FemGems Podcast

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.