“I wouldn’t know how to live a life without making an Impact”- Overheard at Women of Impact

To kick off the International Women’s Day celebrations, Impact Hub Vienna hosted a panel of female founders and artists sharing insights and challenges about their entrepreneurial journey. Teresa Tramontana, the community manager of Impact Hub Vienna, DEI expert, and co-founder of Commonground, moderated the conversation with four inspiring entrepreneurs. Among the panelists, there’s Astrid Aschenbrenner (aka Wienerkind), Bettina Steinbrugger, Ines Antic, and Marlene Frauscher.

Astrid is a content creator, activist, and founder of the slow fashion brand Einzelstück and a member of the organization Fashion Revolution, which contributes to environmental sustainability with her work. Bettina, founder of Erdbeerwoche, aims to break the taboo of menstruation and bring sustainable products to the market with her social business. Ines Antic, dancer and artist emphasizes the importance of doing art as a business and achieving sustainable success. Marlene, the co-founder of Empovver – a marketplace for women-owned companies – shines a light on female-founded businesses to contribute to closing the gender gap when it comes to e-commerce. 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Impact Hub Vienna (@impacthubvienna)

What happened during Women of Impact?

Shortly after 6 o’clock, Teresa encouraged the audience to co-create the event by speaking up if questions arose. She introduced the evening by highlighting that gender equity is still far out of reach: according to the World Economic Forum the Global Gender Gap amounted to 68.4% in 2023. In other words: at the current rate of progress, it will take 131 years to reach full parity. With International Women’s Day around the corner, it is ever so important to critically look at the status quo and contribute to the conversation of change.

Pursuing a purpose-driven career to contribute to social change is what the panelists have been doing for years. To Astrid, impact means everything. Choosing the path of social entrepreneurship always seemed the most plausible and fulfilling choice to her. She added, “I wouldn’t know how to live my life without making an impact.” 

Yet, constantly putting energy into our careers is also draining, and maintaining a healthy work-life balance in the niche of social entrepreneurship is tough as in this case, work is often unjustly directly equated to impact. Ines added that to navigate these sorts of challenges, playfulness can be a good solution because “If you playfully try to take each step, you’re less likely to burn out.” 

To Ines, impact also means authenticity – it naturally means people do what they enjoy. While to Marlene, improving other people’s lives is the rewarding part of pursuing an impact-driven career. Bettina adds to the conversation that for her, knowing the answer to the “why” question has always been an essential part of her life. “During my studies, this question became more and more important to my life, for me it’s unimaginable waking up in the morning not knowing why I’m doing my work.” 

The discussion then shifted to the interconnectedness of the social and the business components. Bettina remarks that while she wants to create an impact, making a living is also essential. She said “That’s why we choose it to be a social business, which also has a business part. We many times had to justify that we’re actually making money and providing value.” 

The challenges of being a woman while leading a social business are still very much present. People in leadership positions don’t always see female-led businesses as valid business cases. 

Astrid, for example, highlighted that as a woman working in the intersection of fashion and sustainability – both being female-dominated fields –, she has, on many occasions, not been taken seriously. “It’s a draining fight, and it matters that we speak about fashion and sustainability.” 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Teresa Tramontana (she/her) (@teresa.tramontana)

Unsurprisingly, Astrid was not the only panelist who has not been taken seriously as an entrepreneur. Ines added, “Once I started to express femininity in my movements, I was immediately shut down. People were judging the way I moved and a lot of times I had issues with being commented on.” 

Bettina and her team received the utmost constructive comment from potential male investors during a pitching event that “the project would need more testosterone” – their initiative concerned menstrual products. Marlene could also add an experience from a Berlin-based pitching competition she and her team participated in, where the panelist named all the startups, but when it came to them, he was resistant. “Our name was Vulvashop” Marlene laughed when highlighted that they spoke out the word vulva as many times during the pitch as they could.

Pitching competitions bring yet another topic of concern to the conversation. Teresa highlights that in Austria only every ninth invested euro goes to female founder teams, while the majority of the invested money still goes to all male teams. Teresa asks the panelists whether they have experienced this firsthand and whether they can relate to it. 

