and asBest Female Social Entrepreneur of the year in Germany 2020. From 2006-2009, she worked as a corporate social responsibility consultant. In that capacity, she developed and implemented Samsung Electronics' award-winning corporate social responsibility strategy for Scandinavia. In July 2010, Anne moved to Japan, where she spent 2 years researching open social innovation and received the prestigious Rotary Peace Fellowship. In 2012, she moved to Berlin to set up the Berlin Peace Innovation Lab, which is associated with Stanford University. The lab focuses on how technology is facilitating emerging and measurable social change toward global peace. In 2015, she co-founded her own social enterprise – ReDI School of Digital Integration – that she's sharing all about on this episode!

In this episode, Dora is joined by Jessica Holzbach and Fabiola Hochkirchen, discussing entrepreneurship and fundraising from both sides of the table – founders' and investors'. Jessica has co-founded Penta, a fast-growing fintech startup from Berlin offering digital business banking for startups and SMEs; and got awarded as Founder of the Year 2021 by the German Startups Association shortly after stepping down as a co-founder of Penta in pursuit of a new challenge.Fabiola is an investor and a business angel. After working at a mid-cap private equity fund for 12 years, she co-founded Auxxo, the first all-female VC in Berlin.

After the exciting launch of the www.FemGems.Club, the FemGems Podcast warmly welcomes you back for Season 4. In this first episode, Dora is joined by Dr. Melanie Rieback, CEO and co-founder of Radically Open Security, a not-for-profit computer security company. We dive into her own personal journey; from the ethics of cybersecurity companies, soul searching pilgrimages across Spain, to understanding the relevance and urgency of post-growth entrepreneurship. FemGems Club is a subscription-based support system for early-stage female founders. Apply to join anytime at www.femgems.clubLearn more about post-growth entrepreneurship here: https://www.postgrowthentrepreneurship.comResources mentioned on this episode:Melanie Rieback's TED Talk on post-growth entrepreneurship: https://www.ted.com/talks/melanie_rieback_post_growth_entrepreneurshipKate Raworth's TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/kate_raworth_a_healthy_economy_should_be_designed_to_thrive_not_grow/transcript?language=enProsperity without Growth: https://timjackson.org.uk/ecological-economics/pwg/Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: https://rushkoff.com/books/throwing-rocks-at-the-google-bus/Photo credit: Sebastiaan ter Burg

Dora Petrova is the founder of FemGems and the host of this podcast. Except for this episode where she's the guest on it. On this special 40th episode, Carmen interviews Dora about the launch of FemGems Club, a goal-driven support system for female founders. Dora shares her journey as a founder, what led her to creating this platform, and what FemGems looks like as a company. Tune in to learn about FemGems' values, how we select members for FemGems Club, what you get there and why you should become one! Learn more and apply here: https://www.femgems.club/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=ep40

This is the second part of episode 38 featuring the co-founders of Equalista, the world's first learning app helping users understand and act on gender equality. It consists of the questions asked by our audience at the live podcast recording.Check out Equalista's crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/equalista/equalista-because-equality-doesnt-just-happen-by-magic and support their important mission!

This is the first episode of Season 3 featuring the sisters co-founders of Equalista, the world's first learning app helping users understand and act on gender equality.If you want to learn more about going bootstrapping and get first-hand advice on public funding, you need to tune in. Theo and Louisa are sharing all about how they did that . We also talk about the most disruptive force in business right now and how we can use technology to achieve gender equality faster.Check out Equalista's crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/equalista/equalista-because-equality-doesnt-just-happen-by-magic and support their important mission!

Two-time founder, Katy Campbell is currently working with Porsche Digital to develop new startups across various ecosystems. Katy is also running 'formation', a startup school for founders who identify as womxn, or as part of a minority group. She was also leading the brand and communication team at APX, the early-stage VC from Axel Springer and Porsche. Driven by her passion for mental wellbeing and diversity, Katy is working closely with boards globally to make sure both these topics are at the forefront of discussions. Katy is a Zalando and Rocket Internet alumna and she's here to give you probably the most open, vulnerable and powerful real talk on FemGems podcast so far!Apply for the 2020 cohort of formation until the 5th of December 2019: http://www.formationfounders.comFind Katy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BeyofBiz

Hester Hilbrecht is the founder & CEO of Mermaid UX Design Studios in Berlin, where she manages co-innovation projects for digital products. Hester is also a speaker at different conferences such as TEDx and loves to share insights on Design Thinking and User Experience. On this episode, she will walk us through the steps she took to get where she is now, like working in a big corporate, spending some time in Silicon Valley and finally coming back to her hometown Berlin to join the startup world. Hester shares amazing strategies and learnings from her founder's journey so far, and will surely empower you with her insights!

