Female Entrepreneurship Series: Working Between Cultures

Working Between Cultures, founded in 2012, is a business that aims to increase diversity in companies, universities, research institutions, and NGOs. It offers seminars and personnel training to improve dialogue among people and to support their personal development. Both founders, Maria Prahl and Eliza Skowron, are trained coaches for seminars and personnel development and previously worked as employed trainers and coaches in this field.

I talked to Maria about her personal and professional background and the founding story of Working Between Cultures.

The Founders

Maria Prahl: Maria’s studied Culture Studies as an undergraduate. She went on working for the Robert Bosch Foundation in Berlin. After meeting her husband and moving to Munich, she assumed responsibility for various projects in personnel training at the Technical University of Munich. Maria continued her education by taking part in training at the Robert Bosch Foundation to become an international seminar leader. This was when she realized her passion for leading seminars in order to help and improve other’s personal and professional development. While pursuing her professional roles, Maria also studied Communication Studies and East-European History in her Master’s degree. After concluding her Master’s degree, she studied Personnel Development alongside work. Her focus lies on Diversity Management and Train-the-Trainer.

Eliza Skowron: Eliza studied German Philology, Cultures Studies and Migratory Movements. She received a Master’s degree in Philology and a Master’s degree in Political Studies. As did Maria, Eliza was trained to be an international seminar leader. She worked as a lecturer for the German language and culture at integration courses for migrants and refugees. Her focus lies on intercultural communication for Germany, India, and East and Southeast Europe. Eliza primarily works with multi-cultural groups and in international teams.

The Story

When Maria and Eliza met in 2003 at a Seminar of the Robert Bosch Foundation, they knew instantly that they shared the same values and work ethic. Both already were passionate personnel trainers at the time, but they felt they needed to break free of the bureaucratic confines of a university setting. Because they were both very much aware of the risks – especially financially – of founding an own business and being self-employed, the two young women decided to continue working in their day jobs for another year while developing their business plan and acquiring customers at the same time. Once they were sure to have gathered enough contracts for their intercultural personnel training, Maria and Eliza quit their jobs and were then fully self-employed. Maria recalled: “That was such a liberating moment.”

The Struggles

Maria said: “Initially, I had an issue with lacking self-confidence. And I think that is a topic specific to women.” She stated the core problem is that women often do not believe that their abilities are anything special. That is, until they realize that others are doing the same thing and making a living of it. It sometimes happened that she didn’t voice an idea or opinion – and then somebody else did and collected the reward. Maria also told me that in the early stages of founding Working Between Cultures, she had doubts if she was actually good at what she was doing and if she was professional enough. Women tend to be much more self-critical than men in their self-assessment.

The Success

The more positive feedback Maria received from her clients, the more her self-esteem and belief in her unique capabilities and talents grew. Maria said now she knows that clients value the founder’s continual self-assessment and subsequent advancement. Because of Working Between Culture’s high quality work, the business has regular customers that keep coming back to benefit from their excellent services.  

Annamarie 

Female Entrepreneurship Series: Ruby Cup

Maxie Mathiessen, Julie Weigaard Kjaer, and Veronica D’Souza founded their business Ruby Cup in 2011 in Denmark. The three women met during their Master’s degree at Copenhagen Business School.Their motivation to found the business stemmed from the will to found something with which they not only earn money, but improve the world in at least a small part. 

The Three Founders

Maxie Mathiessen has been active in public, private and non-governmental organizations and has worked as a researcher drafting studies for the UN General Assembly, as a corporate analyst, and consulted on micro-finance topics in Nicaragua. She holds a Master’s degree in International Business and Politics and a Bachelor’s degree in Business, Languages, and Culture from the Copenhagen Business School.

Julie Weigaard Kjaer has a broad professional background with several years of experience in business administration, supplier management, financial planning and social entrepreneurship in both public and private companies. She has a Bachelor's Degree in Business, Languages,and Culture and is a Master student in Supply Chain Management with minor studies in Sustainable Business at the Copenhagen Business School. 

Veronica D’Souza has worked for both for-profits and non-profits as a sales representative, project manager, journalist, creative campaign developer, and strategic advisor. Her special focus is sustainable business, human rights, health, leadership, and managing strategic partnerships. In her Master’s degree, she studied International Business and Politics with a minor in Sustainable Business at Copenhagen Business School and Columbia Business School.

Product and Business Model 

The three entrepreneurs already knew the menstruation cup from American and European markets. At the same time they realized there was a huge problem of African women’s access to feminine hygiene products. They wondered why this simple solution of a menstruation cup was not introduced where it was most needed: in Africa.

Initially, the business model was based on the “Bottom of the Pyramid” theory. However, they realized this approach did not serve the market in Africa, so they modified their business model and sales channels. The menstruation cup Ruby Cup now is sold successfully via e-commerce throughout Europe. For each menstruation cup sold in the western world, a cup is sold at a symbolic price to girls and women in Kenya, where they cannot afford feminine hygiene products and girls often miss a significant number of school days during their menstruation. Infections and disease also result from a lack of feminine hygiene products. The menstruation cup can be used for up to ten years and thereby solves the problem of feminine hygiene on a long-term basis in Africa. 

On the one hand, the three female founders of Ruby Cup are fulfilling their goal of providing feminine hygiene products to girls and women in Kenya. On the other hand, Ruby Cup is being sold and used in many European countries. With the use of Ruby Cup, waste created through discarded feminine hygiene products can be eliminated, as Ruby Cup can be used for up to ten years. 

Financing

The three women of Ruby Cup were able to finance their start-up very successfully from the beginning on. They won multiple international business plan competitions, received a grant from the Swedish government and were backed by venture capitalists. Meanwhile the business is able to finance itself through sales generated. 

Annamarie

Female Entrepreneurship Series

I am a passionate writer about females in business. So when it was time to write my Bachelor's thesis, I saw a somewhat tedious task as an opportunity to conduct research on a women2business-related topic. The title of my thesis is “Gender and Social Entrepreneurship”. I wanted to find out if there were gender differences between social businesses founded by women vs. men. It was an interesting topic to research on, and what made it even better is that I knew I could use some of the material for women2business.

Status Quo of Female Entrepreneurship 

To give you some background information on women in entrepreneurship and why this topic is so important to us: worldwide, there are still about twice as many male as female entrepreneurs. In pursuit of gender equality, the number of male and female entrepreneurs should be the same. What might be holding women back in founding their own business? This is a complex question to answer as the prevailing circumstances for female entrepreneurs differ greatly among countries.

However, one of the most striking research findings in my thesis is that women are significantly less confident about their ability to found and lead a business; the literature supports this finding. Are similar doubts holding you back from following through with your business idea? 

women2business Female Entrepreneurship Series

Every week, we will be presenting to you a successful female-founded business on our blog. We want to show you that by being an entrepreneur you can achieve a steep learning curve and jump-start your career. We also want to encourage you to be bold and reduce possible doubts about founding your own business. We begin with the first profile of a female start-up on Monday. 

Until Monday and let yourself be inspired by our female entrepreneurs!  

Annamarie