Fempreneur Founder Maxi Knust: “I Felt The Need For This!”

Maxi, describe yourself in 50 words or less.

I am the founder of Fempreneur, the digital magazine for female entrepreneurs. I love being self-employed, creating my own business and meeting so many inspiring people. I am always trying to improve my entrepreneurial mindset, stay creative and be bold sometimes.

What are you currently working on?

After I started Fempreneur in the beginning of 2015 I met so many new great people. And with one of them, Val Racheeva, founder of wefound.org, I started our new project at the end of 2015: The Female Founders Book. The book will be released in September 2016 and we’ll cover 30 portraits of successful female founders in the DACH-region and much more. And additionally to that I started working with my business partner Stephan Baasch, whom I met also in the last year through events we organized individually, on our current project: The Fempreneur Summit. This event for self-employed or startup-interested women takes place on June 9th in Berlin and offer various inspiring keynotes by female founders as well as a networking party in the evening.

You founded the online magazine Fempreneur to empower women to follow their own path, whereever it leads them. When did you start seeing the need for this?

Actually I didn’t really see but feel the need for this. I already started being interested in the startup scene and being self-employed when I was still studying. But there were just a few female founder role-models, who were rarely being covered in the media as well. And I think that one of the many reasons for the low female founders quota, that is 13% in Germany, is that women – though they have huge potential – are still not self-confident enough and sometimes too risk-averse to just try it and start with their idea, whatever it is. With Fempreneur I wanted to establish something that empowers women from the inside out with inspiring content and showing other female founders, and some of them just even started. So it’s not only about big success and money, but more about the story behind these women and what they learned along their way. That’s what Fempreneur is about and why I felt the need by myself.

You already mentioned that you are organizing Fempreneur Summit in June this year together with Stephan Baasch – what can participants expect?

The Fempreneur Summit takes place in Babylon, Berlin on June 9th. We believe that for the brave step into self-employment it needs both, business knowledge and inspiration. For a whole day there there will be inspiring keynotes by successful founders & business experts like Milena Glimbovski from Original Unverpackt, Val Racheeva from wefound.org, Tanja Bogumil from Kisura, Felicia Mutterer from Straight Magazine and many more.

At Fempreneur Summit the law firm P+P Pöllath + Partners organizes a Law Clinic, where you can book a free 15 minutes slot with professional legal advise from associate Eva-Juliane Jerratsch. Founders and startup interested wo/men can book a free first adivsory slot and address their legal issues around the topics of starting up, structuring and financing a business.

In addition, the exclusive networking party “Fempreneur’s Night Out” takes place in the evening at the rooftop location of Amano Hotel with a great view over Berlin’s skyline. Limited Party Tickets are available for just 10€. Like our motto says “Believe in yourself and do it your own way!” we want to share business know-how, learnings from successful founders and the possibilities of starting up your own business with you.

What were the biggest challenges you faced building your startup?

There are so many challenges you have to face when starting your own business. First you really have to believe hard in your idea. Because in the beginning you might be the only person. Don’t expect other people to believe in your idea before you even do. The next challenge is to really get started and really commit to your business. Some months further down the road the first inspiration and this beginning sparkle might get lost and you need to find it again, while combining operative and creative work.

Also focusing on the important things was a tough challenge for me. It also needs a lot of will power to stay through all this downs you are challenged with. But if you do something and have a big vision and some of the ‘change-the-world spirit’, it makes it easier to solve problems and overcome those challenges. If you have the ability to try to learn something out of a situation, stay open-minded and bring all your possible time and energy in your project, you even feel more proud of yourself when you overcame a big challenge. And that is something no one can ever take away from you.

What trends would you bet your money on? And how will it influence everyday life?

Betting my money on trends? Can’t really think of that. Besides starting up your business mostly comes along with having no big money to bet on trends. But I would love to invest in people, in people’s ideas I believe in. I am just experiencing this on my own; how important it is that people believe in you as well and even support you with their money or even just their network. This is also very important for female entrepreneurs – to support each other and help others grow and succeed. Sometimes this just might be sharing something from a friend, who has a new product or website and spread the word. So as people are investing in me, I would also love to invest in people’s dreams and businesses.

7 years from now: Where do you see yourself?

I am not thinking too much of the future, more of the now. I try to make my best in the moment and hope for the good in the future. But I have no exact plans for myself. All I want is still being an entrepreneur and having the possibility to realize new ideas, meeting great people along the way and being the creator of my life, however I would like to have it in 7 years. As it is really difficult for me, and probably for other founders as well, to find balance between work and time for yourself to relax and do some sports, I would like to find more of that balance within the next years. So I expect my 35-year old me being more balanced and relaxed.

What was your most memorable moment so far?

There are so many, I could probably write a book about it. But talking about books, I think while working on the “Female Founders Book” meeting these inspiring female founders like Verena Pausder, Lea-Sophie Cramer, Lea Lange, Milena Glimbovski, Maxie Matthiessen, Bianca Gfrei and so many more, were great moments. Also having such a great team with my co-founder and co-publisher Val Racheeva and our photographer Rian Davidson and traveling through Germany, Austria and Switzerland with them was such a great experience.

Looking forward to the Fempreneur Summit I’ll imagine that this day will also be really memorable, having great speakers on stage and hosting such a big event – this will be awesome.

What advice would you give first time fempreneurs?

The motto of our event is “Believe in yourself and do it your own way!”, so I would like to encourage people, especially women, to become aware of their strenghts and abilities that are in their combination unique and make something out of it, that really fits your vision, idea and life. I think finding this can be a really tough challenge and it might also change over time. But being open to changes might make things a lot easier. So believe in yourself, find your way and be brave enough to go it!

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