Aina Abiodun is fierce. Aligning purpose, product and people is her superpower. She is driven to create value in the world through businesses that positively impact human lives. Most recently, she was the CEO of the global health and fitness app 8fit. Previously, she was the co-founder of StoryCode, an open-source platform for immersive media and also of Murmur, a New York ad agency. Over the course of a decade, she has won multiple awards for her strategic brand work and has also led diverse projects for clients including Facebook, Logitech, Obama Foundation. In this episode, she walks us through her exciting journey spanning from film directing to tech entrepreneurship and shares amazing insights and strategies from her experience of starting up and staying up!

This episode is really dear to our hearts, as our guest here is one of the very first supporters of FemGems! She is the CEO & co-founder of the first European coworking space – betahaus. Madeleine co-founded the company and build it into one of the most significant co-working brands in Europe with locations in Berlin, Hamburg, Sofia and Barcelona. Since 2008 betahaus has been enabling people from many different walks of life to come together through co-working. 

Madeleine is also responsible for establishing "betapitch" in 2009, which has grown into a global network of competitions that shine a spotlight on startup talent from around the world, and has mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs along the way. 

An entrepreneur and innovator at heart, she worked throughout her university studies at the Politikfabrik, a student-run communications agency, best known for Germany's Wahl-O-Mat, a digital tool that helps gauge respondents' political affiliation. She also worked in the office of former Vice-President of the German Federal parliament (Bundestag), Gerda Hasselfeldt.

This episode is introducing you to a practical next step you can take if you have a startup idea, the ambition to take on an entrepreneurial path or if you are passionate about fostering female entrepreneurship! Susanne Scheerer and Leonie Moos are building the Grace Digital Founders Campus – a learning app for female entrepreneurs. It gives founders access to all the necessary skills and knowledge to start a company, and it's exactly what you need if you have an idea or a passion, and don't know where and how to start. The Digital Founders Campus will guide you through your founder's journey and provide content tackling specific topics women encounter before or while they're building their business. SUPPORT THE CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN FOR THE DIGITAL FOUNDERS CAMPUS NOW: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grace-digitalcampus/grace-digital-founders-campus

Cynthia Barcomi is going to blow you away. She is a baking queen, a dancer, an author, a gastronome, an entrepreneur and a mother of four. Cynthia has been running her own business for 25 years now and her episode is jam-packed with priceless words of wisdom and actionable advice on how to make decisions; how to steer your thoughts and take control of your self-talk; how to confront things head-on; how to get back into the ring after a setback; and how to stay true to yourself throughout your journey!⠀⠀

This special episode contains a guided meditation and a hands-on practice that can help you find the answer to a question you're dealing with in your life right now! Onimar Ame (Marion Bott) works internationally as an actress, a screen/playwright, and a dream-practitioner. Coming from the artistic field, she's driven to turn dreams into artworks, and bridge spirituality and matter. In 2017, she founded the international all-women performance company Blauhauch, where dreams become alive on stage. Alongside the creative dream path, Onimar Ame also gives individual and group-guided lucid dream sessions that enable dreamers to solve current challenges on a subconscious level. Onimar also recently started her pregnancy dreamwork path in Berlin and is now expanding internationally.

Are motherhood & entrepreneurship mutually exclusive? They shouldn't be, right? But how are society and stakeholders responding to motherhood in entrepreneurship? How do mothers founders actually combine these responsibilities? We've found some insanely inspiring mothers+entrepreneurs and we brought them to stage to talk openly about how they do it and share tangible and actionable advice on time management, distribution of responsibilities, and building a business while raising a family! Madeleine Gummer von Mohl is co-founder of betahaus, the first co-working space in Europe and mother of two, Luisa Hoffmann is solo-founder of Le Box co-working space with private childcare and mother of three; and Kristine Zeller is co-founder of ooshi, the first period underwear in Germany and mother of two.

