Munich Startup: What motivated you to start the company?
Jutta Merschen: It was a simple question: "Where is the app for that?" My husband and I have three young children, and like many parents, we found ourselves at a point where we didn't know what to do next. I spent ages searching for parenting advice that suited us and didn't require me to read one 250-page book after another. That's how the idea for Familypunk was born: short, snappy audio sessions for parents to help make everyday family life more relaxed.
How the spark jumped
Munich Startup: Did you have any role models when you started your business?
Jutta Merschen: I didn't have one big role model when I started a business. I was living in Berlin when the startup wave took off there in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Many friends and colleagues found their way into startups or ventured into founding their own. This impressed me greatly and sparked the desire to start a business myself. It wasn't the right time for me at the time, but the spark had been ignited. Now, companies that have paved the way in the audio content sector are role models for me: Headspace, Blinkist, Femtasy.
Munich Startup: When and where do you get the best ideas?
Jutta Merschen: When I'm not working in a focused way. While exercising, reading, browsing, or discussing other topics, the best associations come to me. These leaps of thought often form the basis for new ideas for Familypunk.
Munich Startup: Your greatest talent?
Jutta Merschen: Perhaps my greatest talent is this combination of vision and structure. Thinking big, considering what could be, and then analyzing in a structured way the small steps that will get us there. Of course, the plan doesn't always work out, but it's not just about the result, it's about the process.
Start your business with the perfect idea?
Munich Startup: The biggest mistake you have ever made?
Jutta Merschen: The biggest mistake I made was believing that you can only start a business once you have the perfect idea. This held me back from pursuing my dream of founding a company in the 2010s. You only find out whether an idea is good or not when you start developing it.
This doesn't mean you have to quit your current job and immediately form a limited liability company. Rather, it means starting by defining the problem you want to solve, talking to potential customers and partners, building and testing a minimum viable product. Only then will it slowly become clear whether an idea is viable. And all of this is already the beginning of founding a company. Not just when you're sitting in front of the notary and founding the company.
Munich Startup: How do you set priorities? And which ones?
Jutta Merschen: Steve Jobs once said that innovation means saying no to thousands of things. Not doing them. I try to take that to heart, because there are only 24 hours in a day, and everything shouldn't revolve around work. The kids need time, and I need time for myself, for my partner, and for friends.
For Familypunk, I set priorities on a quarterly and weekly basis, sometimes together with the team. For myself, on good days, I set my "Big 3," the three things I absolutely want to achieve today. On chaotic days, I just dive into the work and often find that I'm not as focused as I would be if I focused on a few major topics.
Jutta Merschen: “No startup is built by watching”
Munich Startup: Does this seem like a good time to start a business? Why?
Jutta Merschen: I think it's always and never a good time to start a business, both for yourself and for the individual. There's always something for and something against it. If you want it, you have to dare to do it – you can't build a startup by just watching.
At the same time, there's obviously a timing issue for products and services, and this timing strongly influences whether you can find investment or build a team. Who would have thought eleven years ago, when Headspace was founded, that we would now be learning meditation primarily via mobile phone? Innovative ideas first need to create a market, and whether that succeeds also depends heavily on timing.
Munich Startup: Do you think it is important that more women start businesses in Germany?
Jutta Merschen: We need more equal participation in Germany and the world in general. This means that women and men should have equal participation in decision-making, whether in business, politics, society, research, or in the private family context.
Over half of consumers are female. It's necessary for someone to consider this part of the world and develop products and services that meet women's needs. I don't want to say that women are necessarily better at this—but they obviously have a completely different perspective on these needs than men because they can combine experiential knowledge with theoretical knowledge.
In addition, numerous studies have shown that startups that have at least one Co-founder have more revenue, generate more revenue, and demonstrate a better return on investment. It would therefore also be economically nonsensical not to want more women to start businesses in Germany.
'Unconscious Bias' in the startup scene
Munich Startup: Was being a female founder an advantage or a disadvantage for you?
Jutta Merschen: My observation in the startup scene is that we, as female founders, still struggle with a lot of unconscious bias, especially from investors. Comments like, "If you can do it, be my guest," which basically means, "You won't be able to do it anyway." Or, "You really have to be smart and creative" – oh no, really?! That comes across as very condescending. And they came exclusively from male interviewees. My impression is that founders don't have to listen to that from other men.
Munich Startup: What’s on top of your desk right now?
Jutta Merschen: On the Familypunk side of the desk, the entire topic of marketing is at the top of my list. At the beginning of the year, I focused heavily on the product after my co-founder, who was responsible for that area, left. Now the pendulum has to swing in the other direction: how do we reach parents with our cool product? On the personal side of the desk, the topic of school enrollment is paramount, as the twins will be starting school in the fall.
Munich Startup: What makes you happy?
Jutta Merschen: The beauty of happiness is that it's so diverse. Being outdoors makes me happy. Climbing mountains. Watching the boys play absorbed in their thoughts. Spending time with friends. Having conversations beyond the weather. Reading books and discovering new worlds. Reading to the children and feeling their curiosity. Traveling and discovering new worlds in real life. It makes me just as happy when we reach a major milestone with Familypunk and accomplish something we set out to do.