Marlene notes that indeed the pitching scene is still very male-dominated. “When I went to any pitching event, the audience was full of men, even in Berlin. There were like 2 women in the room.” Bettina adds that she worked for 4 years as a full-time employee while building up her business. “We were really risk averse, I didn’t want to throw everything into one project.” She goes on “In the end, it’s difficult to say why someone doesn’t get investment. It’d be unfair to say that just because we’re women we didn’t get enough funding.” She also notes that to her and her team, it was highly important that the values of the investor align with their impact-driven business model. 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Einzelstück (@einzelstueck.wienerkind)

Male investors sometimes have difficulties in relating to women-led projects. “Many investors invest in their former selves. How can those men relate to menstruating women as their younger selves?” Well, mostly, they can’t. 

The panelists shortly also touched upon the alignment of menstruation and work. Ines highlights that when she has her period she has a lot of cramps and has to take a sick leave, which is not taken well by certain employers. Bettina adds that “making workplaces menstrual friendly is a big topic to us because many women are still afraid to speak out if they have issues during their periods.” 

Setting boundaries and maintaining a healthy work-life balance is yet another important topic that concerns many women in the field. 

Teresa asks the panelists how they can set boundaries to prevent burnout and lead a balanced life. Astrid, couldn’t. She adds “I burned out multiple times, it is still a challenge I have to learn to overcome. I have to be hyper-aware of my boundaries and say that, for example, my weekends are sacred to me. I feel like in the startup and impact scene it’s very easy to work a lot.” She notes it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking “The more I work the more impact I create” – which is not true, but was hard for me to overcome as I’m emotionally involved and stepping back doesn’t always work.” 

Ines adds that this is also why therapy is so important. “I always advocate for mental health. Whatever you do in life it does not go separate from your mental health.” Bettina goes on adding “If you’re a perfectionist you should work on setting boundaries”. It’s important to realize that our work is good enough. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Marlene, who is a perfectionist highlights her gratefulness toward her supportive co-founders. “We encourage each other to take more holidays as entrepreneurs often forget about it.” 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Wissen ist Periodenmacht 🍓 (@erdbeerwoche_)

Besides normalizing a healthier work-life balance, the panelists were asked to name one more component they would change in our current business and social ecosystem. 

Astrid would put more women in positions of power, Marlene highlights “If you’re good at your job get the same amount of money, funding, regardless of your gender.” 

Bettina elaborates on the concept of Degrowth questioning how the system would look like if more women founded a company without wanting to go faster and make even more profit. Our economic landscape could look a lot different if we didn’t pursue growth at the cost of human exploitation and environmental destruction. 

Ines adds that indeed, our world has been fast enough, we produced enough, and yet there’s still “no place for women on their periods, for women giving birth until going slower is labeled as weak and lazy.” She questions “Where do we even want to go further? To the moon or what? I wish to not lose the playfulness I had as a child that happens naturally and intuitively.”.

Intuition is also labeled as a stereotypically female thing, even though it is a sound scientific concept our brain uses for quick decision-making. It is defined as an “instantaneous, experience‐based impression of coherence elicited by cues in the environment.” 

Teresa was curious to know whether the panelists trust their gut regarding business decisions – and most women do. Marlene highlights that ‘for here it is a balanced mix of trusting her intuition and making evidence-based decisions. “In my head, there’s always a pro-con list. But you kinda feel if something is right or really wrong and I take that into account.”

Advice for men in positions of power

Toward the end of the discussion, Jakob Detering, the managing director of Impact Hub Vienna asked the panelists to give a short message to men in positions of power. Ines suggested it’s crucial to “keep questioning yourself about your privileges”. Marlene added to “try to question your stereotypes you might have and ask yourself why you have them, why you act in a certain way”. Teresa noted “I’d tell them to educate themselves. Change often comes from marginalized groups, so educate yourself, don’t put that extra load on them.”

The event ended with insightful conversations and heartfelt connections in an atmosphere where both women and men lift each other and aim to co-create sustainable social change.

Read about more women of impact! Here are two interesting interviews: one with the founders of UseYourRight and one with the founder of Montreet!