Dr. Jutta Merschen is the 1st prize winner of Grace Accelerator's pitch competition! After 12 years at McKinsey, she decided to build something of her own. Her startup FamilyPunk aims to bridge the gap between parents and parenting professionals, combining e-learning tutorials with personal coaching in an easy to use app. In this episode, you'll learn how she transformed her challenges as a mother into an innovative company, what mindset and skills you need to start your business, and what crucial role a family setup plays in all that!

FemGems joins the demand for climate justice by releasing an episode with a startup committed to empower and educate consumers to make more sustainable purchases! Our power duo guests, animal rights activist Yasemin Ege Tulay and product manager Jana Schellong share how they designed their sustainability-oriented market place, YAJA, during Grace's Summer Camp 2019. This is also a story on how teamwork drives ideas forward and makes them real, and a great reminder for the Global Climate Strike coming ahead this week: The time to act is now!

In the second installment of our Grace series, we met with Carina Hader. Carina is an aerospace engineer whose startup, NAYCA, won the second place price at Grace's Demo Day. NAYCA is a discrete hot water bottle to-go that aims to relieve period pain for 400 million people. Carina shares the heartening story behind NAYCA, how she knew her co-founder was right for her, and the reason you should always share your ideas!

In August, FemGems attended the Grace Accelerator Demo Day and heard from some of the amazing founders whose participation in the Grace Summer Camp marked the start of their entrepreneurial journey. Our first founder is Catriona E. McLaughlin, creative strategist, founder, author and thinker on our future with technology. She is a global citizen with Scottish roots, who has worked and lived in New York, San Francisco, London, Hamburg and Zürich, and is now based in Berlin. In this episode we discuss her company, Plan T, as well as the impact of women investors, the power of plants, and the reason we don't need any more unicorns.

Alexandra Vlachopoulou-Horn is the musician, foodie, and entrepreneur behind two Berlin-based enterprises, the A.HORN café-restaurant in Kreuzberg and the recently opened B.HORN Foodbar in Neukölln.The hospitality of her homeland, Greece, inspired her to begin a career in gastronomy. Ten years later, Alexandra does consultation work for non-profits, studies user experience design, and mentors at the Metro Startup accelerator. Alexandra shares tons of actionable advice about running with your ideas, forgetting about perfection, and learning as you go!

Friederike Ernst has a bachelors in biology, computation and neuroscience, and PhD in physics. She completed a Postdoc at Columbia University and another at Stanford. After a visiting professorship at Hamburg University she realized that she was no longer pursuing her own interests due to the expectations of her environment. The reasons behind her love of academia, discovering new ideas and being creative, were also important aspects of being the founder of a tech startup. Tune in to hear more about what inspired Friederike to change career paths and what entrepreneurship taught her about the power of self-awareness.

Barbara Zeiss founded Emerald Berlin after she witnessed the power of fashion in politics. Her company blends sustainability with activism and brings support to NGO's from all over the world. Barbara goes in depth about how she built confidence, what she learned from other people, and the final push that started her entrepreneurial journey.

Linda Vermaat lives, breathes, and moderates impact. Her entrepreneurial journey began in vegetarian activism and led to the creation of the Slow Food Youth Network, Professional Rebel, and TwentieFour. Today she lives in Amsterdam with her husband Erik and daughter Isa. In this episode she discusses the power of enthusiasm and how she manages to balance motherhood and entrepreneurship. Linda continues to do work as a speaker, moderator, documentary filmmaker, and much more!

Hannah Kromminga is the founder of Silfir, the Soft Workwear Uniform! They designed a new garment that's simple, chic and sustainable and it's the statement outfit for those who are ready for a new forward-thinking zero waste lifestyle. In this episode, Hannah shares all about her journey of founding Silfir and the things she's learned along the way! IMPORTANT: Hannah is currently running a Kickstarter to finance the first production run and orders close 2nd of July 2019, 11am CET, so GO SUPPORT HER NOW: http://kck.st/30Xkbn4

Danielle D'Agostaro is Managing Partner and COO of one of the most well-known startup accelerators, Alchemist, based in California. Our FemGem20 shares a lot of worthy wisdom from her experiences and observations of working with hundreds of startups. In this episode, Danielle shares her story of getting into the startup business, plenty of tips from what she has seen work and not work for startups, and how to stay motivated.

