Munich Startup: Claire and Victoria, you are the two founders of Businettes, a community platform for (aspiring) female entrepreneurs. What exactly does your platform offer?
Claire Siegert and Victoria Arnhold from Businettes: Business suits is a digital incubator for early-stage female founders. Our platform includes a digital, solution-oriented program specifically tailored to the needs of aspiring female founders. We work with three different approaches.
#1 Business Program – First, with the help of our 5-step business program, our clients can work autonomously and from any location on their business ideas, fleshing them out until they develop a solid business case that they can confidently present to potential clients, partners, or investors. We work with a mix of different methods from the field of design thinking and elements of the Business Model Canvas. We finalized the program in early 2020 in collaboration with our pilot clients to ensure it meets the needs of women with and without business administration knowledge.
#2 Personal Development – In addition, our clients receive access to a personal development module developed with a certified psychologist. This module also focuses on our clients' soft skills, helping them more easily transition into their new or future role as entrepreneurs. The module includes exercises that help them build confidence in their abilities, increase risk-taking, strengthen decision-making skills, build resilience, and much more.
#3 Female Founders Community – Last but not least, we also have a community with over 400 female founders and women interested in starting a business who exchange ideas, give each other feedback, find sparring partners in mastermind groups, participate in regular expert workshops and much more.
Munich Startup: What is your own founding story?
Victoria: Back then, I was inspired by my own friends to make it easier for women to start their own businesses. Many of my friends had interesting business ideas, but none of them had implemented them. Somehow, they lacked the right resources specifically tailored to their needs as female founders. I desperately wanted them to realize their business ideas, and so, without really realizing it at first, I developed a business idea of my own: Businettes! However, I had the problem that I was primarily my own first customer and thus faced very similar problems implementing my idea as my friends. For several years, I tried to set up Businettes on my own alongside my permanent jobs as a marketing manager, but it wasn't easy at all...
Male-dominated startup scene
Claire: After graduating, I worked in the startup ecosystem, but on the corporate side. I often talked with my best friend Victoria about how male-dominated this industry is, whether at startup conferences, as participants in startup programs, or as employees in accelerator programs. In 2019, I decided to go freelance and—while building a small marketing consultancy—realized that I wanted to work with a team toward a larger vision.
Victoria and I both saw the perfect match and decided to develop Businettes together, thus beginning our journey as a founder duo.
Munich Startup: What gap does Businettes want to close?
Business suits: With Businettes, we want to help close the gap between female and male founders in the European startup ecosystem. Currently, only 17 percent of startup founders are women, and we're not even talking about female-only teams, but rather mixed teams. So there's plenty to do!
Courageous career decisions and new stages
Business suits: By closing the female entrepreneurship gap, we see a great opportunity to empower more women to make bold career decisions, step onto the stage, and dare to become more than the hierarchies in our current society sometimes offer them. We firmly believe in making a positive impact on female empowerment.
Munich Startup: In your opinion, do female founders need to be addressed differently than their male counterparts? Where exactly do you see differences here?
Business suits: Yes, we definitely see it that way. Our experience has shown that women face completely different challenges than men when it comes to starting a business. They often initially doubt their own abilities, and there's also a lack of female role models who can encourage and inspire women to start a business. Mothers, or those who want to become mothers, question the compatibility of family and entrepreneurship, which is less the case for men.
There are also differences during the startup phase: We consistently find that women-led companies grow somewhat slower—but more organically—than those run by men, and can often be more successful in the medium and long term. Women are less likely to take risks and have a more hands-on approach to business management, growth, and employee management.
Precisely because of these differences, it is important that women have contact points that directly address them and that take these specific challenges and approaches into account.
Better done than perfect
Munich Startup: Does this seem like a good time to start a business? If so, why?
Business suits: We believe there's no such thing as a perfect time to start a business. The important thing is to simply do it anyway, true to the motto: better done than perfect. A sign that you're ready to start a business is when you can't stop thinking about your business idea(s) and feel the inner fire burning within you. That's actually always a very good indicator.
What we've definitely noticed is that the pandemic has created a huge opportunity for online businesses, as the barriers have become lower. Consumers are now accustomed to doing many things online.
Munich Startup: What lessons have you learned from starting your own business?
Business suits: So many! But we'll keep it short and limit ourselves to three:
#1. Stick with it! – Starting a business comes with many setbacks, but those who persevere, don't give up, and develop resilience will be rewarded with breathtaking highs. However, it's also important to always remain open-minded and adaptable, and not stubbornly stomp against the wall when things simply aren't going in the right direction. We had to change and pivot the Businettes concept several times because it simply hadn't yet achieved the impact we wanted to generate. It wasn't always easy, but we're incredibly happy that we stayed true to ourselves and kept going.
#2. Take time off. – Starting a business is incredibly exciting, but also extremely exhausting. As a founder, work and leisure often blend seamlessly, and before you know it, the last vacation without a laptop in a deck chair on the beach is two years ago. Yet, it's precisely the moments when our minds are off the business and we're doing something completely different that give us the most new energy and power for our venture. That's why we now force each other to take regular time off, during which setting out-of-office notifications is mandatory and the laptop remains closed.
#3. Stress less! – Yes, starting a business can be stressful, but in the end, you can find a solution for almost every problem – REALLY! And when times get particularly stressful, exercise, sleep, and good time and project management with our favorite tools like Trello or Notion usually help.
Long-term vision: Investments in female startups
Munich Startup: Which technology or industry would you focus on in the future?
Victoria: Since I originally come from the fashion industry, I'm very interested in everything related to circular fashion and the sharing economy. I find fashion rental services like the one offered by our client Ward'Robe Affair by Ivana Perbi-Ohlheiser particularly exciting – for me, they're the solution to the fast-fashion problem and a major step toward sustainability in the fashion industry. The million-dollar funding from Vestiaire Collective & Co., as well as the fact that Maje, Sandro, and The Kooples are launching their own secondhand and rental portals, are absolute proof to me that this is the future of the fashion industry.
Claire: Very interesting question, because in our long-term vision for Businettes, we actually plan to invest in female startups. I find anything that is sustainable and socially responsible and doesn't produce more waste and poverty exciting. I can't really limit it to one industry or technology. I would like to see more impact startups and startups like Social Bee from Zarah Bruhn for example, are really perfect role models for this.
Startup hub with reputation
Munich Startup: In your opinion, what could be improved at the Munich startup location?
Business suits: As an internationally positioned team, we've gotten to know many different startup hubs. For example, starting in July 2020, we were part of the Station F incubator in Paris for two years. Station F is as established in France for startups as Harvard is in the US for graduate school: it's a real honor to be accepted there. In addition to its reputation, it also offers everything a founder needs: in-house access to various accelerators, international networking opportunities, office hours with investors and mentors, office space, and much more. Station F is also accessible to international founding teams, not just French ones.
Such an institution and award for founders would be exciting for Munich. Munich has been receiving international attention in the startup ecosystem since the launch of Bits & Pretzels.
Munich Startup: Which founder would you like to meet in person? And what would you ask them?
Victoria: I find Melanie Perkins of Canva very fascinating, as she not only revolutionized and democratized the design world, but also donates a large portion of her wealth. I'd like to ask her if she ever expected Canva to become as big as it is today.
Claire: Oh, there are quite a few! Focusing on Germany, I'd be interested in speaking with Nina-Julie Lepique and Lea Sophie Cramer and asking them how they managed to successfully make the taboo subject of female sexuality socially acceptable, how it felt to publicize their business idea, and how they managed to convince investors—mostly male, I'd strongly assume.