Born to two doctors in Sarajevo, in what soon became a war-torn country, she grew up in the Czech Republic and has always been enthusiastic about helping others. After her graduation from London School of Economics and Political Science in 2014, she's worked for the European Commission in Health Determinants Unit of DG Santé. Today, she's combining what she considers most important: health and education. With her NGO sifty.eu Nina and her team break down the most complicated health issues to inform and educate the general public in a simple and reliable way. In this episode, you will learn how you can start building something so unique while also starting a family and finding a way to balance these two most important things in your life.

Chanyu Xu is a serial entrepreneur who started her first company 10 years ago, at the age of 22. She's focused on the food tech industry and her current venture is called her1. They're offering natural nutrition for women and we're in love with their philosophy and the values they are building their brand upon. In this episode, we talked a lot about transparency and awareness, as well as self-consciousness, reflection, being open and showing vulnerability.

Alice Zagury works tirelessly to make changes to a landscape ruled by elitism, where neither youth nor diversity are welcome. She's driven by a strong belief in the ability of local talent to build international champions. Alice is the CEO and co-founder of The Family https://www.thefamily.co/ and she's disrupting the European startup ecosystem in the most empowering, innovative and impressive way! The Family is a strategic and long-term associate in over 200 startups in Europe. Based in Paris, London and Berlin, they provide education, tools, and access to capital to ambitious founders. In this episode, we talk a lot about ambition, becoming an entrepreneur and Alice shares priceless advice for founders! //SUPPORT US https://www.patreon.com/FemGems// APPLY to Goldup and get 20% from FemGems podcast: https://www.goldup.co/

How do you go about fundraising? What do VCs look for in startups?Is bootstrapping the right path for your business? 3 keynotes illuminate the 3 crucial perspectives on these questions by sharing experience, knowledge and key insights. A live recording of FemGems first event in Berlin. — —The Most Caring Program for Women to Start Their Own Online Business is now open for applications: www.goldup.co

Shaghayegh Karioon has created the first women's coworking space in Berlin. It's called Wonder, it's there since July 2018 and it really is a beautiful wonder. Shari is self-employed since 3 years now and a mother to a baby girl. An interesting part of this story is that you cannot start a business like this without a big initial investment. So if you have a business idea like that and you're scared about the money part, this episode is just for you. We talk about how you can start and run your own business while having a little baby, why you should not compare yourself to other entrepreneurs and we shine a very bright light on how becoming an entrepreneur helps you grow your confidence, happiness and freedom.

Alicia Ferrer is the founder of GrüneoBox, the amazing gardening box for city gardeners. If you have a dream, a vision or an idea in your head, even if it's still abstract, and you're not sure how to start acting on it: this episode is just for you! Alicia is sharing the first steps to take, all the things you need to be prepared for, and the right attitude to start out with.

Anna Raabe has co-founded the first platform for women's business fashion – Gardoré. They empower ambitious women through style, offering a curated assortment and professional guidance. Prior to that, she has worked as a consultant and studied at the University of St. Gallen and ESADE Business & Law School. In this episode, she shares challenging and awesome sides of becoming an entrepreneur, how to go about fundraising, as well as thoughts on passion, self-confidence, and work-life balance.

Assunta Crux is the founder of fineyellow, the fashion online shop you need to go to! They only offer sustainable and fair brands' products. They open sustainable fashion up to a broader group of people and contribute to a cleaner planet Earth! Assunta founded fineyellow in 2018 and is leading her growing team since then. Prior to that she worked in innovative and growth-driven tech companies Rocket Internet and Google, where she gained diverse expertise in scaling and building online business and e-commerce.

Yana is a co-founder of Swipes, an extremely cool software company creating tools for communication and work. She has a background in Marketing and is leading the operations of the company. Swipes was founded in 2013 in Denmark and has a 7 members team split between their offices in Bulgaria and Denmark. The team spent 2 years in San Francisco chasing the Silicon Valley dream, but let go of it in 2018 when Yana became a mom. On this episode, you're about to here an amazing story containing the whole, exciting & pure truth about what it really is to be building a tech product in SiliconValley, how you go through the ups and downs of founding a company with people that are very close to you and how you tackle the challenges of becoming a parent as a founder.

Dora Petrova is the founder of FemGems podcast and on this episode, she's revealing everything you need to know about the podcast: WHY it's there. An episode about finding your purpose, getting started, believing in yourself and what it means to be a woman entrepreneur.

Cerina Bezuidenhout has co-founded Future Females in 2017. Future Females is a movement. It's a platform that provides an environment, digitally, physically, and emotionally, where women can connect with each other and access the resources they need to succeed. They are now in 8 countries already (launching in 2 more in February 2019), having 14 chapters, and about 12000 members! Cerina believes self-acceptance, communication and reflection are key to success: accept who you are and who others are, always be honest and respectful in the way you communicate, and always reflect – there are so many learnings we can take daily!

Daria Dubinina is CEO and co-founder of Crassula, where they build innovative fin tech solutions. She has dedicated eight years to mastering payments, e-commerce and business development. Daria has also lead major partnership deals with PayPal, Riot Games, IBM, and others. We interviewed her at the European Women in Tech conference where she held a talk about the challenges and opportunities for women in tech.

Rhiannon Payne is the founder and CEO of seafoam media, a Blockchain Studio from San Francisco with a globally distributed team. She talks about imposter syndrome, accepting failure, her journey, and hiring more women in tech.

Susanne Birgersdotter is a serial entrepreneur, author and investor, as well as a global keynote speaker. She was nominated for most powerful female founder of the year 2017 & 2018. Right now, she is founding World Women Network, a forum through which women can help other women in the key areas of their life.

Anita Klasanova is co-founder and the creative mind and recipe creator behind Roobar and award-winning cookies Kookie Cat. Lead by the ambition to change her way of eating by creating simple desserts for her kids, Anita started the first organic store in Sofia. Her background as a graphic designer and multimedia expert helped her to develop the emotional branding and digital communication of the company. In 2016 Anita was selected as one of the 100 Female Founders Europe by the Hundert; she is a member of the Forbes Woman Society Bulgaria, Ernst & Young Entrepreneurial Winning Women 2017 and has been selected as one of the innovators of Central & Eastern Europe 2017 by New Europe 100. In 2018 she exited her company and she's speaking about her exit and her new chapter 'Food by Anita' for the first time here!

Iris Braun is co-founder of share, a social consumer brand based on the principle 'buy one, give one'. For every product you buy you share its equivalent with a person in need. They are working with organisations like the World Food Program and have various projects all over the world where they give people access to basics like water, food and hygiene. Prior to co-founding share, Iris has studied and researched development topics, for example during her Master in Public Administration – International Development – at the harvard university. Iris Braun was conducting development aid in Southeast Asia already during her studies in economics, politics and philosophy in Oxford. She started her career as a consultant, e.g. for the World Food Program of the United Nations, as well as for various food companies. After her masters in Development Economics at Harvard University, Iris led a field research project in South India and Bangladesh for two years.

Saskia Naujok is a Business Strategist focused on women empowerment advocacy. She has co-founded the South African lingerie brand OHMYBRA after she has gathered 10 years of experience in the fashion industry while having lived in the USA, Hong Kong, the Netherlands. Previously she's co-founded Sprinters Global, an international education and network platform with focus on empowerment and engagement of women in the labor market and entrepreneurship. Saskia is a consultant working with start-ups and SME's and a coach and mentor at various non-profit organizations, including MentorMe, Enpact, Women in Tech Africa and ABAWT. She holds a MBA degree in from Tias Business School in the Netherlands. Originally from Germany, Saskia has worked in projects in Nigeria, Ireland, Brazil and Hong Kong.

Tatyana Mitkova is co-founder and CEO of ClaimCompass – a platform that helps passengers get compensated when their flight is disrupted. Her company ClaimCompass is backed by Silicon Valley's 500 Startups, Social Capital and Hustle Fund and Tatyana herself was recently selected to be among Forbes Bulgaria's 30 under 30 and EY's Class of Entrepreneurial Winning Women 2017/18.

Lubomila Jordanova is the founder and CEO of Plan A, the first data-driven crowdfunding platform in the fight against climate change. Prior to Plan A she's worked in investment banking, venture capital, and fintech in different countries in Asia and Europe. She holds a Master in Management degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is 29 years old and her spirit, intelligence, and mission will blow your mind!